By Toba Adedeji
The All Progressives Congress, APC in the State of Osun has said that the economic and human development strides, which the Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola-led government has made in the last seven years, will be unstoppable with the people’s determination to sustain it.
This position was contained in a statement signed by the Party’s Directorate of Publicity, Research and Strategy Barr. Kunle Oyatomi.
Oyatomi noted that ”To understand the magnitude of what has happened in Osun under the leadership of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the people have to take a serious look at what this state was some eight years ago, to appreciate what it is now.
Oyatomi also recalled that, “Osun was one of the poorest and struggling communities compared to many others in the country. Infrastructure was totally run-down; life was difficult, the human development index of the State was at best stagnant while economic activities were sluggish and unattractive to investors.
“Environmental sanitation was horrible – so horrible that when the rains came, cities flooded, lives were lost and properties were destroyed. There was lamentation everywhere”.
“When Aregbesola emerged the governor, the state declared an environmental emergency. The drains were cleared, city centers got a new look as garbage heaps were removed and a beautification process accelerated. People got to work. Youths were taken off the streets, crime rate plummeted, the security situation improved and peace was restored, he explained.
The State of Osun, he said, “Aregbesola has come a long way in engineering change from a poverty stricken and backward community to a significantly developing society of hard-working and progressive-minded people, doing everything that they can, to better their lives.
However, the Party advised that ‘the citizens of the state must not allow those who are backward-looking and selfish – especially political vultures, negatively disposed to progress – to mislead them into being careless about keeping pace with the developments and progress thus far achieved in Osun’.
Oyatomi emphasized that ”no matter the antics of the opposition, the rise of Osun is unstoppable.
”The people now have a glorious responsibility to ensure that those who seek to bring down Osun in 2018 are checkmated as it was in 2014′, the party concluded.
