Emptiness of the eclipsing Cuban socialist.

By Ogedengbe Agbogungboro

During childhood, we were regaled with folktales about pig. One of the most popularly told of these tales is one adapted from the Meghalaya. It is between a tiger and a pig. The tiger after a sumptuos meal had gone to a river to drink water to step it down. There he found a pig equally drinking at the river. However, he could not drink because the pig had polluted the water with his foul smell. The tiger left only for the pig to run after him, thinking tiger could not drink at the pool out of fear of him, pig.

Suddenly feeling as strong as an elephant, the pig challenged the tiger to a fight. They fixed a date for the combat. To surmount the challenge, the pig's grandfather hastily worked out a plan to save him.

On the day of the big bout, the pig rolled out in the mud and in elephant's dung and in all the other rubbish he could find. When the tiger sighted him, he stepped back in disgust because the pig was stinking. He could not stand the pig's smell. So tactically, he withdrew from the challenge.

The pig and family and friends realised that being dirty was good for them, so they made wallowing in the mud their pastime. And they continue to do so to this day.

What does the tale teach us?

It teaches us never to go to a brawl with pigs and other beings associated with dirtyness and shamelessness. Siddon look. Do not join a foolish man in the fray for he will overhelm you with his foolishness. This, to me, should be a classic way to handle the country's current Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, a man nauseatingly propelled by hate, envy and pride. He has become so an irritant that only men of low prestige in his abhorable class could tolerate him

Some two days ago, without any provocation from the current Osun governor, Rauf Aregbesola had sent his rottweilers and intellectually impoverished devotees to hurl stinkers on the calm but calculative governor. Their intention was possibly to force words out of the mouth of the amiable governor and relegate him to their abysmal and unfortunate pedestal.

In their new uninspiring write-up, they called out the governor and made fruitless efforts to link him with the failings and failures of the Ogbeni's disgraceful administration.

Seriously, Aregbesola should be advised to gracefully own up to his inadequacies, and romanticise whatever achievement he feels his government recorded between 2010 - 2018.

He should be told that the more the Raufists try to call out his successor and portray him in bad light, the more they impugn his (Rauf's) integrity and the perfidious government he ran. Rauf Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola, it must be accentuated, are class apart. Aregbesola was a destroyer. Oyetola is a restorer. Aregbesola was a debtor and a brand eroder. Oyetola is bringing credit to the state. While Aregbesola left humongous debts for the state, Oyetola is busy clearing the debts owed by a fake Fidel Castrolist.

As at the time the ignominious government of Rauf Aregbesola eclipsed in Osun State, the state, according to the records obtained from the Debt Management Office of Nigeria, was in the debts of 142 Billion Naira ( Internal debt) and 102 Million United States Dollars (external debt). These debts did not include the 30 months salary and pension arrears he left for Governor Oyetola. It did not also include the contractual obligations of over 30 Billion Naira his government failed to fulfil to road project contractors. But today, with the masterly intervention of the economic wizard at the helm of affairs in the state, the debts are daily brought down. As at September and June 2020, the state's internal debt has been reduced to 130 Billion Naira and 90 Million United States Dollars respectively. The state equally has paid as much as 30 Billion Naira in resolving lingering pension and gratuity issues. The wicked modulated salary policy ( also known as half-salary) which Rauf Aregbesola's government incubated and experimented throughout his second term in office has become a history in the state because workers and pensioners now receive their full entitlements as and when due. Courtesy of Oyetola.

Oyetola, today, does not bother himself about how to pay worker's salary as Aregbesola found it difficult in his time. That, by God's grace, has been handled by his upwardly mobile economic team. He has devised a workable template that would continually place the state among the league of economically viable states. He is only encumbered by the mindless huge debts left behind by a man who has today become a butt of joke in the country. Aregbesola was and is still a symbol for mindless debt owing, half-salary payment in the country.

Whereas a decent man, who perhaps for a reason of error of commission or omission, has found himself in an unfortunate situation Aregbesola found himself, would have continued to mouth his humble pie, maintain a low profile life and reconcile himself with his Creator; regrettably, the grotesque minister of the Federal Republic continues to throw himself around like a pig with no shame.

He not only wants to always claim the glory of the successes achieved by the current government, he also wants the governor to be seen in his shadow.

