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By Sunday Ani
A governorship aspirant on the platform of Accord Party, Dr. Akinade Akanmu Ogunbiyi, has decried the continued waste of abundant human and mineral resources that abound in Osun State due to what he termed lack of creativity on the part of those that have been leading the state over the years. In this interview, Ogunbiyi, who is currently the Chairman of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, spoke on his economic plans for the state and other nagging issues.
Why do you want to be governor of Osun and what are your chances?
I want to give Osun a fresh start. They claim that Osun has no resources for the government to leverage on but I can see that opportunities abound. I am very passionate about that. I was a member of the Osun Development Association; I was their Vice Chairman for 18 years where we interacted with various governments. I have a clear understanding of what goes on within Osun and I have the intention, the desire and the passion to give the state a new start.
What are the available economic resources in Osun and how do you want to deploy them to develop the state?
Osun has human capital which is second to none in this country. Maybe, you can talk of Ekiti, which has a common saying literally translated as, “If a human turns to a book, Ekiti person will read it.” However, even if Osun is not the number one in the number of academics, intelligent people and highly educated people in the entire country, I will say the number of such persons is extremely high in the state. That is the first thing that we really need to leverage on.
Will your government leverage the outlined resources?
I have always said that agriculture is the mainstay of the entire western region, Osun inclusive. The problem is that previous governments have done nothing in agriculture.There are so many things we can do with agric and agro-related industries and this is where I come in. Agriculture is number one.
Then, look at the area of education. I have talked about human capital development but in the last 10 to 15 years, our development in the area of education has actually gone down. If you use WASC as a yardstick, you can see that they have totally bastardised education. They don’t have an education that is tailor-made towards current realities. They are just teaching and teaching. Yes Osun is endowed and we have about 21 higher institutions in the state, but what are they teaching there? They are teaching conventional things. Even teachers so to speak now teach with lectures prepared 20 years ago because there is no research. The universities are not doing what they are supposed to do. The polytechnics are not producing the kind of graduates that will be relevant to today’s economy. So there is practically nothing on research and innovation.
Again when you look at infrastructure, the focus has always been on roads. Who are the people plying the road? Is it the people that are hungry? Even going to work has become a burden to the civil servants because as they are going to work, they are not sure of what they are going to get; they can’t even plan on anything. If you are on level 10 and somebody is paying you a level six salary, and you are not even sure when that level six salary is coming in, how do you explain that?
Again, Osogbo, the state capital is known as the ‘Ilu Aro’ (Home of Dye). Osogbo is endowed with Aro (dye). Aro is what they use to produce Adire fabrics. So, when we say Osun has a lot of potential and opportunities out there, it takes the discerning eye, the intelligentsia, the man that has the capacity, and an entrepreneur like me to identify them, and we have identified them. I have produced what I can call a manifesto. I don’t think Osun people have seen a manifesto in the last 15 years. We have produced a manifesto, which is my contract of engagement with Osun people, and it contains the areas we are going to touch in our first term.
In the area of partnership, it is not the government that brings in industries, and I am not saying I will bring in industries or that I will fund industries under my government but we will have private sector partners coming into Osun. I have just mentioned the area of Adire. Adire (dye) alone is a multi billion naira industry.
In sports, we have the Osogbo stadium, but when was it last used? Tell me one person that has been produced in Osun State in athletics, boxing, football or Judo and it is because they have totally killed that industry. They said they don’t get money, where will they get money from? Doing what? They are not doing anything. So, where will they get money from or you want to say somebody who is reluctant to be governor will have the creativity to think for you. So there are so many opportunities out there in Osun State.
In the entertainment industry, the importance of Nollywood was realized some years ago when the country’s GDP was rebased and Nigeria became the largest economy in Africa.
Look at thousands of graduates who are unemployed, but we can do a lot with Nollywood. For example, how many studios do we have in Osun? If I become governor by the grace of God, I will gather all these graduates, train them and retrain them, so that even if they don’t use what they have by way of education, they can use their talents. Education frees the mind, gives you maturity and broadens your mind. For example, I read agriculture. I had a second class upper in agricultural economics but I went into insurance and I have done very well. So, many of them can do so well. And do you know what gave me that opportunity? In 1986 or 1987 when the Babangida administration just introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and the collapse of the economy that followed, there were no jobs anywhere. I went to NICON looking for a job. I joined a lift on the sixth floor, the door closed and somebody cracked a joke and people smiled. Within that short period of 10 seconds, I replied with a better joke and people laughed. And that was how the man grabbed me. When we got down, he said to me, people say I am humorous but I can see that you are more humorous than me. Then he said, which school did you graduate from? I said University of Ife, and he said yes, I went to Ife and graduated with a first class degree in mathematics. In response, I exclaimed and said I doff my hat for you.
Then he asked what I was doing there and I told him I came to look for a job. And the man said: “I think I can employ you because I have seen what I needed in you.” The talent I am using today is my mouth. I read agriculture. But that is what the man saw, he said I can use you in insurance and he gave me his card. So, there are many graduates that we can help to diversify.
So, Nollywood is another thing. Osun State is a home of culture and we can train all these young people and empower them. If I become governor and by the grace of God I will become governor, I will create nothing less than 20 to 50 studios even if it is not standard. You can create these studios and bring all these Nollywood people to come and train people, and by the time they train them for four, six weeks, even if it is one person they have identified, you can imagine the employment he will create.
Also our local drummers, if you organise them into an orchestra, that is also job creation but it needs somebody that has the creativity; somebody who knows what he is doing. So, there are so many opportunities out there for us in Osun State and by the grace of God, in four years we will capitalize on these opportunities.
At this crucial point, Osun State cannot afford to go another four years of the current administration. They lack ideas. So if somebody says the current governor is managing Osun State with a state of non existing resources, it is an unfortunate statement.
