Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the Osun State governor, is indeed a very remarkable individual. No challenge, no matter how huge, unsettles him. Baring in mind the responsibility of leadership, he believes duties must be discharged regardless of whatever personal inconveniences and sacrifices.
He spoke with Kamal Tayo Oropo
Excerpts from the interview:
What is new in this particular fresh drive in the South-West for regional integration? What is different from various similar attempts in the past?
There is nothing new. If you are a student of History, besides the similarity, option, angle, tradition and history, we are for a quite a long time longer than the time of our militarisation. We are now cut into the smaller self-governing entity called state. Before that time, we are to a large extent a single region with the same political destiny, the same aspiration and the same united or combined economy.
If we take it from there, you will realise that there is nothing new. What is, however, new if you have to situate the currency of what is happening properly, is the resurgence of the desire for that old togetherness; for unity in economy; politics and unity in world views and actions — that is what is the new. That resurgence that was for about 12 years, thoroughly emasculated is now reawakened in the leadership, in the people and in the general life of the people of the South-West. That is what is new. And on that, I am passionate, totally committed and unflagging in my outlook.
When you talk of the development of the zone especially on the progressive side of view, there are always five kinds of cardinal objectives that are crucial — free education at all levels, affordable shelter, rural development, infrastructural development, to what extent will you say that this current agitation has captured some of these basic objectives?
It is not even an agitation if I have to really qualify it. There is this group of elite and conscious members of the Yoruba people who after the crises in the mother Afenifere, who combined to form the younger Afenifere, the Afenifere Renewal Group, of which I am member. This group is focused and is in pursuit of the need for a clear cut programmes and policies for Yoruba renaissance – renaissance in economy, renaissance in social, renaissance in cultural or even spiritually. Indeed, renaissance in every aspects of life.
What were those things that set Western Region of Nigeria aside when it was a vibrant, pace-setting and un-beatable entity? There were serious commitments of the leadership, political spiritual and professional to that leadership I have qualified and warrant first and foremost show true and committed leadership and then use that leadership to inspire high productivity, particularly in agriculture, inspire high interest and commitment to education, inspire development of infrastructure, roads, portable water, good healthcare services, and high commitment to athletic culture, among other commitments.
Of course, in the cause of that, it was that commitment that put the Yoruba on the world map as a people that are sophisticated, progress-seeking and irrepressible. This is not to forget that long before the present crop of leadership, these traits have been quite common among the race anyway. But that leadership reshaped the residual trait of greatness in Yoruba people.
The Yoruba people unarguably had 50 years head-start in Nigeria, particularly in education and all that education represents.
That was what we had up until when there was sharp schism in the leadership, which led to the persecution of our Avatar, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, and some of his lieutenants. There was a military coup, which still snowballed eventually into a civil war.
After that, we had a long period of militant rule and eventual return of that tendency, which did not last long — just 4years and 3 months, before the military returned. After which we had a mutative civil administration; there was a bridge between civil and military rule. The annulment and the responses of people to the annulment. And the final return of the Republic we are in now in 1999.
That is the history of the struggle, but each of these times, it was unmistakable what the preferences of the Yoruba people were. The Yoruba are forward looking, development-seeking, welfare-demanding people and also those that qualify progressive thinking. Yes, you get conservative after you might have developed capacity you want to conserve.
But when you are still haunted by the desire to conquer the world, cover lost grounds, establish institutions and create set standards, as well as promote ideals, ethics and rules, that is when you cannot rest and say, ‘yes, let us rest and see how far we can go on our achievements.’
But noticing that, that had not happened, Yoruba are forever pace-setting, goal-getting, forward-looking and ever-efficient towards their environment, position themselves for reckoning in the committee of races of the world and guaranteeing for themselves, their children and their children’s children a society that will rival any other society anywhere in the world. This is the vision, by my own interpretation of the Yoruba people.
And it is that to which the tendency to which I belong, in strict adherence to the belief of Chief Awolowo, hold sacred and for which we are absolutely committed to bringing back again in our territory.
And for that, in my submission at the legislative submit put in place by the Vintage press, I simply put four things together: job, that is believing that employment is the greatest challenge to our regional race, that job creation is the greatest challenge of our people and region. The high percentage of unemployed youths in our region, and in Nigeria, is just unacceptable. It must be seriously tackled and put behind us;
functional education that will not make the recipient just certificate carrier, but a value-adding member of the society, either through self-employment or employment in any institution or facility where such exists.
Transportation; movement of goods and personnel, by all means possible. And agriculture, which is hugely targeted at food security. These are essential, by my observation, cardinal to the objectives of integration. I have not in any way rejected the cardinal principles of Papa Awolowo, which are geared towards urban and rural development. If you look at what I have mentioned, there is no way the principles can be taken out of it. When you develop agriculture, you must necessarily provide services in the rural areas and thus improving the quality of lives in the area.
My understanding of development is in tandem with our history as Yoruba people, a history defined by, on the part of the state, to meet the aspiration of our people and in the current trend, there are critical issues which I sought to address in my submissions in Ibadan; job creation, functional education, transportation and agriculture.
In addition to these submissions, it has been declared in other fora that this fresh desire towards integration in the zone was fuelled by frustration at current state of the nation. Do you agree with such feelings?
I try not to bother myself about that argument; it is unnecessary. We are in Nigeria and being in Nigeria itself is a challenge. Why is it a challenge? Our identity is unmistakeable – we are a distinct component of the Nigerian state. Just as individuals are distinct, so are a people in any nation.
The fundamental of distinction is for you to use that distinction to promote development by your own striking examples. You are who you are because of how your guardians or parents perceive who you are, that they did to a level after which your surroundings take over.
At a stage, an individual identifies a model after whom he or she can pattern his or her behaviour. The same thing applies to a race. The idea of Yoruba seeking to position itself properly within Nigeria is to drive Nigeria towards path of greatness. That cannot be achieved through separation.
Nigeria, as a nation, is not even my own standard. I am looking forward to us, as a people developing ourselves, using that as a model to other people, within our nation, to either copy or improve upon. Ultimately assisting Nigeria to assert itself in our sub-region and thereby propel development there, which will equally influence development in the whole of Africa and thus uplift the Blackman as a worthy component of humanity. That to me should be the objective of any sane person.
How realistic are you about the achievement of these ideals within the present structure obtainable in the country? Are you so comfortable with the current scenario?
My political belief does not accept failure or inability to do anything. I am a total optimist. What this means is that you cannot just give up on what you want to do, believing that it is determination and perseverance that guarantee success; nothing is unobtainable.
Your will and zeal, combined with action will yield results. I don’t even notice the inhibiting structure and individuals that may want to scuttle my drive. Had I so been inclined towards giving up, I would not even have been involved to the extent to which I am now. It is because of my total rejection of any inhibition that I am as involved as I am till now.
Having said this, I understand what you are driving at. But do I expect opposition? Of course, I do. The world itself is based on unity and struggle of opposite; that is a fundamental law in dialectical materialism. That is, opposite must struggle before they unite. Then, at unity, there must still be struggle in favour of greater unity. There must be rejection of that which cannot survive. The quantity of people and the quantity of ideas must evolve before quality. It is the quality that now determines performance and achievement.
So, if I am firm in these my beliefs, then the issue of doubts on the possibility of success do not arise. But as I said, conscious of the strength of opposition to whatever is promising; we will not rest until we achieve our goals. It is that desire that is behind our passion, our zeal, our unsparing commitment towards mobilising, galvanising and conscientising our people to see that we have a unique opportunity once again to start our march to greatness.
But some of these desires are issues supposedly in tandem with what the Labour Party-led government in Ondo State is doing, why it does appear you have problems with that party, culminating in your near face-off recently with the representative of that state?
My reference to the Labour Party-led government of Ondo State was in realisation of the fact that the Labour is the only other political party that is presently in power in our region – the South-West.
But even at that, I make bold to say that there are various attempts by us in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to ensure that there is close and spiritual collaboration; for them to join us, but that has not yielded the desired aspiration.
A clear example is the fact that Labour representatives at the National Assembly from our region never indentify with our positions on any issues.
So, if those who are supposed to be our soul mates cannot help in the need for our region to rediscover itself, what do we do? The Labour representatives do not agree with us at the level where we require the strength in number to succeed. So, how could we therefore say that we are one and we can both jointly pursue development agenda? I see it as a contradiction and I so said it.
I was to make some other references when the representative of the Governor of Ondo State flared up and rudely interrupted me. Efforts to calm him down failed. My colleagues tried to approach me and prevailed on me to stop that reference. I went back to my delivery, which I said we must see ourselves as descent people in our nation and therefore struggle to implement the provisions of the DAWN document by, firstly, ensuring that each state in our region has a separate Ministry for Regional Integration.
Secondly, adopting the DAWN document as the working document for development and giving that Ministry of Regional Integration specific assignment to dissect the issues in the document and present it to each of the Ministries or regional agencies of each state to implement.