Rauf Aregbesola does not want to be held accountable for all his failings in government. He does not want any one to mention the reality of his government leaving a terribly broke and insolvent state for his successor where, for every 100 Naira shared to the Osun State government as revenue allocation from the federation account, 91 Naira is deducted to service debt owed by the reckless government he led.

BudgiT, ( a technology based transparency and accountability organisation), in their report titled " State of States: an analysis on states domestic and external debt" published in October 2017 had claimed that Osun's debt situation was worrisome. The organisation chided the state government supervised by the bogus socialist for obtaining loans for projects that did not add or improve the Internally Generated Revenue of the state for the seamless refund of the loans.

The organisation claimed, among other things, that " the State received 123 Billion Naira in bailout funds -- the biggest in contemporary Nigeria history."

According to them, " Osun's spending plan over the years came with the borrowing of 18 Billion Naira to build six mini-stadia to amuse. . . its youthful population."

Despite the economic crunch, the self-styled welfarist-socialist Aregbesola continued to waste the meagre state resources on frivolities and activities that would burnish only his personal ego. Tales have been told of how he recruited 450 unofficial special assistants, largely from Alimosho, Lagos -- his political base -- to chorus the imaginary achievements of the government he supritended. The refusal of the current governor to shoulder the responsibility and welfare of these unproductive characters actually roughened the feathers of the refrigerator-technician who came to Osun with a lot of goodwill, having manned the works ministry in a state reputed for its acquatic splendour.

If Aregbesola and his hallelujah boys have got any shame in them, they would have come to terms with political reality of today -- reality that the good people of Osun have rejected them for their lacklustre performance in government and that Governor Gboyega Oyetola is now the starboy -- the starboy that is changing the negative narrative created about Osun by the obtuse, jejune, devious and unpatriotic government they ran in the state.

What more evidence does one need again to validate the fact that Rauf Aregbesola and his coteries are yesterday's men? What more evidence does one need to prove that Heaven and the people of Osun have rejected them? As soon as they began to handle with wicked policy of half-salary and mismanagement of people's wealth, the people told them in clear terms they were rejected. In the by-election held in Ife Central in 2016, the people rejected APC. Likewise in 2017, the party was rejected in a by-election in Osun west. And it was by the whiskers the governorship came the party's way in 2018. It was almost over for the party in the gubernatorial contest that year if not for the political sagacity of the party stalwarts who turned the tide around. In the election, against natural expectation, the angry civil servants and pensioners -- whose Aregbesola's policies had driven into penury, hopelessness and depression -- chose to support an intellectually barren candidate of the PDP as against a boardroom guru that the APC presented. It took the personal charisma of Oyetola and men of good conscience to deliver the state to the party.

What further evidence does one need again that Aregbesola is now a political featherweight -- who must force respect and seek attention to confirm his relevance and usefulness -- than the reality that the senator representing Aregbesola in the Senate is a member of the opposition PDP!

What further evidence does one need to pointificate that Aregbesola is now a political orphan who must lash on any situation, including commissioning eternally cretinous loafers to distract a governor who is on rescue mission to cleanse the pigsty to which the State of the Living Spring was turned by him and his grossly incompetent yes-men.

Message: Whether they like it or not, by the special grace of God, Gboyega Oyetola still has the people's mandate up till November 27, 2022 -- in the first instance. And if it is the wish of the people of Osun to renew the mandate, no man born of a woman -- including the boastful Aregbesola and his chains of idlers -- can stop it.

May we never experience anything like Aregbesola again in Osun State

The more the Raufists try to call out his successor and portray him in bad light, the more they impugn his (Rauf's) integrity and the perfidious government he ran. Rauf Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola, it must be accentuated, are class apart.

Aregbesola was a destroyer. Oyetola is a restorer. Aregbesola was a debtor and a brand eroder. Oyetola is bringing credit to the state. While Aregbesola left humongous debts for the state, Oyetola is busy clearing the debts owed by a fake Fidel Castrolist.

The progressives indeed.

Amotolongbo:
May we never experience anything like Aregbesola again in Osun State

Especially the whitewashed Ipon Imo and MKO Abiola International Airport projects.Aregbejegbese was failure but this is the criminal zombies overhype.