The planned summit on education in Osun state by a group of opposition politicians, Osun Stakeholders, may have suffered a setback as one of the conveners has pulled out of the proposed gathering.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that one of the conveners, who addressed journalists in Osogbo Friday, to announce the summit, Muyiwa Oladijemi, has told a few people, including some of the organisers, that he was no longer comfortable participating in the event.
He reportedly said he was suspicious of the real motives of other organisers of the summit.
Mr. Oladimeji, a former governorship aspirant and chieftain of the PDP; a former Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin; and Niyi Owolade, governorship candidate of Accord Party in the last election, who also served as Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, are the three key conveners of the planned summit.
However, when our correspondent called Mr. Oladimeji on Wednesday for his comment on the preparedness of his group for the summit, he directed all inquiries at Messrs Odumakin and Owolade.
“You can call Odumakin and Owolade, they are the ones who have information about the summit,” he said.
Probed further on the level of his involvement, Mr. Oladimeji simply said, “I have answered your question, I have asked you to call Odumakin or Owolade.”
Mr. Owolade’s non-committal response, those close to him said, might not be unconnected with the widespread condemnation the proposed summit, slated for Thursday, has drawn.
The All Progressives Congress in the state described the summit as a smokescreen to orchestrate crisis and then blame it on the government of the APC in the state.
The APC alleged that all those organising the summit were a pack of Peoples Democratic Party’s politicians and other allied political opponents of the government.
It accused the group of merely using the summit to cover its selfish political activities.
The two other conveners, Messrs Odumakin and Owolade, could not be reached for comments Wednesday night.
PREMIUM TIMES

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has appealed to professionals and educators to purposefully promote and disseminate truthful and enlightening information.
The party advised the media to always seek truth and propagate facts that would not mislead the public.
The party’s Director of Publicity, Kunle Oyatomi, was reacting to an article by Prof Niyi Akinnaso.
Oyatomi said: “The publication is perhaps the most graphic, truthful, factual, educative and enlightening piece that has been done by any commentator, critique, reporter or investigative journalist on the financial crisis in Osun.
“It is a model of dispassionate and carefully investigated story told by a person who fully understands what truthful and factual information is all about – to educate an ignorant or misinformed public.
“It is regrettable that in the Nigerian market place of ideas, so much falsehood about Osun has been propagated and assimilated by the gullible and impressionable consumers that the facts contained in Prof. Akinnaso’s piece will be a bitter pill for them to swallow.
“‘Facts garnered from the article are that the economic crisis in Osun was as a result of a reckless, profligate and kleptomanic Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government in Abuja that collapsed the country’s economy.
“That in reality, it was a masterpiece of socio-economic engineering that Aregbesola could still undertake the level of development he achieved before the crash, despite the fact that every kobo earned by the state was used for recurrent expenditure from 2012 to 2014, incurring a deficit of N2 billion.
“The level of ignorance about the Osun situation is so widespread that it becomes a sad commentary on the status of education in the country vis-a-vis the quality of information available.
“People are as educated as the quality of information available for their consumption.  Those who are in that business have a huge responsibility to educate our people correctly.”
The party, therefore, advised that any unbiased person or believer in truth who wants to know the facts about the Osun situation should read Prof Akinnaso’s article.
“No fake summit of unenlightened stakeholders can match the details in that piece”, the party said.
THE NATION

Osun State government workers have been advised to disregard rumours being peddled by mischief makers that the government has decided to be paying half salary to its workforce.
Speaking with newsmen yesterday in Osogbo, the immediate past commissioner for information and strategy, Mr Sunday Akere, said at no time was such a decision taken.
Akere said that in the process of negotiating the call-off of the six weeks industrial action embarked upon by the workers, agreement was reached that the government would make efforts to clear the backlog of salary arrears as soon as the relief package announced by the federal government was received by the state.
He said, “The relief package for the benefit of the doubting Thomases is in three phases, the first being the $2.1billion paid as tax by NLNG and Shell which was shared among the three tiers of government. The second is the N300billion being made available by the CBN for states that are owing their workers to access as loan, while the third is the rescheduling of the debt owed by states by the Debt Management Office so that repayment of the debts will become easier and spread to longer years.
“While the share of Osun State from the NLNG money was N2.2billion, the CBN grant is yet to be received while the DMO rescheduling is for future allocation to the state.
“On receipt of the N2.2billion NLNG lifeline, the governor instructed that the sum of N100million be added to ensure that payment is done to all categories of workers irrespective of their take home pay.”
LEADERSHIP

