* ‘Our deal to normalise state finances

Rauf Aregbesola, the man who insists that he should be addressed  as an Ogbeni, is the Osun State governor. This is not your regular interview because it is the product of an interactive session.  For a man who is intelligent, Aregbesola does not make light of that.  However, the problem is that so much is almost always expected from such individuals.  And that is where Aregbesola’s problems lie.  So, he had to take time to reel out so much of what he describes as his achievements.  It would be a year next month since he took over.
Some opposition elements – need we add, the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Osun State – are complaining that this Ogbeni, their state governor, is long on sloganeering but short of performance (that is the collateral damage that the image of a Mr. Know All brings).  But Aregbesola has ideas which, when properly channeled, would lead to a developed, more prosperous Osun State.  Correspondent GBENGA OLARINOYE was there to capture the event. But this presentation comes with its own flavour. Excerpts:

Apart from the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme, OYES, project, what else can you point at as being your achievement since you became governor of the state?

When I read in the newspaper the demands of the opposition that what have we done? I suckled. The truth of the matter is that we are not comparable with our predecessor, but most of us did not recognize most of the things we have done, because they are intangible. It will be in the interest of all of us, particularly Nigerians, to recognise the intangibles, because we cannot make any serious headway if we just look at the society from the area of brick and mortal alone.

Would anyone blame the opposition?
We assumed the governance of Osun on November 27, 2010 and, in terms of vacuum, the state was vacuous. The only thing that was there is Oyin ni o. That, in essence, did not even inspire anybody besides worshipping an entity.

For the first time in this part of the world, we rejected putting the photograph of the governor anywhere. This might be taken as ordinary but it has sent a signal that there is nothing peculiar about being a governor.

Second week after my inauguration, we began the process of OYES. Of course, the idea has been there, but, there would be efforts to discuss how was it possible for any government to recruit 20,000 youths, train them and exhibit them to adopt brilliant believe within two weeks? The truth is that there is no facility in the whole of Nigeria to train more than 5,000 people at a time.

How did we get to train 20,000 people, giving them leadership and making them to do the job they are doing? The greatest challenge to the scheme was preparing them for what they are ultimately doing. If I am to write any book on the scheme, it will be on preparing the people who have not thought about community and social works within few weeks, turning them into highly spirited social workers.

Aregbesola

Soon after that, we gave the state an identity that the state did not have before we came on board. We gave the state a crest, a flag, and these are not just symbols, they are symbols that have meanings. Before you can do anything, you must get the people to understand who they are, because if they don’t, nothing can work, just as nothing had worked before we came. From what I see and what I heard, people now want to be called Omoluabi. People now understand the reason for being the citizens of this state.

After that, we held an education summit at which we were able to develop a strategy for education in the state. It has not manifested physically, but it will soon manifest. Though premature, if we must tell you, we have restructured education such that we will have neighbourhood schools that will cater for primary one to three; the junior schools, which might not be neighbourhood, will be for pupils in primary four to JSS 3, that would be called Grade 4 to Grade 9; while the high school will be for SS1 to SS3, that is, Grade 10 to 13 where the students can go to any institution of their choice. That is a clear fall out of the summit and not many states have been able to do this as simple as it is, even those that were here for eight years.

When I read their tantrums about what we have done, I laugh.

Laugh!  Why?

I laugh because, as at the time we took over, this state was carrying a burden of N18.38 billion debt. The debt was not just an ordinary debt, it was a debt that was painful and suffocating. It was so bad that for the state to meet its recurrent expenditure, it had to borrow N1 billion every month.

As at that time, the total revenue of the state was N2.1 billion (IGR was N300million and allocation was N1.8 billion), out of which, right from Abuja , N615 million would be deducted, leaving N1.5 billion. The salary, at that time, was N850 million, leaving us with N650 million. Subventions to tertiary institutions in the state was N850 million, leaving us minus N150 million; and we will pay pensions of N250 million. I wouldn’t know how much specifically, but,  at that time, gratuity was already outstanding and it could not be less than N1.5 billion. I only knew that by June this year, the outstanding on gratuity was N2.4billion. What was allocated in December was N30 million and that was what I met, but in that month, I raised it to N50 million and, by April this year, I raised it to N150 million. If I want to be very meticulous and factual, let us say we must pay gratuity of N50 million and, if you subtract it, you will have minus N500 million. Apart from that, you must run government with money.

