For Osun, Ogunbiyi promises a better deal

Since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, Osun State political landscape has been dominated by two major political parties. These mainstream parties have jointly decided the state’s democratic fate in the 23 years of uninterrupted democratic rule in Nigeria. Subsequently, while Nigeria celebrates her longest democratic dispensation, the people of Osun State seem to have been fated to endure plummeting leaderships from the dominant political parties.

Even though, some of these political parties have formed a coalition and emerged with a new nomenclature during elections, their grandstands is best described as same old distasteful wine in a new bottle.

Osun State began its journey to democracy with high hopes upon return to civil rule in the country in 1999. His Excellency, Adebisi Akande became the first democratically elected governor of the state in May 29, 1999 on the platform of the Action for Democracy (AD) and held sway until May 2003 when Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola took over on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Then came Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the incumbent governor Gboyega Oyetola, both have governed the state for 12 years on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC).

It is instructive to state that in spite of their differential personal and party ideologies, successive governments in the state have all contributed meaningfully to the well being of Osun State. Without sounding immodest however, every indices of human and societal development show that the state has not faired really well under their careless watch.

Meanwhile, the July 2022 gubernatorial election in the state gives the people yet another opportunity to decide whether to continue with motions without movement or go the paths of shared prosperity, which Akinade Ogunbiyi is set to lead. This years election will decide whether the people will elect the same political parties that have mismanaged the state’s economy for the past 23 years or give Accord party an opportunity to give the state a fresh breathe of transformation. This should be the overriding questions that electorate in the state must answer, as they go to the polls in July.

While the electorate thinker about the above questions, they should be confident in Ogunbiyi, a man whose love and passion for his people has been his sole motivation to contest in the coming election, a consummate industrialist and an unassuming scholar whose business and academic pedigrees cut across the continents of the world. With these fantastic exploits, Ogunbiyi remains the right man for the job. At a time that the country’s economy is still grappling with untold economic downturns occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Osun State like every other states across the country needs her best products to oversee the state’s economy. As a sterling economist with local and international repute, Ogunbiyi remains the best choice to lead the state at this critical time.

Famed for his ingenuity in jobs creation especially in the agro-allied industry, Ogunbiyi will painstakingly harness the agricultural resources of the state to ensure food security and job creation for the sons and daughters of Osun State. He believes that the cocoa produce in the state, if carefully managed can sustain the economy of the state. Time and again, Ogunbiyi has assertively declared that the state economy will largely depend on agriculture where it has comparative advantage.

He has continuously argued that the state’s reliance on the monthly stipends from the crude oil exchange is like sitting on a time bomb that will eventually explode with time. It is purely laziness to run down to Abuja every month to scramble over the paltry funds from crude oil exchange, which are never enough when there are a lot of economic opportunities around the state that can buoyantly sustain the state’s economy. It takes only a visionary leader to identify these opportunities and Ogunbiyi has found them in the state’s agricultural sector, the tourism industry and in the human capital development.

An elder statesman and former head of service of the state, Elder Segun Akinwunsi has this to say about Ogunbiyi: “Ogunbiyi clearly is not contesting because of the glamour of the office or to make money. He is in the race to bring to light the long awaited difference in the lives of our people.”

The comment by the elder statesman clearly distinguishes Ogunbiyi as an imperative and a panacea to the myriads of challenges bedeviling the home of culture. I believe Akinade Ogunbiyi is the long awaited saviour, I just hope time and the Osun citizenry proves me right.
Igbayilola wrote this piece and sent it from Oshogbo