Muyiwa  Adetiba’s piece of July 2, titled ‘Their year of innocence’ left a sour taste in the mouth. Mr. Adetiba regaled us with the nostalgia of his primary school days, which I understand to be St John Primary School, Iloro, in Ilesa. He built it up to his secondary education at another mission school, Igbobi College, in Lagos. He told tales of pranks, as if children have since stopped being children.
 

 
His thoughts are incoherent and his facts are tangled and sexed up. He romanticised with the shoeless schoolboy who received post-colonial education in mission schools in Ilesa and Lagos in the 1960s and early 1970s. He wants things to return to that state. Mr. Adetiba can be indulged in his nostalgia, but he needs not smear Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and accuse him of what he did not do.
 
For he wrote, ‘To deny the young ones their childhood innocence by prescribing a dress code that differentiates between Muslims and Christians at their critical adolescent age is to deny them those memories that I and those of my generation hold dear’. How wrong could he have been?
 
For the umpteenth time, Governor Aregbesola did not at any time prescribe different codes of dressing for Christians and Muslims. The agitation by Muslims to wear Hijab had been on long before now, long before Aregbesola became governor.
 
Permit me a recap of the Hijab saga in Osun. When the government embarked on reclassification of schools and some public secondary school pupils were transferred to other public schools, the Hijab issue which had been on before Aregbesola became governor came up again, this time in Iwo.
 
This is because the government transferred pupils from St Mary Catholic High School, St Anthony Catholic High School, United Methodist High School and Baptist Grammar School to Baptist High School, all in Iwo.
 
To be sure, all these schools, though with Christian mission names, are public schools. Now, a few Muslim girls, I think 14 of them, had been wearing the scarf from the St. Mary Catholic School and United Methodist High School, aforementioned but were stopped by Baptist High School who would not allow Hijab in the school.
 
Muslims Students Society, MSS, then took the  State Government of Osun to court, asking the court to compel the government to allow Muslim girls to wear Hijab in government owned schools. The government immediately intervened by inviting the Christians and the Muslims to a meeting in order to find amicable solution to the matter.
 
The two sides asked the government to step aside because the resolution of the meeting would not be acceptable to the side that does not feel satisfied.
 
This was when they agreed that the Christians who were not originally in the suit be permitted to join so that the two sides can ‘fight’ it out.
 
When the matter came up for hearing, the court gave an interim order that status quo ante be maintained, that is, where Hijab is in use, it should be continued but should not be extended to where it is not permitted. However, the court finally gave its judgement that it is the constitutional right of Muslim girls to wear Hijab.
 
This is what opened the Pandora box which made the ignorant and the bigoted to falsely accuse Governor Aregbesola of favouring Muslim girls to adorn Hijab. Mr. Adetiba therefore was not factually correct when he accused Aregbesola of prescribing different dress codes for public schools.
 
Yes, the Muslims had wrongly thought that the coming of Aregbesola would bring them relief, but what the accusers of Aregbesola refused to acknowledge – or even see – is that the Muslims actually went to court because they could not have their way with the governor. If the governor had favoured them as alleged, why would they go to court? Mr. Adetiba made two other mistakes, quite egregious ones, in his article. The first is the inability to distinguish epochs. The events and circumstances that shape a generation are unique to it.
 
My generation is different from my father’s, just as his differed from his own father. Then, of course, mine differed remarkably from my children. In my childhood, the house where I grew up had no fence and I cannot remember if the entrance door was ever locked. I knew everybody living one kilometre radius of our home and could walk into any house and ask for drinking water. I climbed trees, walked long distance to school and was well caned by my teachers.
 
Yet, my own children never went to school by themselves and can hardly step out of the house without someone following them. But as kids, they have handled dexterously gadgets I never saw until I became an adult. This is the stuff memories are made of.
 
Secondly, Mr. Adetiba also failed to make a distinction between the missionary schools he went to and schools that have been publicly owned more than 40 years ago. I went to Otapete Methodist Primary School between 1972 and 1978.
 