The Civil Societies Coalition for Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEO) has kicked against plan by the State Assembly Committee set up to look into the petition of Justice Oloyede Folahanmi against Governor Rauf Aregbesola and his deputy, Mrs. Titilayo Grace Tomori, to sit behind closed door.
The group insisted that the Speaker, Hon. Najeem Salam should stand by his earlier statement that the investigation would be conducted openly, saying refusal to do this is a betrayal of the people’s trust.
Besides, the group in a statement signed by its chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Sulaiman, rejected the 7-man panel comprising only members of All Progressives Congress (APC) in an assembly with two opposition members from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to CSCEO, the step taken by the leadership of the state assembly showed that it lacked the integrity and the will power to dispassionately and justly investigate the allegations of financial impropriety of Aregbesola.
While demanding that the governor’s response to the petition be made public, the coalition said all indications have shown that the committee had written its report before commencing sitting.
“To even found out that the House Minority Leader, Hon. Dejo Makinde holds Masters Degree in Law, which put him in vantage position for such assignment but was not considered has revealed that the Assembly leadership’s had clandestine arrangement unknown to many.
“Going by what we gathered, the committee has planned to give Aregbesola a clean bill and that was why the Speaker did not allow any member of the opposition to be part of this dirty deal: Adenyi said
GUARDIAN NEWS
 

Infographic below shows the true state of Osun’s Salary Burden.

Please read, and share with family and friends. Let’s educate the world on the true state of our state.

Other facts will yet follow tomorrow.

Thank you.

The past few months have witnessed critical and growing press attention to the crippling insolvency of 23 of Nigeria’s 36 State Governments, a situation that became public knowledge after several states had failed to pay workers’ salaries for upwards of six months. This distress has not discriminated against the states in any discernible pattern – by political party affiliation, geographical location, ethnic composition, etc, the usual culprit factors that political commentators often latch on to.
Financial distress as grave as this was last experienced 32 years ago (in 1983) during the reckless Second Republic government led by President Shehu Shagari when  most of the then 19 states of the Nigerian Federation ran their economies aground by depleting the dwindling federal allocations that all had depended on without exception. The reasons for the 1983 salary crises at the State and Federal levels were: drastic fall in the price of Crude Oil in the international market, profligate spending, and white-elephant projects executed with little attention to financial and schedule discipline, and outright theft of state resources. The states, then as now, were heavily dependent on the tempting but unreliable income from Nigeria’s oil export, which experiences cyclical glut and price fluctuations with the boom-and-bust cycle of the world economy, a systemic problem only occasionally ameliorated when the shock of war jacks up oil prices in key oil supply markets.
We have returned to that terrible past of insolvency and economic stagnation, with some distinct differences. The country’s population has more than doubled from 68 million people in 1985 to 174million today, while the number of states has also almost doubled as if on a cue.
Of the 23 State Governments affected by the salary crisis, Governor Aregbesola’s administration has been singled out for a most severe attention about which Ogbeni (as he is fondly called), has agonized in public and in private. The crisis and the near grounding of the state’s economy and the resulting harsh situation have left an overwhelming number of government pay-dependent families without alternative income in serious financial and emotional distress. The strong feelings brought on by months of waiting for salaries, the payment of which government workers had long taken for granted has soured the governor’s once excellent relations with labour in the state; however, the generality of the citizenry has shown understanding for Aregbesola’s predicament and still support him. All that will help now is rescue by every means available. No argument, no matter how logical, will assuage the strong feelings of workers who find themselves stranded and helpless ‘for no fault of theirs’.
The Federal Government’s immediate financial rescue has forestalled turning workers’ frustration into open antagonism, the possibility of such an outcome is being constantly explored by the Osun PDP‘s warlord politicians who are stoking civil conflict with all manners of provocative publications and discredited allegations. The situation has created a feasting frenzy for faceless hack writers, paid jobbers and ‘critics’ of Governor Aregbesola who churn out damning commentary based on inaccurate data and ill-educated, and coloured observations about the State Government’s policies and the state of things in Osun.
Aregbesola, has taken the pain to explain over and over again that the seeds of today’s problem were sown by the astronomic rise in the wage bill due to the compulsory implementation of the new minimum wage set by the Federal Government in January, 2011, barely two months into his administration. The new government of Aregbesola, compelled to accede to the across-the-board pay rise had lamented that the increase meant that its financial burden rose by 300 per cent (from N1.4billion to N3.5billion per month!) and that this was unsustainable and would have consequences sometime in the future for the state’s development. But nobody listened or took him seriously.
It should be noted that Aregbesola was elected with a mandate to implement major social and infrastructural change in the State as enunciated his green book- “My Pact with the People of Osun” and was duty-bound to fulfil this mandate in the best interest of the State.
Governor Aregbesola had argued strongly back in 2011 that salaries could not be uniform across the country in a federation, since no two states had the same quantum of resources or cost of living. He also argued that salaries should not be adjusted across the board in tandem with the new minimum wage since doing so would increase the gap between the poorest paid and the highest paid, thus eroding the intent of the pay rise and leading the state into insolvency and as well as stalling the its development projects. During the emotionally-heated debate on the effects of implementing the new minimum wage by the state, Governor Aregbesola in presenting the difficult choices before the new government and people of the state had made it clear to the unions that if workers’ emoluments outstripped available revenue, government would have no choice than to retrench workers since it could not borrow perpetually just to pay salaries, whilst neglecting the core reason for having a government. It was noted that state’s revenue could not fully augment the new wage bill if there was a shortfall in federal allocation. Thus, assuaging workers’ demands for across-the-board wage rise by spending all of the state’s earnings on emoluments means leaving nothing for the future, and trusting the future to chance, postponing the evil day.
The governor had also reminded all back then to bear in mind that the Federal allocation to the state was meant for all of the state’s 3.2million residents (now 3.5 million), and not the exclusive entitlement of the 40,000 or so state employees and political appointees. This was not a popular position to take at the time, but it was, and still is the plain truth.
Between November 2010 and December 2014, Osun received a total statutory allocation of N108.3billion, and if we add Osun’s receipts from January to April 2015 of N7.04billion, this makes a total of N115.34billion. Osun expenditure on salaries alone from November 2010 to December 2014 was N120.4billion. This left the state with a deficit of N12billion. If we add other emoluments, Osun’s total recurrent expenditure comes to N206billion, compared to its statutory allocation of N108.3billion. If we add other accruals from Abuja, the grand total of all receipts from Abuja is N204billion.
To put things into perspective, in 2011, allocation from Federation Account to Osun was an average of N4billion per month, this level held steady until it fell to N2.6billion in July 2013.
•Daniyan writes from Osogbo

Workers and Commercial activities in Osun state on Tuesday resumed fully after the two-day Eid-el-Fitr holiday celebration.
A state correspondent, who visited some state and local government offices in Osogbo, reported that workers were seen in trickles at their various duty posts.
At the state secretariat, located at Abeere, Osogbo, workers were exchanging greetings and discussing the suspended strike and the just concluded Eid-el-Fitr, which many described as “low key’’.
“The Eid-el-Fitr celebration was low key because there was no money,’’ a young lady, who identified herself simply as Mogbojubola said.
“Workers in the state have not been paid their backlog of salary, though few months were paid last week, that is the reason why our leaders asked us to suspend the strike.
“Our prayer is that government will pay the remaining salary very soon, most of us have to celebrate in a low-key way because we do not have money”. The lady stressed.
At the state-owned radio and television station, Osun State Broadcasting Corporation , a cross-section of workers seen going about full operations.
Also at the State High Court in Osogbo, judiciary workers and activities went on in the court premises unhindered.
When our correspondent visited Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital in Osogbo, the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Femi Fadiora was seen addressing workers who had suspended their 7-weeks industrial strike.
Also in a statement made available to journalists in Osogbo signed by the Public Relation Officer of LAUTECH. Mr. Ayo Adeyemo, workers were asked to go about their duties as the industrial strike remai‎ned suspended.
OSUN DEFENDER

THE  Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun, has appealed to workers to resume so that Governor Rauf Aregbesola can kick start the recovery of the economy.
Speaking with reporters in his palace in Osogbo yesterday, the traditional ruler, who praised workers for their patience, urged labour leaders to show understanding.
Oba Olanipekun decried the propaganda about the Aregbesola administration.
“We have been reading on the Internet and newspapers that some people are trying to jeopardise the good effort of the government.
“And we have to enlighten the public. Aregbesola should be praised for his numerous achievements.
“Despite the fact that Osun is the least paid in terms of federal allocation, Aregbesola has achieved far more than his predecessors.
“He has changed the face of the state, particularly Osogbo. He has repaired many roads in the state.
“Aregbesola has recorded several achievements. I beg the workers to rally round him to make the state bounce back.
“I’m appealing to workers to show understanding. Some of the roads he built and rehabilitated have attracted development to the state. We, the people of Osogbo, have no regret in supporting Aregbesola.”
THE NATION
 

Pictures showing a Cross section of Passengers boarding Free Train Services provided by Osun State Government from Osogbo to Lagos in Commemoration of 2015 Eid-el-fitri Celebration, at Osogbo Terminus of Nigerian Railway Corporation, on Monday 20/07/2015.

Here is an infograpic that elucidates the true state of Osun’s Salary Burden, stating How We Got Here.

Please read, and share with family and friends. Let’s educate the world on the true state of our state.

Other facts will follow in the following days.