National Protest: The Adeleke’s Response By Mallam Olawale Rasheed

As the national protest reaches a crescendo, Osun State is unique among the federating states because of the governance style and delivery of the Adeleke government. The governor has been essentially pro-people, pro-masses, and pro-prosperity.

The five point agenda, which has workers’ welfare as the first item, is the springboard of most pro-people plans and programs of the state government. A government with the original goal of achieving workers’ welfare preempts even the current economic malaise. A twin initiative launched by Mr Governor devised a well thought out process of easing people’s pain through local and grassroots economic empowerment. First, workers’ welfare started immediately after his inauguration in 2022. The second-infra plan was launched in December 2023 at a time when the state’s financing capacity was very weak.

Mr Governor developed a value chain of solutions that interconnectedly seek to rebuild the state using both soft and hard infrastructure agenda. His populist outlook is married with an in-depth governance plan that foresees current national challenges and prepares the state to cope without hitch. The enhanced inflow of funds is channeled into identifiable activities that have at its core workers’ welfare, grassroots economic empowerment, and bridging state”s infrastructure deficit.

In the last 18 months, Governor Adeleke has been addressing multiple inherited governance headaches such as half salaries, unpaid pensions, diverted cooperative deductions, non-existing farm support equipment, over 80 percent infrastructure deficit, acute water shortage, dilapidated primary health care facilities, a general disconnect between the people and government and a whole list issues of bad governance inherited from the previous government.

The state government from November 28, 2022 , to date, has been implementing successful solutions to inherited challenges. As Osun is largely a civil service state, the governor launched immediate actions to address workers’ welfare. Osun has a strong link between its formal and informal sectors. The bastardisation and neglect of the public sector by the previous administration ruined the informal economy of the state, leading to aggravated poverty, dislocation in children education, collapse of small businesses, heightened health crisis, multiple deaths of senior citizens and a general climate of despondence among the populace.

The Adeleke model is to oil and warm the engine of the public sector to jumpstart the dying informal economy. To achieve this, the governor launched a coordinated payment of inherited pension and half salary debt alongside other allowances and emoluments of the public service. Several billions of naira of pension and half salary have been paid plus almost three billion Naira in wage award for both pensioners and serving state workers.

Another half salary of almost a billion naira was just paid by the administration last week, strengthening workers’ capacity to take care of dependents and patronize local businesses. Equally, almost a billion naira was paid of the last tranche of unpaid cooperative deductions, completing the payment of four months of cooperative deductions debt owed by the former administrations. Almost Two Billion Naira, therefore, entered Osun economy in the last one week, reviving the informal economy and bringing succor to the grassroots economy.

To deepen the local economy and alleviate economic sufferings, the Adeleke administration has also disbursed another Four Billion Naira plus as cooperative loans. The targets are mainly existing cooperative systems and new small business cooperatives located across the 332 political wards in the state. The loans were already disbursed to beneficiaries, including the state cooperative movement, thereby further injecting another Four Billion Naira plus into the grassroots economy.

In his further drive to address the pains of the people, the Governor attended to the needs of the student sector by commencing immediate disbursement of bursaries to Osun students. Student bodies provided the data and just last week millions of naira were disbursed to students in tertiary institutions. Law students and regular students are beneficiaries in this first batch. The student body issued a statement commending the timeliness of the bursary award.

And to tackle high food inflation, the administration has introduced an Imole module which moderated unfair pricing and measurements in the market. The state has also partnered traditional rulers to engage market associations and leaders to implement traditional price control measures. This is happening simultaneously as the food security implementation committee is working to guarantee farm security, provide farm incentives, boost farm outputs and expand food access for the residents.

The push to alleviate peoples suffering by the Adeleke government is even more strategic than explained. In a depressed economy, various methods are needed to breathe life into the system. As the governor is implementing his formal to informal fueling model, he raised the ambitious infrastructure agenda, which is beyond the physical roads and flyovers that are popping up across the state. The infra plan is a channel for the economic empowerment of the people, from the grassroots to the urban centers.

The infra plan is being implemented within a matrix of localisation. The supplies and manpower are locally sourced, thereby channeling the billions of naira in infra expenditure indirectly into the pockets of local people. As constructions are ongoing in the 30 local governments and the area office, thousands are getting paid through daily work across multiple sites. They are empowered to escape the hunger trap. Suppliers of construction materials at the local level are enjoying a booming era as they get jobs from contractors. The ecospace of the local economy is booming due to the ongoing infra agenda of the state government.

Osun money is not only circulating and flowing across and within Osun as noted above, Osun people are also gaining skills for further employability. Our local contractors are acquiring experience in handling bigger projects. This strengthens the prospects of them growing bigger as employers of labor and creators of wealth.

Again, in a challenged economy, revival demands attention to bridging the infra deficit. Osun, as a huge construction site, is marching towards transport connectivity, which enhances trade facilitation and deepens a positive environment for business growth. Moving Osun away from civil service status demands thriving business possibilities, which are best achieved with good roads, seamless connectivity, and ease of linkage between urban and rural areas.

It therefore suffices to submit that the improved fund allocations from the center are being judiciously expended within the context of Osun fund for Osun Osun people. The opposition raising issues about Osun getting more allocations should therefore fact check the model adopted by Mr Governor, which blocked capital flight from Osun as was the practice in the past.

The operatives of the opposition may also want to learn that the formal sector in Osun is the engine moving the state’s informal sector. Therefore, the governor got it right by adopting a two pronged strategy that first energized the formal informal sector linkage and secondly deployed the infra agenda as a means of grassroot economic revival.

The pattern of state expenditure has a direct focus on touching the lives of the people. Roads and flyovers are not just hard structures but a best practice of empowering the local economy through job creation and boosting local material suppliers. Across the local governments today, economic activities are being stimulated because of the ongoing implementation of the infra agenda. Our people are getting nourished through improvement in the value chain of the local economy.

The goal is to alleviate the economic pain of the people without rubbing them of their dignity, hence the various ingenious approaches adopted by the state governor. The focus of Mr. Governor is to ensure that the more money Osun is getting, the more the people feel the impact through enlivening the state and grassroots economy.

Going by internal and external reviews, the latest being the rating by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) where the Osun scorecard was rated at over eighty percent, the Adeleke model is working and delivering.

This conclusion is best impartially viewed from the reality that the governor is only 18 months plus in office.

● Olawale Rasheed is the spokesperson / special adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke