Issues & Policy: The Death Of Truth

 

BY Abosede Oluwaseun

FIRST, let us as Nigerians, be fervent in prayers that those in whom we innocently reposed our hopes for a better country are themselves not going to turn out to the be arsonists, the final undertakers that would see to the abrupt end of our collective space on earth.

Reading Abimbola Adelakun column in PUNCH newspaper of Thursday, February 24 edition, a discerning reader, who reads opinions for the sake of mental development, would easily come to the same prayer above given the potpourri of lies, fabrications, innuendoes that made up her piece.

Comments are free (goes the popular saying) in the culture of writing. But facts are sacred! 

So, when the writer alleged that Rauf Aregbesola, former governor of Osun, spent N69bn on an airport project in Osun, men and women of wisdom would ask where she got her figures from.  Yes, Adelakun is gifted with the capacity to weave words together but she seems to be unaware of A E Saman, the investigative historian who was so enamoured with the burden of history on every writer that he wrote that “writing history is like holding a conversation across ages, responding to people long gone and posing questions to individuals yet unborn.” 

Saman’s sermon was more of a cautionary pinch to all writers to be wary of their postulations for the historical weights they carry lest people “across ages,” “people long gone” and “individuals yet unborn” are not misled by their variegated distortions.

Those who clamour for good governance should recognise it when they see one. Today, Aregbesola stands condemned by many who fail to take a look back to the landmarks of his administration in the area of human capital development, value re-orientation, infrastructure revolution, innovative education steps that left the state better by the time he was leaving in 2018.

Some editorial judgments hurt the sense of reasoning and the consciousness of the burden of history. Some have accused Aregbesola recklessly that his administration expended some humongous sum of money on ‘Opon Imo’, computer tablets distributed to school children when the focus should have been on guaranteeing quality education for them in more efficient and innovative ways. 

How else could a governor have been ‘innovative” in a state like Osun than the introduction of a stand-alone device that never existed and which was acclaimed even by the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) to be one of the most innovative strategies to democratise education. 

How do you condemn a man for introducing ‘Opon Imo’ and in the same breath, proceed to accuse him of not being innovative? 

Among other recognitions, the Tablet of Knowledge had won e-Learning & Science category at the World Summit Awards (WSA) in Sri Lanka in 2013.

The device was chosen from 421 other innovations for the 2013 Awards vetted by the grand jury of global eminent experts under a project of the International Centre for New Media. That is annually organised among 190 UN-member States and runs within the United Nations (UN) framework of the World Summit on the Information Society.

Even if cynics would dismiss it, can anyone honestly separate such innovations from achievements of Osun students in external examinations thereafter, where for instance, a student of Ataoja Government High School, Kamardeen Ridwan emerged one of the best in the 2019 Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board? 

Ignore the noise, get to the depth of what happened in Osun under Aregbesola and see whether the current Minister of Interior is not the definition of the clarity of purpose and commitment to welfare of the people that we have all craved for.

The eight-year administration of the former governor of Osun should still be green in the psyche of the generality with the exception of the mischievous one who choose to be blind to the enduring legacies of a focused regime. 

If truth should be at the heart of all writings, then, the predicament Osun has found herself post-Aregbesola should indeed be the subject of attention by the army of Nigerian writers and beyond. For, how could a state have been set on a solid base of such monumental advancement in all facets and when the baton was passed to a predecessor, what stares you in the face immediately is acute retrogressions.

The excitements, love and preference for Aregbesola’s style of engagements were unmistakable. Faced with a populace that had become despondent arising from years of hopelessness when government cared less about changing the conditions of the downtrodden, the populist appeal was gingered with a passion for the people.

Even without the financial resources to actualise the huge dreams the way he wanted, Aregbesola knew he had the task to create a bond between his administration and the people. Thus, activities such as Walk-to-Live, a monthly fitness walk in different parts of the state, Ogbeni Till Daybreak, a periodic, all-night town hall engagement with the people; Gbangba Dekun, a quarterly daytime engagement with the people from one federal constituency to another, brought everyone on board. There was no way the outcome of his policies would not resonate with the common man seeing they were designed to elevate him from his poor conditions.

His administration strove to bequeath to the state world-class ideas and physical structures. The Nigerian elites send their children to most expensive schools abroad. But Aregbesola met classroom situations that were at best, only fit for pigs. The courageous task of giving Osun world-class study environments stands as singular strongest reason this former governor should remain their hero. And indeed, he is!

Using the high school model as illustration of the enormous commitment to quality under the Aregbesola administration, one is compelled to ask whether such elevated quality of life is not after all, the essence of the good governance that columnists crave for. Or is this another manifestation of the hypocrisy of the elite? 

For those who may not know, each of the high schools constructed by Aregbesola flaunts 72 fully furnished classrooms, six offices for study groups, fully furnished and equipped laboratories for Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Home Economics, Agricultural Science, a fully equipped ICT Room, one fully furnished library, a Facility Manager’s office, a Book shop, a sick bay, a Bursar’s office, fully furnished offices for three Principals, three General Staff offices, a Senior Principal’s office, a Record Store, a Security shed/Reception, 18 toilets for young ladies, 18 toilets for young men, borehole for 24-hour water supply, dedicated high/ low voltage electricity transformer, a school auditorium, a total of 1,000 square-meters of floor space hall capable of sitting 1000 students for external exams, Stores for equipment, utilities storage, Storage for Documents, Olympic-sized football field, 7 lane sprinting tracks for 100 meters and 400 meters Pavilion, outdoor basketball court that doubles as lawn tennis court, a parking arena that can take 75 cars at a time.

