By Toba Ajisafe
The State Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has stated that people of the state are aware of his administration’s achievements and they will not allow anyone with selfish ambition to alter developmental statistics the state has witnessed in the last 6 years.
Also, the governor charged gubernatorial aspirants eying the state’s to job to play politics with clear conscience warning them to stop peddling falsehood against his administration.
This was contained in a statement signed by media adviser to the Governor, Mr Sola Fasure and made available to OSUN DEFENDER in Osogbo.
Responding to the allegation of one of the governorship aspirants that education under present administration is in bad shape, Fasure said it is disturbing the height of hypocrisy people could go in a way to achieve their inordinate ambition adding the supposed aspirant who turned critics overnight was part of the Education summit that recommended restructuring in the state’s education due to a past filled with emptiness and incompetence under PDP 7 years misrule.
According to the statement, “Politicians aspiring to be governor of Osun should stop peddling falsehood and maligning Governor Rauf Aregbesola in order to ender themselves to the electorate.
He held that with the administration of Aregbesola winding off, aspirants want to outdo one another in gunning for the state’s top job by promising to perform more than the incumbent if given the opportunity to serve.
The statement noted that such aspirants regrettably but brazenly alter statistics, fabricate figures which are non-existing and justify what ought not to be, all in the name of wanting to give the administration of Aregbesola a bad name in order to hang it.
Fasure said the people of Osun are not forgetful, stating that they know, see and feel what Aregbesola did and is still doing in the state.
”One of the supposed governorship aspirants recently said the state of education in Osun is in a bad shape and that there was disconnect in the provision of infrastructure and economic development, promising that he possess the magic wand to synergise the two and fix education.
“But if a calabash isn’t broken, do we employ someone to still fix it? This critic was fortunately part of the education summit called by Aregbesola in 2011 to fix the education sector ran a ground by in seven years of misrule of the administration before Aregbesola.
”This critic was not a governorship aspirant then and he did not see that education was in shambles. Even at that, he was privileged to serve in the summit with the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka.
”The outcome of that brainstorming at the summit produced the template with which the government tailored its restructuring. And today, the state has witnessed tremendous improvement in all ramifications as far as education is concerned in the state.
”The criticism must have stemmed from the utter lack of knowledge of performance charts and attention to details commonly exhibited by those who do not want to see anything good attributed to the Aregbesola administration”.
The statement also noted that past records and statistics of students supplied by WAEC in the past years have shown that there is significant improvement in percentage of overall results of the student compared to the 2010 performance in the pre-Arebesola era.
He added that a comparison between pre and post Aregbesola administrations will put nail to the coffin of mischief makers, saying “In 2007, the state registered 36,171 candidates for WAEC examination out of which 2,483 representing 6.86 per cent had credit pass in five subjects, including English and Mathematics.
”In 2008, it was 37,715 candidates with 3,813 pass, representing 10.11 per cent. In 2009 it was 39,676 candidates, with 5,545 pass, representing 13.98 per cent. In 2010 it was 43,216 candidates, with 6,777 pass, representing 15.68 per cent. If you put these four years together, you will get an average of 15.68 per cent.
”Put side by side, the above four-year performances, with that of Aregbesola’s administration when government started sponsoring candidates for WAEC in 2011, one would glean the wide gulf in performances of both governments.
”That year, 2011 and the first year of Aregbesola’s government, the state fielded 53,293 candidates, had 11, 672 pass, representing 21.98 per cent.
”In 2012, the government fielded 51,463 out of which 11,431 passed, representing 22.21 per cent. In 2013, it also fielded 47,013 candidates, recorded 9,301 pass, representing 19.78 per cent.
”In 2014, government sponsored 47,672 candidates, 9,316 of them passed, representing 19.54 per cent. Taken together, the average performance for Aregbesola’s first four years was 20.88 per cent. Compared with the average performance (13.26 per cent) of the three years that preceded it.
“The percentage improvement in performance during Aregbesola’s tenure is put at an impressive 57.46 per cent, thus, those who said Osun is declining are not being honest.
“The above data shows that their claims are totally unfounded. The performance of pupils has not gone down under the watch of Aregbesola, This significant improvement in performance was nothing other than an outstanding result brought about by careful and strategic planning by the administration”. Fasure emphasized.