So, a billion naira loan has to be taken from the bank to augment every month and, by next month, you pay it off and continue. That was the situation I met.

Our multi-billion naira deal with a bank
By March, noticing the almost impossibility of running any government at all and having realized that there was no hope for the state should that regime continue, we discovered that our only saving grace was to restructure the loan and we desperately sought for a financial institution that could support us by refinancing and I got one finally in the First Bank. We were able to broker a deal that allowed us to refinance the loan, such that, today, as I am talking to you, the maximum we get on that suffocating loan is less than N100 million. We have removed the burden of the loan and we have spread it such that the state would not even know that it is paying anything.

If you subtract N100 million from N615 million, we have N515 million and, for ease of multiplication, let us say N500 million. They took the loan in June 2010 and we concluded the arrangement of refinancing in March. June to March is 10 months. The loan, by their own arrangement, was to last for 36 months and, if you take 10 months out of 36, we are left with 26 months. If you now multiply 26 by the N500 million we would have saved, it means that we have saved this state N13 billion by our action.

Apart from that, we have not taken a kobo from the N25 billion refinance deal we made with the First Bank. The facility was negotiated purely to refinance the suffocating loan already taken.

Many might not understand why I am using the word suffocating loan, but, by normal banking practice, if you apply for a loan and you are given, the ethical thing for the bank to do is to give    a portion of the money as you need it, not for the bank to claim that all the money should be given to you at once. So, my predecessor collected N18.38 billion and, from day one, Osun had the burden of paying full interest on the loan, even though they did not need the whole money from day one. That was the recklessness we stopped. I want to assume that if that is the only thing we could do, it is a major achievement.

The OYES issue
Through OYES alone, we are injecting N200 million to Osun economy every month. This economy has never had such injection since its creation. No state has ever done that as a means of boosting the economy. It is intangible but a great achievement.

That was not all, the uniforms of the OYES were sown by Osun tailors. The tools they used running to about N200 million were bought in Osun markets. Everything about OYES, except those ones that you cannot find here, were bought from here. That, to me, is the first time any government would directly and deliberately patronize local people. A similar thing only happened when Baba Akande was there. Not to talk of giving the 13th month salaries to workers that they had never expected, whether in part or whole.

Flood, flood, go away..!
Apart from that, we had realized that if we did not prepare for rains, we will be surprised by it. We set about identifying critical areas that would prevent tragedy of flooding. Okoroko stream has been cleared; Alekuwodo is no longer a death trap because we planned it. That is practical demonstration of governance.

Our programme on agriculture and education
On agriculture, since Awolowo, as little as it is, by our own estimate, nobody has done anything close to what we have done. As I am talking to you, we have cleared 3,000 hectares of land beside the fact that we have equally given access loan to farmers. We succeeded in ensuring that we gave support to farmers – from money, to seedling, to chemical – which get to them directly. Today, our support for farmers is extensive – talking of financial, chemical, improved seedlings and others.

I am not in anyway disturbed by conventional expectations of some people.
We have equally planned to meet our programme in education and you have seen the schools springing up. Prototypes are going to be built first. We are building the junior schools in Osogbo around Alekuwodo, the primary school would be built in Ife and the high school would be built in Ejigbo. When you see the prototypes, you will judge whether our intervention has meaning, but I know that the total cost of those interventions on education alone will not be less than N18 billion.

Don’t forget that this state that was N18.38 billion indebted by November when I took over has, today, N21 billion to spend on development of Osun.

What efforts are you making to ensure that you put in place a mechanism that will give you the opportunity to get feedback from the people?