Oh! When the Peoples Democratic Party’s hostile machinery was deployed in Osun in 2014 to oust Aregbesola, most of the policies that distorters of facts today would want us to believe angered the people of Osun, had been in place. But even in the face of the most horrendous attacks, intimidations and harassment of his administration, the people stood defiant in defence of a man they all saw as Messianic. 

I recall a popular song on the lips of the Osun people at the time. T’Aregbes lawa o se/T’Aregbesola lawa o se/ E ba ko’bon wolu, kee k’aja wole/T’Aregbesola lawa o se (Meaning “We are resolute in support of Aregbesola/ If you like bring guns and dogs/ We are determined to re-elect Aregbesola.”

That refrain, and many more that became popular on the streets of Osun aptly demonstrate the appreciation for how an administration had wormed its way into the hearts of the ordinary people who had for long resigned to fate in the face of years of bad governance.

You may accuse Aregbesola of being a dreamer. But then, history will be kind to those who aspired or believed they could create el-Doraldo even in the face of lack. Some people came to the state and simply realised with no funds, the only alternative was to be cosmetic and move on.

A Yoruba saying “Eni to sebe ate, eni ki Ogun pa, Ki le fe se fun eni ti o sebe rara”, meaning “When you ask the god of iron to strike dead he who prepared a tasteless stew, what do you do to who did not even make attempt to cook anything?”

Do not be carried away by the orchestrated campaigns against Aregbesola over his policies in Osun. What is now strident are the cries of the focal minority of elites who did not feel that Aregbesola pandered to their elitist tastes and preferences. The former governor pandered towards the needs of the silent majority to the anger of those who were perpetually in search of domination of the hapless common man. It is the reason you see that in Osun till date, his credibility on the streets remains unquestionable. 

Columnists crave for good governance via their writings. But it would appear they are confused if they fail to recognise the manifestations of their clamour when placed before them.

It would be tragic for humanity if chroniclers of history fail to critically do a postmortem of the Aregbesola years in Osun and see through the genuine elevation of the state that took place.

Just last week, a member of the House of Representatives from Osun, Babatunde Ayeni, was on the floor crying over the endless spilling of blood that is the order of the day in Ijesaland in the last couple of months. Ayeni called on the House to compel the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali, to deploy a special contingent of his men to quell the killings in Ilesa and its environs.

The above is instructive. Our columnists have not asked why Osun, once categorised the most peaceful state in Nigeria, suddenly joined the league of the Nigerian killing fields. And the people are helpless! But it is not just cultism that is killing the people of Osun. Armed robbers stroll in and out of the state at will in a state that was once considered impregnable to crime. 

If our writers are willing to ask why, we should be ready to tell them to demand what has happened to the about 25 sophisticated Armoured Personnel Carriers of the Aregbesola era which warned hoodlums Osun could not be a haven for them.

So, Ayeni directed his request to a wrong quarter. The House of Representatives member, indeed, need to go back home to request from his Governor what has happened to the security architecture of the Aregbesola years. That is where the solution lies against the incessant killings in Osun.

I watched a video of a fatal accident around the Ikire axis of the Ife-Ibadan Road few weeks ago. A bus filled with passengers coming from one of the Northern states had summersaulted, killing about eight instantly. About 10 were badly injured in need of emergency services. One instructive voice at the background of that video was a villager lamenting nostalgia about what would have been the quick response of the Osun State Ambulance Services, had this happened under the Aregbesola years. Of course, many of the wounded who could have been saved, had help come in time, also died. 

Developmental journalists should be concerned and demand from the current administration why has it failed to maintain the existing ambulances even if it could not improve by adding to the fleet.

Under the last administration, you could not travel 20kms in Osun without sighting a stationed ambulance waiting for the next emergency call.

If all that is to writing is not editorial sabre-ratling, conscientious writers have resources such as the Bureau of Statistics to scoop facts from. Such resources afford writers basic scientific analysis that strip postulations of all emotions and leave them with bare facts. For instance, she would have found those vital indices of the Aregbesola years that confirm that instead of her false conclusions that the policies, put together created mess, indeed held Osun out proudly among the comity of states.

Empirical figures showed that while Aregbesola inherited an unemployment rate of 17.2% when assuming office in 2010, he handed over to his successor in 2018 an unemployment rate of 5.3%.

On ease-of-doing-business ranking, Osun was number 23 in 2010 but dropped to 19 by 2018. While poverty rate in Osun was 37.5% in 2010, it had dropped drastically to 10.9% by 2018. 

The statistics did not just drop. Those figures represent the actual impact of a combination of ideas cutting across social protection concepts, energizing the economy to be active rather than being dormant and civil engagements that made the citizenry to be part of the process.

 Anyone who wants to genuinely help the people of that state must first avail himself of facts from such repositories, lest they serve their readers some poisonous contents.

Falsehood is poison by another name. Those who consume it are energised to make absolutely wrong assumptions; jump into wrong conclusions and indeed take terrible actions. And where does that leave the society, which innocently draws the inspirations for its actions on the postulations of perceived opinion shapers?  

Abosede Busayo Oluwaseun (Safety), the State Youth Leader of the Salinsile-led All Progressive Congress in Osun, can be reached on seunsafety@gmail.com