David Runciman in his Confidence Trap, an interesting analysis of democracy’s toil through the prism of de Tocqueville’s reading of America’s democracy in the 19th century, underlines the views of Tocqueville on the advantage of democracy over autocracy. According to him “…the long-term advantages of democracy are not readily apparent. They can’t be grasped in the moment. They need time to reveal themselves.” In its crisis mode he noted that “Democracies are caught between their impulse to precipitate action and their instinct to wait. There is no equilibrium between these states of mind.”

The state of Osun under the leadership of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola between 2010 and now approximates Tocqueville’s appreciation of democracy in America. Today, there are few governors in Nigeria well-loved by his people like Ogbeni. I was fortunate to witness his first inauguration and could vividly recall the ecstasy and frenzy of the day in Oshogbo. For the people of Osun, Ipinle Omoluabi, it was a new dawn. The bond between the governor and his people was massively displayed in his re-election. The election was a test of strength of people united behind their leader and irredentist central government. In that re-election exercise, over 700,000 voters turned out, amounting to about 54 per cent of the total registered voters, the highest recorded in elections in the country at the time and about 55 percent of the valid votes sealed the mandate of the incumbent. Never in our history has a state election excited so much interest. It was a contest between good and evil but of course the people triumphed.

Ogbeni’s re-election took place against a background of a dip in the price of oil in the international market and for a country solely reliant on a mono product from which it merely extract rents, it was a matter of time that the entire economy would reveal its structural weakness. With a paltry internally generated revenue and with over 50 percent cut in accruals from oil revenue, the chicken came home to roost. The distributable pool in the federation account could barely pay the salaries of workers across states of the federation. At the last count over twenty states were unable to settle their wage bills, some, for upwards of eight months and even the central government with its buffers owned workers in many agencies and institutions of government.

The states affected are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Kebbi, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Yobe and Zamfara. Only about 14 states have been able to pay salaries up-to-date. These states include Anambra, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Edo, the FCT, Gombe, Kaduna, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto and Taraba. As at 2014, the domestic debt of states was put collectively at about N1.7 trillion by the Debt Management Office (DMO). The case of Benue states was so bad that the Governor Suswan was overwhelmingly voted out in his bid for the senate in the last general elections. Cross River, Edo, Kaduna, Lagos and Ogun have the biggest external debt profile. Currently, Osun states own its workers up to five months salary arrears. As Olusegun Adeniyi has observed in his ‘States of Emergency’, Ogbeni was the only governor of the lot to admit so. Sincerity ought to be a distinguishing character of democracy as Tocqueville found out in the case of America.

At this point, the pertinent question is why the disproportionate focus on Osun state? Recently, the Osun State House of Assembly has inaugurated a seven-man committee to probe the alleged financial recklessness of the governor. Indeed, the commonplace narrative is that the governors mismanaged state resources. Whereas this may be true of some states, there are other objective factors that we ought to relate with, they are in the main developmental and go to lengths to explain the Osun dilemma. They flow from the commitment of the governor of the state to his state and his people whose price he is currently paying as the butt of sometimes extremely uncomplimentary remarks coming from grossly ill-informed and bellyaching commentators. Again, this is the beauty of democracy. The governor comes from the most oppositional crust of the Nigerian polity and we cherish that value. Amidst the chaos of the babel, the truth must find its way and that is the providence in democracy. I shall present in what follows concrete development steps which Osun state governor has embarked upon since 2010 when he assumed leadership of the state

Upon his inauguration, Ogbeni provided jobs for 20,000 of our youths within the first 100 days in office under the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES), a social welfare programme in which the youths are involved in community service as well as capacity building that costs the state about N8.8 billion so far. This has been acclaimed by the World Bank and other multilateral institutions. The governor introduced a school feeding scheme for about 252000 school children at a yearly cost of about N3.5 billion. Over 3000 community caterers and sundry commercial farmers benefit from this scheme. The education development also include Opon Imo, an electronic Learning tablet provisioned for about 150,000 high school students gulping about N1.67 billion, the development of model school infrastructure, teacher training School, uniform harmonization which has stimulated he largest garment factory in West Africa. The state’s pathway to diversification of agriculture led to investment in agri-business which resulted in the development of one of the largest poultry producers in the country while the cocoa factory in Ede are equally being restored. Oshogbo town is undergoing one of the most ambitious urban renewal project in the country with the development of road infrastructure.

It is pure miracle that Ogbeni could make this mileage with the state paltry fiscal profile. Resources from Federal Allocation Account (FAAC) between November 2010 and April 2015 was about N121.4 billion. Personnel cost alone gulped about 121.4 billion between November 2010 and November 2014. Internally generated revenue, capital receipts as well as proceeds from bonds went into recurrent expenditure and capital projects. It is clear beyond doubt that that Ogbeni is paying the price of commitment to his people. He may have made some mistakes inadvertently. He means well for his state. The democratic instinct to wait will justify the Osun project and elevate the status of Ogbeni in the service of his people.

Dr. Akhaine is a visiting member of the Guardian Editorial Board.

On point.

Nonetheless, he should have prioritized accordingly.

Effective Portfolio Management and increase in IGR are the way forward measures instead of overreliance on loans for development.

Amaechi and Akpabio should be the focus for financial recklessness probes and not Aregbe. His State's allocation is inconsequential compared to the aforementioned ex-Governors. His contracts also do not seem over-inflated.

Read News from Punch, Vanguard, Premium times, Leadership, Bellaniaja, Stargist, Goal.com and other publishers on www.newspepa.com

Well written. In the end his fate and overall scorecard will not be determined by Nairaland opinions but the fruits of his Labor and the majority of Osun people. Am sure he has learned his lessons.

This a totally flawed propaganda write up.

1. What is the gain of the Oyes programme as at today? It was an unsustainable programme. Our leaders should learn to build institution and not people. Building an institution involves building a framework that will make it difficult for the incoming government to scrap, based on the benefit to the people. The same way he cancelled Oyin Corps, that is the same way the next government will scrap his OYES.

2. How can you even refer to Opon Imo as an achievement? It is nothing but a conscious effort to defraud the state. What value has that white elephant project added to the state, apart from enriching the cronies of Mr Governor?

3. Diversification into which agriculture? Is it the payment for tractors that were never delivered to the state you want to talk about or the father christmas Aregbe was doing by doling out money to farmers without any appreciable impact in the state. Just tell me the value added in this agric sector?

4. Another msinformation. Aregbe did not start the school feeding. It was OBJ's programme and Osun was one of the 6 project states. The programme commenced under Oyinlola and it was continued by him. He cannot take glory for what he did not start.

5. Uniform harmonization -- he harmonized the school uniform and we cannot identify the different schools again, What a very sane harmonisation process!!! Are we in a communist state? He only harmonised the school uniforms for his own personal gain. If not his own gain, for the gains of his cronies then. How can only one person be the sole manufacturer of the school uniform for students in the entire state, thereby creating a monopoly. How are we sure such contractor does not have a percentage he or she is remitting back to the appropriate quarters on a regular basis?

6. He collected loans from banks and as well as bonds, sukkuk etc. The funds he raised were meant to start and complete the projects he highlighted to do. Why are all those projects abandoned? what happened to the raised funds?

In conclusion, Aregbe systematically ra.ped Osun State and his people. He should please mention projects he actually started and completed, apart from noise making and propaganda that characterised his somewhat abysmal performance. He single handedly wrecked the state. His Commissioner for Finance is a major accomplice and the chief engine room for the wrecking of the state.