By Abiodun Komolafe
Osun State is at a historic crossroads and must make a decisive choice on August 15. The state must either continue on the path of socioeconomic inertia or take a path less taken and dare to break the chain.
In the conventional wisdom, Osun should be doing so much better. It has the natural positioning of being surrounded by six adjoining states. A strategic imperative should have been to act as a feeder to those six neighbouring states, all of which have – within the Nigerian context – an above-average ratio in terms of purchasing power. Within this catchment area, Lagos and Ibadan constitute very big catches.
Under forward-looking leadership, Osun should have borrowed from the playbook of the much-achieved economies of the Netherlands and Singapore to turn itself into arguably the most sustainable developmental evolution of the entire South West. The state should have set up industrial parks powered by renewable energy in each of the three senatorial districts. Having established agro-processing plants in each of those parks, the state would then buy grains from neighbouring states, process them, and send them back to those same markets – and beyond – all the way to export destinations.
If this model had been followed right from inception, Osun today would, at worst, have at least three and a half times its present gross domestic income, and would have established a developed base to be paying roughly N90,000 as minimum wage, with very well-structured health insurance and pension plans. In addition to this, the state would have built up an investment fund through which the informal sector would have been upscaled into formality and subsistence farmers transitioned into commercial farming.
Beyond the sea of caps and the flock of flyers lies a multitude of issues. On the surface, the programme offered by the All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be in alignment with this strategic thrust. Its governorship flag-bearer, Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji (AMBO), is an accomplished technocrat who brings a masterful blend of moral suavity and technical éclat to the table – acting more as a professional than a dyed-in-the-wool, traditional politician.
This approach is necessary because the current mood of the state is a yearning for technical competence as well as a focused, can-do mien. This is what the people are actually looking for. If Oyebamiji can sell himself as the one to fit that bill, he is in a very good position to whip up the enthusiasm to win.
AMBO has to do this because the electors in Osun State are currently disillusioned, cynical and weary. They have to be fired up to believe that something better than the present incoherence of leadership is on offer. This is why he should run a very strategic campaign, targeting an assortment of focus groups and explaining to them in simple but clear and resonating detail why he is the candidate who will make the difference, sector by sector.
Comfortable illusions! In the here and now, it is as if we are trading deep thinking for optics. While the government merely reads scripts and chases ‘shiny’ projects for the cameras, the clinics and schools that should lift our people out of poverty are rotting away.
But, let’s be honest with ourselves: this idea that ‘vibes’ and showmanship can replace serious policy is a joke. Fine, a leader can be cheerful, but when it’s time to sit in a boardroom and decide the financial future of our children, dancing is useless.
Again, there’s the ‘Edenisation’ approach to governance, where the best jobs and the biggest contracts are locked inside a small circle of family and cronies. Does Osun have the internally generated revenue to be an apprentice’s training ground?
In all, if the Omoluabi spirit of honour and hard work still means anything to us, August 15 should be a choice between remaining a ‘civil service state’ and finally building an economy that actually works. It should be a choice between stopping the carnival and voting for competence.
May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
Email: ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk.
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