After that and thirdly, we must get Lagos State to establish regional farmer’s market where agricultural proceeds is fully utilised in our region. And it will be specifically marketed.
However, I excused myself from the podium, I went to pat the representative of the Ondo government and shook hands with him and went back to my seat.
I do not see anything in it that was untoward in my action. But if it was to be so, I expect debate on those issues regarding the attitudes of legislators from Labour in Ondo in agreeing with developmental plans, aspirations and goals of their colleagues from the South-West on fundamentals. It is either this is true or false? If it is proven to be false, I will be the first to accept it.
There are feelings in certain quarters that one of the issues you were referring to when you spoke of Labour Party disagreeing with your political party, the ACN, in the National Assembly was the issue of the ACN throwing its weight behind the emergence of a non-Yoruba Speaker of House of Representatives, Tambuwal, over and above a Yoruba representative. Does this not amount to mere paying lip-service to aspirations of the Yorubas? Why would the Labour Party be party to such?
This is good because you have pointed to the fact that we must educate ourselves properly; failure to do so leads to errors, mistakes and giving room to fraudsters.
First of all, the emergence of Tawbuwal is not completely representation of all the issues at stake; it is just one issue, though critical, at the National Assembly. And when I said National Assembly, I am not talking of only the House of Rep, but including the Upper Chamber, the Senate, as well.
And when I equally said that all issues, one critical matter cannot be the whole. It is one, no doubt it is critical, but there might have been several others anyway. I hope you understand my clarification.
If our people, in their wisdoms, reject a political platform, is it right for us to go behind them to impose that tendency on them? Of course, if we do that, it is fraudulent. It is not even in line with the philosophy of multi-party democracy.
Our people unmistakeably, openly and clearly said PDP must not represent them. This is also clearly declared in Ondo State; there was an unmistakable rejection of PDP. These are issues that must be cleared out.
Any effort to bring PDP back is against the Yoruba political orientation and belief. To those of us who are passionate about this view, it will be a major let down to do something otherwise. And I must remind you that the issue of the PDP locust years starting from 2003 in the South-West, and in the nation from 1999 and the aftermath of that till now still affect on our region.
Can you remember that there was Olubunmi Etteh, as Speaker of the House of Rep. She was to return, even though then they forcibly and illegitimately claimed the mandate of the people? That speakership by the Yoruba person turned out to be nothing as it was just evaporative and we saw it more in form than in the substance. It didn’t translate to any gain for our region.
Etteh was succeeded by Dimeji Bankole, and what was the result? The total degeneration of our all values and this is what led our people to say no to PDP. We would have indeed failed woefully to understand our people. It is a wrong belief that by bringing another PDP is the way to get our people represented; my own political philosophy rejects that interpretation.
The issue is not just representation, but the quality of representation, benefit of the representation, meaning of the representation to the people and their aspirations; be it political, economic, spiritual and other aspects of life.
It is no gain-saying and without fear of being immodest, go and check the opportunities today available for the Yoruba members of the Federal House of Representatives; whether they are comparable with positions the Yoruba representatives had at the time we had Yoruba leadership.
So, it’s a question of strategy. Strategically, our decision does not appear to benefit our race, in terms of symbolic headship and figurehead, but in terms of concrete achievements. Our people are now counting their gains.
It is a thing of joy to me that our leadership is so perspective, strategic and committed to the welfare of our people which indeed is the stated law of politics.
You made mention of other areas where the Labour Party differed with the ACN on Yoruba interest, can you, in specific, share these other areas with us?
I am enjoying seriously the reactions to some of the issues I posed and I would rather want those reactions to keep coming before I raise other ones up. There is this thing of easy forgetfulness on the part of some of us, my friend used to call it selective amnesia or collective amnesia.
We often like to forget critical things when they are convenient to so do for us. We have forgotten that barely one week or two weeks, or not more than 4 weeks after my inauguration, I had cause to fly from Lagos to Akure with the Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
On landing, we headed straight to the Governor’s residence in Akure and we had discussions based on when I told the governor that I would be establishing a Ministry of Regional Integration. And he told me he would call his Commissioner for Special Duties and we easily resolved that desire. That is collaboration; that is unanimity of mind and unity of purpose. Beyond that, what you are noticing is what you are seeing yourself.
As a politician, it is given that I must promote my own political party values, position the party for victory whenever there is a contest for power and that is what I think we are doing in Ondo and several other places where the issue of power is still not yet favourably resolved to the satisfaction of my party and that’s what we have been doing and remains my commitment.