I came from a Christian home, so I took the Christian orientation of the education I received for granted. We sang and prayed every day the Christian way. By the time I was in Primary 2, I already owned and was reading the bible. It was the same when I went to Methodist High School in the same town. I have fond memories too.
 
Yet, we all came from different backgrounds – Christian, Muslim and traditional Africa, whereas these schools are public schools bearing Christian mission names. However, in 1975, the Federal Government took over the schools and adequately compensated the owners. The government now owns the schools and run them on behalf of the public.
 
The former owners cannot therefore dictate how they should be run or what to wear in them. It’s like eating your cake and still want to have it.
 
The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, should stop living in denial. Public schools cannot, sensu stricto, have Christian face again.
 
Mr. Adetiba and his ilk have continued to falsely portray public schools as ‘mission schools’ and wrongly demanded that they be left in their pristine missionary form and orientation. His article was a needless diatribe against Ogbeni Aregbesola, which ended in portraying him as an impetuous, small-minded and mean-spirited person who shoots first before aiming.
 
Mr. Adetiba, as a seasoned journalist should know that facts are sacred; he should have exercised tact, wisdom and get the facts right and stick to it, instead of joining the media lynch-squad arrayed against the governor.
 
Sola Fasure, a national affairs commentator, wrote from Osogbo, Osun State.

The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has reaffirmed that agriculture is the only antidote for the economic downturn the country is going through.
 

 
Aregbesola stated this on Thursday at a crucial meeting with the farmers’ association in Erinmo, Oriade Local Government Area of the State.
 
The Governor, who went on an on-the-spot assessment of some farms in the Ijesha axis of the state, said the culture of free money has gone forever in the country.
 
He also urged beneficiaries of loans to farmers who have not paid up to meet their obligations so other farmers can benefit from the various assistance to farmers.
He called on the youth in the state to go into mechanised farming so that the country can be self-sufficient instead of relying on importation.
Aregbesola said for the country to come out of its current economic doldrums, there must be a total shift from oil money, which has contributed to total neglect of agriculture.
He said: “Today, we have seen the effect of rent economy that the country has been running for the past half a century.
 
“With the frittering away of the nation’s resources by the immediate past government and the drastic reduction of crude oil price at the international market, the country’s economy just went into recession.
“To come out of this economic logjam, we need to embark on massive agricultural practice.
“Agriculture used to be our economic mainstay during and shortly after independence.
“The discovery of oil in commercial quantity shifted our attention from agriculture to petrodollars.
“That abandonment of agriculture and the pursuit of oil money and profligacy of certain regimes in the political evolution of the country brought us to the present state of economy hardship.
“The cumulative effects of abandonment of agriculture and the culture of waste are what we are witnessing today.
“To get out of this economic hardship, we must retrace our steps back to agriculture.
“And this is why Osun has embarked on agriculture revolution and massive production of food crops.”
 
Aregbesola averred that everybody must work assiduously through farming as those who do not work cannot eat again as the situation is.
 
He saluted the courage of farmers for believing in what they are doing, promising that government will do everything within its power and resources to assist in boosting their production and harvesting capacity.
 
He stated that government would continue to provide soft loans as well as make chemicals and fertilizer available to the farmers at subsidized rate.
Aregbesola continued: “Those who do not work today will not eat.
“Everyone must contribute his or her quota to the production process.
“Farming it now the answer to our economic problem.
“Farming is the backbone of any strong and developed nation.
“We must stop our heavy reliance on imported foods.
“We should be able to feed ourselves as a nation.
“More than ever before, our government is ready to help farmers in the state in all areas they want to practise be it food or cash crop, poultry and the rest.”
 
Responding on behalf of the farmers association, the Chairman of the Farmers’ Business School, Moses Adekunle, commended the governor for his initiative of meeting the farmers right on their farms, saying this will give government the clear picture of what is happening and the challenges facing the farmers.
 
