The immediate past Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, was by no means a typical governor. He once acknowledged his unusualness before a curious audience by asking them, “Do I look like a governor?” He was unusual in physique, in approach, and in governance style. Accordingly, he preferred Ogbeni to His Excellency; and he referred to his state as the State of Osun. He even once declared an unusual Muslim holiday.

Led by a leading newspaper, the press immediately pounced on him, and never let go until he left office. I was initially co-opted into the negative press corps, leading to my cautionary article, entitled “Ogbeni, softly, softly” (The PUNCH, November 27, 2012). However, the more I looked into Aregbesola’s activities and projects at close quarters, the more I realised that the press was wrong about him most of the time. This is not to say that he was above board. He surely deserved criticism for his excesses and failures, to which I will return later. Nevertheless, the baby need not have been thrown out with the bathwater.

However, my interventionist attempts (for example, ‘Reporters and false reports’, The PUNCH, September 9, 2014) to set the records straight were dwarfed by persistent press negativity, partly because Ogbeni reacted harshly to negative press; partly because he persisted in pursuing his goal with characteristic nonchalance; and partly because he carried his unusualness into many policy areas.

For example, he reorganised the educational system, reclassified schools, and merged some schools in the process. He even renamed some of them, including my alma mater of Ilesa Grammar School, to the discomfiture of some old students. Rather than purchase textbooks, he introduced Opon Imo, the Tablet of Knowledge, in which textbooks and other educational resources were stored. He quickly suffered the fate of innovators, by being attacked by opposition politicians and the press. There is nothing wrong in being critical of innovation. But something is wrong with not taking time to study it and identifying its advantages.

Besides, he embarked on massive infrastructural projects, focusing on township and rural roads, rural electrification projects, state-of-the-art school buildings and facilities, parks, extensive drainage projects, and a befitting shopping mall towards the end of his tenure.

Not done, he introduced a variety of social protection initiatives, which straddled many sectors of the economy. Steered by the Director General of the Office of Economic Development and Partnership (OEDP), Dr. Charles Akinola, and supervised by the Chairman of Osun Social Protection Programmes Implementation Committee, Dr. Olalekan Yinusa, the programmes included the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme; Osun Youth Empowerment Programme; Social Welfare Scheme for the Elderly; Rehabilitation Programme for the Destitute and Mentally Challenged; Empowerment Programme for Widows; Free Ambulance Services; and a variety of agricultural initiatives, encapsulated in the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Programme (OREAP).

Virtually every project initiated by the Aregbesola administration was attacked by the press, mostly for the wrong reasons. For example, the reorganisation of the educational system to accommodate the feeding of vulnerable six to nine year-old kids in Elementary Grades 1-4, was wrongly viewed as a contravention of the nation’s 6-3-3-4 system, while the introduction of free school uniforms for easy identification of school kids was drowned by a politically motivated hijab crisis and an Islamisation agenda. Nobody cared about the garment factory and the employment it generated.

https://m.guardian.ng/opinion/they-said-he-was-a-total-failure/

I weak

the lion of osun

The man is more of a Cleric than a politician

Very Fraudulent