In a multi party democracy, as long as you believe that your party is superior in ideology, you think to promote and support it to thrive hard. This has been my own understanding and there is nothing to it than that.
Your idea seems to have given rise to certain doubts, prompting insinuations that the whole idea of the Yoruba integration is all about enthroning a one-party system in the South-West, especially under the leadership of a particular individual to which you are apparently a friend. What’s your view on this?
Let’s break it down so that we don’t get involved with too much inanity. So many superficial things happen here under which we barely fill into. When we began this, I took you back to the 50s, where the region was a solid political territory under the leadership of far sighted, visionary, able leadership and guidance of Papa Obafemi Awolowo.
Ever since then, the struggle has ensued between those who claim that progress for this region and the people, could only be obtained through affiliation and co-operation with the entire reactionary leaders of the nation; that development could only be gotten in this region by cooperating with the conservatives who just take it as a sobriquet.
That struggle which began then was between that tendency of centralism and those who said, ‘no that we are distinct. We are separate, we have our mission and it is to serve as a flagship to all black people.
‘In the course of doing it, we will encourage all those who sincerely and genuinely believe in human emancipation, economic independence, high productivity, qualitative education, egalitarianism and spirit of work, work and work as the springboard of phenomenal growth.’
Yes, the Awolowo tendency prevailed until the 1959 when he had to go to the Federal House of Representatives in pursuit of the desire to translate his marvellous performance in the Western Region to the entire nation. Of course, the forces against the progress of Nigeria, within and outside, frustrated that and it did not even stop at mere frustration, all instruments of power were used to totally exterminate the tendency of Awolowo.
The consequence of that was the crisis in the West, the military coup, the pogrom in the North, the civil war in the East. And the effort to revamp the process even with Awolowo alive, could not survive for more than four years and three months. If anything at all, the military intervention took us back in our democratic development.
If we want to be honest with ourselves, we were just spreading our feet all over to restart the abandoned journey of our people in 50s, when we were in a region. What we are seeking is the revival of the golden era in our region and in Nigeria. It’s not about any individual.
When you look at development as the sole principal basis of engaging the people, you lost it. So, if we are now saying that the revival of what was is not desirable; and we have not seen where anything to the contrary is, beyond academics and intellectual discourse, where anything to the contrary has worked, I really want to be sure whether there is sincerity in our nation.
Let’s take a cursory look at history, using it as basis of lesson to sharpen our focus. Contemporary, even though by my own estimation that it is not too correct to refer to America, U.K, Japan and other such economically and technologically advanced nations as good model of democracy, but we did not allow their political history to inform our own efforts at bringing a virile and sustainable democratic culture.
And I want to speak on my little knowledge of what had happened during those periods; America had over a hundred years of an uninterrupted rule of the Republican Party; U.K had over one hundred and fifty years unbroken rule of the Tory; Japan had fifty years of unbroken rule of Liberal Democratic Party; you can give so many examples, but let’s just look at these. These are very great nations by any standard, but for them to have obtained a sustainable tradition in politics and economy, there was a need for that foundation to be developed, strengthened and engraved in their various societies.
It’s not absence of other political parties, but demonstration of a particular need and aspiration, contributing a solid multi-party system in its concrete, realistic and meaningful way to the world.
So, when we say progressive platform with clear ideology, we are very much in tune with historical reality. We are talking reality; individuals will come and go. Look, even highly placed individuals will eventually leave the stage. Tinubu is respected and appreciated for his doggedness, his incomparable capacity to sacrifice all, care, for his total loyalty to whoever appears to be a friend; I used the word ‘appears to be a friend’ deliberately and instructively, because Tinubu has suffered the worst form of betrayal than anyone could.
But what you are seeing is beyond him or me, it is about our people, our race, to the extent that it will be totally ridiculous reducing such a fundamental matter to just an individual. How long can a man live? What we are talking about is beyond anybody, it is about our people, our future and our race. If Obafemi Awolowo were to be alive now, he would be 103 years. How much energy would he have? Let us factor this, our discussion so we do not allow ephemerals to becloud our judgment of present, past and the evaluation of the future.
If we do not curtail that habit, we will forever be chasing shadows in our quest for growth and development. That is why the Yoruba people are following the party that represents their desire.
What role do you expect Oodua group of companies to play in the regional integration of the West?
It is an investment holding company and it will go a long way at serving as a nucleus of what we could do in terms of existing industries, but in terms of the goal we are aiming at, it is beyond that holding company. It is the totality of the people and the economy of our region and I will elucidate with some few points to clear this on your mind.