Adekunle urged the government to continue to support the farmers by providing high-yielding crop seedling, chemicals and fertilizers as affordable prices.
He said: “We are very happy to see the governor on our farms.
“This is the first time any governor will do this.
 
“This kind of meeting will give government insight about the development of agriculture in the state.
 
“It will also help policy formulation of government.
 
“We want government to speed up its rural-urban opening.
 
“Access roads to the markets after harvest is a major problems farmers are facing.
 
“If there are good roads, farm produce will reach the targeted destination on time and the kind of waste that we witness every year will reduce.”

The Chairman, Southwest Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Magnus Atilade has called for reconciliation, peace and harmony between CAN and Muslim community in Osun State for development to be realised.
 

 
Atilade, who gave the advice in a chat with Southwest Report in Lagos said all hands must be on deck so as to achieve peace in Osun State without which there would be no tangible development.
The cleric praised the efforts of Governor Rauf Aregbesola in providing free food to all students in public schools, building of new schools, new roads and extension of new roads which are praiseworthy.
He stressed that the church is not against the wearing of Hijab by Muslim girls because Catholic Rev. Sister wear it. He, however, said the school as an institution should promote uniformity which is why every school has a uniform to identify it.
On all schools being public, he said: “The mission schools established by the missionaries and other private school proprietors were forcibly taken over by the state governments.

“Ultimately our prayer is that the schools be returned to their original owners just as the former  Governor of Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu did in Lagos.
“It is evident that no government can conveniently run public institutions. Why should government insist on taking over of schools?
“All over the world, no government,  be it capitalists, socialists or communists, has the sole responsibility of providing education for its people,” he said.
He lamented the non-payment of salaries by 28 state governments, saying it is pertinent for government to hand over mission schools to their original owners.

AS part of the efforts at improving the entrepreneurship skills of staff and students of Osun State Polytechnic Iree, a five-day workshop was organised for the polytechnic community on apiary, bee keeping and honey production.
 

 
A volunteer of the United States for International Development (USAID) to Nigeria, Mr. Caleb O’Biren described the apiary farming and bee keeping as a panacea to poverty, saying it is a veritable venture that could boost the nation’s economy.
 
The apiary workshop was packaged by USAID and Winrock International, a Non-Governmental Organisation, as a stable of the farmer-to-farmer programme of the organisation to boost Agricultural technology in Nigeria through trainings and workshops for officials of tertiary institutions and local farmers in the country.
 
The institution’s Media Relation’s Officer, Mr. Tope Abiola, said participants at the workshop were trained on modern technology of Bee Keeping and Honey Production which the USAID official described as a veritable venture that could be used to provide jobs for unemployed Nigerians.
 
Bee keeping specialist Mr. O’biren, an American based apiary and bee keeping specialist, declared that “apiary is a good venture that could be done in local communities with a little capital to produce honey in large quantity”.
 
While explaining the importance of honey and demand for it in all parts of the world, O’biren explained that “honey production is not capital intensive, its production can survive a country, because it is what is needed by all homes in a country”.
 
“It is a daily need that is used for treatment of certain ailments. It is also used to prevent certain deceases which could cause damage to some cells in our bodies”.
 
Explaining why the Osun State Polytechnic Iree organised the training for staffers of the institution and farmers in Iree Community, the Rector of the institution who is the facilitator of the workshop, Dr. Jacob Olusola Agboola stated that it was part of the capacity building and skills acquisition program embarked upon recently by the institution.
 
Dr. Agboola stressed that “apiary and bee keeping is a type of agriculture that we must encourage in our community to engage our teeming youths in the country, who are unemployed, while employed individuals can also embark on it to boost their economic power.
 
He added that it is part of efforts of the Department of Agric Engineering and Bioenvironmental Studies of the Polytechnic to train local farmers in the state on modern Agricultural skills.

Governor of the state of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola has commended the Proprietor and Management of Fountain University, Osogbo for all round development.

