Open letter to Governor Adeleke Of Osun – Ademola Bayonle writes

Dear Gov. Adeleke
Executive Governor of Osun state

It is well about 9months in office, I believe it’s a convenient time to congratulate you on the birth of your new administration. I doubt it has been the easiest journey, but I hope our many feedbacks and constant scrutiny was perceived as necessary to bath a safe & healthy government.

As another governorship candidate who conceived the same leadership intentions as you did, arguably the youngest governorship candidate Nigeria may have produced, I believed I bring to governance a perspective that mimics today’s reality and the desire of most of the population. However, my preparations for leadership also led me to an in-depth fact-finding mission, grassroot campaign, town hall meetings, and consultations with technocrats for local adaptation. I have decided in good faith and best interest of the state to share my manifesto with you.

My campaign aimed at 5 cardinal points: Employment, Healthcare, Education, infrastructure & Security.

In this letter I will mostly address the issue of unemployment in the state, especially in the informal sector. Broadly speaking, my intention is to look at the state as 31 Local Government areas to ensure balance in my interventions and optimize the comparative advantage of each area.

My frontal approach to unemployment was tagged I-employment (Integrated employment). My goal was to restructure the informal sector; gradually integrate them into the tax net while leveraging on their skill set to reduce unemployment. I had met with about 30 associations which included tailors, photographers, bakers, NATA and many others, my plan was for each association through their members, train about 10 people per association per LG (103031) this will involve a 6-8months skill acquisition program, a 1 month business training at a vocational institute to learn the business side of their acquired skill and also earn a certificate of completion. For the trainers who subscribe to this scheme they will be offered 1. a contributory pension plan 2. health insurance coverage 3. subsidize secondary to university education for their child(ren).
If well-structured, after 4years, the state would have produced a minimum of 40,000 registered “empowered” skilled workers which can form our home grown small or nano scale enterprise positioned to provide service, address poverty, and reduce occupational immobility in the state. An important caution is to make sure trainees are NOT graduate looking for temporary placements or skill acquisition but people who otherwise will not have been engaged.

A common request among the associations is a union house, I would provide a well-equipped building at the state capital for all the unions to facilitate collaboration, training, and auditing in the sector. A mechanic village will be provided for NATA with an intention to encourage adequate and structured training for optimum service delivery to automobile users in the state.

The lack of anchoring institutions in the state may forestall employment in the formal sector. I believe creating productive institutions should be a priority for your administration. I would be deliberate about attracting companies like GSK and other companies who is on their way out of the country. Also, investing in research can spur innovations, especially for academic researchers and the young innovators e.g., our labs should be able to produce basic equipment for our hospitals etc. I have also seen a rising interest of people in diaspora who desire to create businesses in Nigeria. My administration through an efficient liaison office would actively sort after such groups and provide the most efficient, transparent, and seamless ease of registration, investment and doing business.

Osun state has an enormous capacity to feed the country but only an agrarian state on paper. I had met with a few owners of farm settlements across the state, and the denominator of their plight was absence of support from the government. Bush clearing was a common complain and my plan was to support them in a meaningful way, there is a viable tomato plantation along Iwo Osogbo Road, a lot of palm oil processing at Oba Oke, Gbongan, Ile ogbo etc. fish production in Ore (Odo Otin LG) are viable sources of agriculture potentials for the state. In the short term, increasing the value chain of our produce and working with agro allied business can yield quick results.

Our tourism potential across the state could be our way out of reliance on Federal Government for nuts and survival. The topography of Oke Ila, Asi at Odo-otin and Imesi Ile area of ijesha land are sceneries people will break a limb to view, asides the existing Ile Ife, Osogbo, erin ijesha tourism sites. The global tourism industry is currently about $2.2billion waiting for Osun to add its own quota.

Our plan for healthcare generally follows creating a high-volume center within the state and achieving at least 95% health insurance coverage by the end of my administration.

This will involve; passing employee protection bill which ensures any employer across all industries withing the state (including gas stations, hotels, eateries) with more than 5 staffs must provide some health insurance benefit for its employees. Parents with certain income must provide health insurance coverage for there unemployed children up to the age of 21 and the I-employment scheme for people in the informal sector as explained above.

For education, to acutely ameliorate teacher shortage, my plan is to engage university student in a scheme which reduces their tuition in lieu of them teaching students at senior secondary school class 2 and 3 (SS2 & SS3) especially in remote areas. Also, my plan is to attract post graduate student to the state which can also provide such services. All University graduate of the state will have a brief teacher training course incorporated into their syllabus which will be given as a separate diploma at graduation.

For Security, all insurgencies and criminal activities start from a home, Our DPOs and CPS rarely spend enough time in our communities, harnessing the natural traditional structure of our community by making the Obas & Balogun the backbone of security architecture would be my best stab at a secure state. A monthly incentive will made available LG with the safest security index as a form of positive reinforcement.

Street hawking is an eye sore and disgrace to the state. Important entry points along Ikire, Ile Ife, Gbongan- Odeomu road, Osu are all filled with young people who derive their delay survival from hawking along the express road. I would seriously look into this, not only to ban but also empower this population.

I have deliberately kept my letter brief. I believe your intelligent team can flesh out the ideas.

Lastly, I hope you are keeping an eye on the IGR of the state which is on a sloppy slide for the past two quarters. The previous administration created a consolidated revenue plan which led to an increase in the states IGR, (from 14Billion to about 19.1 billion) my hope is that your administration will further improve on this effort.

Again, I congratulate you on the birth of your administration.

Best wishes,
Dr. Ademola Bayonle (DAB)
Dab4youth@gmail.com
Governorship Candidate (YPP).