It is a token of the capacity of the people to reproduce themselves and their means of livelihood in a progressive manner, that is the summary for development. It means that mobility is not in anyway constrained. It means acquisition of knowledge is guaranteed and it is not just wishy-washy knowledge that will enable the spirit and enhance the body for production.
It means refining the spiritual wellness of the people. It means cultural reawakening is a total renewal of the people who are desperate in their quest to conquer nature. So much have been said and unless you are totally undisturbed, you may tend to forget all these things.
It is not an accident that we speak the same language as far as Kwara to Ibadan. We do not only speak the same language, we have the same tradition, same culture of marriage, burial, child naming and of relationship. You will agree that we are the same with these basic sociological bases of man.
We must not therefore forget the imperative of that collaboration to ensure that wastage is totally eliminated. When Lagos has a university, running the same programme like other states, what have we all achieved? When we can achieve 10 times the capacity if we combine our forces of all our tertiary institutions under the aegis of a great South-western university with specialisation in special disciplines in areas of knowledge.
For example, Lagos has gained reputation in finance, capital and business management, so why can’t we put a college of that great South-western university that will deal with finance, management and business administration in Lagos?
Knowing well that we have combined all the schools in one, we will have at least 10,000 capacity and any of our children that wants to study in that field of study will be accommodated. Let us assume all the region’s legal institutions are in Ogun, with minimum addition to this, we will have more capacity that will make us the envy of the world and not only Nigeria.
The institution will be so properly serviced with the best of academics. The question of multiplicity and mushrooming will not arise. We have people who are distinguished in their fields who are today looking for where to exhibit their academic prowess.
That in itself is a potential that we are not tapping. The same goes for agriculture. For your information, Lagos consumes 6,000 to 8,000 herds of cattle everyday. At N50 per head, that is 300 million to 400 million per day. Why can’t we tap into this? Lagos is said to have in its market 3.5 billion daily food exchange value. We don’t need to get the whole, 10 per cent is enough for us as a region and that goes a long way in changing the fortune of our people.
These are visible things and it is beyond Oodua. Sport is there, we must have our regional sport. I made mention the last time we were together that for a start let us adopt Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC). What will it cost us to use the shooting star to change the entire Nigerian League? The gain of commonwealth is so much and doesn’t allow for waste.
Charity, they say, begins at home, how far have you been able to domesticate some these ideas in your home state, Osun?
You have to come around and see what is happening. Come visiting and see what we have done. Talk is cheap, and performance is the major and essential measurement of the effectiveness of anybody. We are in Lagos; I want you to come and visit. Come and see what we have done, I will not want to adulate myself, and I will rather appreciate your own personal assessment of our effort.
Be that as it may though, I want to say that since our inauguration, we have done something which, to me, is most significant; we have an ethical revolution that is unparalleled in the history of administration in Nigeria. We have revived a major character value that is today enabling the profile of our people. It’s not as if our people had totally lost it, they have had irresponsible governance, particularly in the last seven and half years.
They are happy that they are coming to a new consciousness, which is so inspiring and is so exciting, it’s joyful. We call ourselves proudly, ‘omoluwabi, the land of the virtuous and our people proudly claim it that we are the virtuous.
It reflects in the way they deal with themselves, they relate with others, carry out their economic activities and engage the environment. To me it’s the most important achievement and I must not fail to say that we have brought back the dignity of labour that is equally again unparalleled. People no longer see menial jobs as undignifying.
People now relate to jobs in terms of its value to the society not in terms of the description of it. After all, someone must do these jobs, anyway.
All these do not preclude the routine things that people will want to see of government; building of roads, hospitals, get water to run and so on, those ones are naturally happening all over the place. We are improving on the environment, we are affecting the security of the people, we are promoting communal peace and harmony and we are reducing to the barest minimum, tension and anxiety of such things that destabilise a society.
We ensure that they are minimal or totally eliminated. It’s a gradual process and we are happy how people relate with us and what they say about us. It is so inspiring; that’s the simplest way to put it.
Are there major challenges that may be impeding success of your administration in the state?
The essential one is finance, but God has given us the means to weather it. We met a huge debt burden, N18.3 billion, we have refinanced it and we are moving on. We have money and we are so well positioned that all the financial institutions want to do business with us. That is the only challenge I have, there is no other one, God has been very kind to me and my administration, if and when any challenge rears its head, the grace of God will eliminate such challenge.
•Culled from THE GUARDIAN Newspaper.
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