 
Ogbeni Aregbesola, spoke through the Chairman, Special Committee on Fire Safety in the state, Hon. Oguntola Mudashiru Toogun while on the sensitization and inspection tour to the University.
The Governor said the sitting of the University in the state has brought a long list of benefits such as employment creation, improved economy and reducing crime in the state.
Ogbeni Aregbesola therefore urged the University to keep their standards in terms of moral and academic performance.
Earlier, Vice Chancellor of Fountain University, Professor Bashir Raji appreciated the Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola for sustaining the peace in the state. He also commended the Governor for the road network especially ring road that passes through their University.
Professor Raji therefore assured that all necessary fire safety regulations would be complied with.
Present were Secretary to the Committee, Mr. Toba Aluko and men of the Fire Service led by the Deputy Director, Mrs Moni Lawal.

Osun, Lagos and Kaduna are listed among the 10 states remitting funds into the Retirement Savings Accounts of their employees out of the 26 states that have enacted their Pension Reform Law, investigations have revealed.   The 10 states that have yet to enact the law have also failed to remit the pension funds. “Ten out of the 36 states have commenced remittance of contributions into the RSAs of their employees.
 

 
 
Similarly, eight state governments have commenced funding of their retirement benefit bond redemption fund accounts,” PenCom stated. The records also showed that 673,116 contributors, who are workers of the various state governments, were registered with different PFAs.
 
According to the report, Lagos, Ogun, Kaduna, Niger, Delta, Osun, Rivers and Anambra states have commenced the remittance of contributions to six PFAs and were funding their accrued rights. It explained that Imo State had yet to commence remittance of pension contributions, but that the Imo State University was currently implementing the Contributory Pension Scheme but not yet funding its accrued rights. Zamfara State has also commenced remittance of contributions to the PFAs but yet to fund its accrued rights.
 
PenCom stated that Jigawa State had transferred its pension assets to six PFAs for management, while Kano had yet to transfer its assets to the PFAs. According to the report, the remaining 26 states have yet to commence remittance of funds into their workers’ RSAs or fund their accrued rights. The commission also said it conducted on site reviews of some self-funded government agencies to assess their compliance level with the Pension Reform Act, 2014, adding that the assessment process was expected to ensure full compliance by the relevant agencies.
 
PenCom introduced some guidelines to the pension administrators for registration of state and local government employees to enable them to adopt suitable structures for the implementation of the CPS. Part of the objectives of the guidelines is to ensure complete coverage in the states in the shortest possible time.
 
According to the guidelines, the law gives concession to the states and local governments to implement the structured approach to the registration of their employees. Both levels of government are expected to select a number of PFAs and allocate their Ministries, Departments and Agencies to each, while the employees are to freely register with the PFAs. The Director-General, PenCom, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, said while some states had adopted the CPS, many had yet to fully implement it.
 
The situation, she explained, had denied the states of the advantages of the contributory pension model, including its sustainability as a system, robust framework that eliminates the incentives for corruption in benefits administration, and ability to access the pool of investible pension funds to drive economic and infrastructural development in their respective domains. Anohu-Amazu stated that the scheme had so far delivered all the major objectives of the reform, adding that since its establishment in 2004, there had been no case of malpractice recorded in the administration of the CPS.

The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has described the death of former boss of the defunct National Security Organisation, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, as another monumental loss of one of the nation’s patriots and politicians.
 

 
In a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Semiu Okanlawon, Aregbesola said Shinkafi’s death is one that has once again dealt a devastating blow to the nation, especially the political terrain.
 
He said the late politician served the country in many capacities and gave his best while in active service.
He stated that as the pioneer of the nation’s indigenous security service, he presided over a solid service and gave it a track record as the intelligence service under him was one of the most vibrant branches of the police force then.
 
He said: “Death diminishes. Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi was a Nigerian patriot. He served Nigeria fervently with all he had from conventional police to the security intelligence arm and finally as a politician of note.
 