On the feedback mechanism, though we are yet to release it to the public, we have an office that would be called Bureau of Social Service (BOSS). The office will be reporting to my office and the sole responsibility is to police the activities of government everywhere in terms of policies, programmes and projects. It is our own creation to ensure effective monitoring, supervision and control of all activities of government. The office will not be in Abere, it will be in town. Its duty would be to follow up on projects, programmes and policies and report back to me. It will be superior to any officer in government except me and my office as governor. Even in works and transport ministry of which I am the commissioner, the body will still report to tell whether I have done the work there or not. We are emphasizing this for you to know that we have put in place a feedback mechanism.

Apart from that, in a democracy, the party too is an instrument for gauging the mood of the people. We are everywhere by virtue of the fact that we are a party. There is no compound in which we have no representative and, through that structure, we equally get feedback from our members. We equally engage social researchers periodically to access the import of our programmes on the people.

There was this rumour sometime ago when you traveled for Umrah that you have cancer; how did you feel then and what is your reaction to that?

When I was in Umrah and my media aide called me that I should take a picture and send it now, I wondered why and I didn’t take him serious. I opened my Facebook and saw a message sent to me by somebody that read, “don’t worry, I have a traditional medicine for your predicament”. As at that time, I was in the dark of the false publication that I had cancer. I replied that person that ‘Mr. Man, I don’t know what you are talking about and I have no problem that will require traditional attention’.

Throughout the day, I did not get the import of my aide was saying and all I did was just to send some photographs that we took in Medina.  The following day, while I was browsing, I stumbled on the publication and I was shocked that why should somebody say this to any human being. I asked that on what basis could this thing be reported about me, but I dismissed it and I went my own way. That tells you how inhuman people could get. Even if they don’t respect me, they should respect my children.

You can’t just talk rubbish. That was the height of it. It began some months back in May. I left the office around 3a.m, and I came to pick my bag and I left for Dubai for the graduation of my daughter. Before I came back, the rumour was that I fell in my bathroom and I was rushed out with a broken leg. As if that was not enough, when I went to China, they rumoured that I went for medical check-up. So, it was all rubbish and I took it as such.

Your predecessor awarded some contracts running into billions of naira, which, according to reports, were not executed. What are you doing to bring the contractors to book?

On the fake contractors, we have stripped them of their covers by publishing their names in the newspapers. As far as government is concerned, we have taken the first step and we are believing that the agency set up to investigate and sanction economic offenders will be courageous enough to do the investigation, sanction them and carry out the retrieval of our funds.

When we asked some security men why the incessant armed robbery rate in the state, it was deduced from what they said that they need some armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and that Osun is the only state which does not have any; Ekiti has, Lagos has, as well as Ogun and the rest. What are you doing on this?

As a matter of fact, the state of insecurity in Nigeria is worrisome and it is a big shame that state governments would have to bear responsibilities of purchasing munitions and hardware such as APC for the police that is not under their control. It borders on the fact that it is an indictment on the authority that ought to manage that force and that alone further proves the need for a state police arrangement.

When you put all these together and you consider our stance on this issue long before now, you will understand where we are coming from. Therefore, we are going to do much more than most of the other states in terms of security. The only state that will beat us in our response to security challenge will be Lagos. We are going to have an outfit that will be called Swift Action Squad (SAS) and it will soon come. We are working on the establishment of our own state security, funds that we will use to do all what we need to do what we need.

The health workers and the teachers in the tertiary institutions are on strike and even the workers that have just returned to work are threatening to resume their strike action. What are you doing on these?

I came into political consciousness through activism and I don’t even believe that any society that is sane must be without agitation. So, those who had issues with the people administering them must always protest one thing or the other. It is the maturity of the protesters that actually qualifies their protests – so long as it is not violent.

However, as an administrator, we are doing our best to ensure that the striking workers  return to work. We are negotiating with them and I am quite sure that we will reach consensus in no-distant time. We will resolve the crisis very soon.

I want to assure you that within the next 12 months, Osun would have changed substantially and what we are telling you now would be realities.