“He was a politician of high repute and immense clout. His political horizon spread across the country.
“Though a conservative, he did not shy away from grouping with the progressive camp in 1999 when he teamed up with Chief Olu Falae on the joint ticket of Alliance for Democracy.
“He was a good officer, a listening politician and intelligence officer of a first class hue.
“He will certainly be missed as a politician of high caliber, whose wealth of experience is still highly valued and needed.
“I join his numerous admirers to wish him a good repose as I commit his relations to the hands of Allah (SWT) for succour and fortitude.”

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo  weekend commended Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State for his neutrality in the crisis in the state following recent court ruling permitting the use of female head scarf “hijab” in Osun State  public schools.
 

 
Obasanjo, who was the chairman of the occasion at the  handover ceremony of a multi-purpose hall and a library donated by Senator Yinka Omilani to Ode-Omu community stated that the recent utterances of Aregbesola on the court verdict on hijab had doused tension in the state.
 
Osun hijab crisis Aregbesola had at the wake of the controversy that trailed the order allowing the use of hijab, denied ordering the use of hijab in schools because he did not order his wife and daughter to use hijab.
 
Obasanjo, who was represented by Gbaabile of Egbaland, Dr. Femi Majekodunmi, said the statement from the governor confirmed his neutrality in the conflict over the use of hijab by female Muslim students in public schools in the state.
 
He said, “He (Obasanjo) is in China now. He said the governor (Aregbesola) said something which confirmed his neutrality in the matter; that word went a long way in dousing the tension which recently heightened in the state.”
 
Obasanjo described the donor, Senator Omilani, a former Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the South West, as a great philanthropist, noting that his contribution to his community, Osun State and Nigeria at large could never be overlooked. He urged the community to make judicious use of the facilities which he described as a significant legacy.
 
Speaking, Aregbesola reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to improving infrastructure in nooks and crannies of the state regardless of the current economic situation. He announced that the ongoing construction of Gbongan/Ode-Omu dual-carriageway would be completed before the end of the year.
 
The Governor attributed the slow-pace of work at various construction sites and projects by his administration to the effect of fall in the revenue accruing to the state, assuring that all the ongoing projects in the state would be completed before the end of his tenure.
 
He lauded Senator Omilani for his kind gestures, calling on other well-meaning Nigerians to emulate him, noting that no matter how committed government was, it could not do everything and called for support from the privileged and wealthy individuals in the society.
 
On his part, the donor of the library,  Senator Omilani attributed the construction of the ultra modern library and multi-purpose hall as part of his commitments towards the development of education and Ode-Omu community.
 
Omilani said the provision of supplementary readers in schools and public libraries was one way of expanding the horizon of knowledge and acquisition of life-long skill, saying the act would save the teeming youths from idleness and juvenile delinquency.

Governor  Rauf Aregbesola of Osun on Friday said the ongoing restructuring and reforms in all the state-owned tertiary institutions were not aimed at retrenching workers as being speculated.

Aregbesola said this at the inauguration of a N140 million e-Library and N34.4 million ultra-modern lecture hall at the state College of Education, Ila-Orangun.
 

 
The governor, who described the speculation as baseless, said the idea behind the restructuring exercise was not to witch-hunt but to improve the quality of lecturers.
He said his administration would not do anything that would inflict pains on workers and residents of the state.
“The restructuring is aimed at bringing up the quality of the lecturers.
“ I must also add that the government has no intention of witch-hunting or victimising anyone for his or her religious, political or ideological leaning.
“You will all agree that there have been many innovations in education and those still teaching with the knowledge they acquired 20 years ago have fallen behind time.
“We must also improve the quality of our teachers, if we want to improve the quality of education we are giving to the young ones.
“This puts to rest the false, unfounded and malicious speculation that the government is closing down these schools.
“What we are trying to do is to ensure everyone is qualified and fits into the bigger picture of the education we are providing in the state,” he said.
In his address, the Provost of the institution, Prof. Isaac Olayinka Oyewole, said that the new library would accommodate 2,000 users at a time.
Oyewole said with the new e-library, the institution could conveniently boast of housing a modern digital library unit.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Governing Council, Mr Niyi Akande, said the council was working toward transforming the college into a degree awarding institution.