By Olawale Rasheed
The embattled National Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC) is economically ignorant and so cannot understand how local content in project implementation, youth agropreneurship and financial inclusion for local businesses create direct and indirect jobs within the state economy.
Bashiru’s warped understanding of job creation is direct employment by the government. No wonder he was part of the failed government of yesterday where he among others misled their leadership to run the state aground. If Bashiru had asked from economists and those who keep statistics of state economic dynamics, if he is not becoming desperate by the mass rejection of his guber candidature, he would have understood that the best way to create jobs and solve state unemployment crisis is not direct employments but the creation of enabling environment and implementation of state policies such as access to financing for business, local content with direct labour focus and implementation of agropreneurs project to develop young entrepreneurs who in turn become employers of labour.
Governor Ademola Adeleke relies on the best of economic advice and therefore created platforms and programmes which opened employment opportunities for the mass of our people. Let us ask Bashiru if he understands the youth agropreneur programme? The programme now ongoing in Osun focuses on creating young businessmen and women in the agriculture sector. Each local government is working on hundreds of acres of land with a mechanization element and of taking programmes, thereby developing the value chain and opening employment and.business opportunities for thousands of young graduates.
Bashiru won’t understand how state digital.economy introduced by Governor Adeleke is creating multiple virtual jobs. He won’t know because the administration of which he was part of denied Osun the benefit of an ICT policy throughout their governance of the state.
Because during his latest time at the state government, their team specializes in exporting Osun jobs, so he won’t understand how local content operates. Across the state, thousands of our people are engaged through the mass construction work currently ongoing in the state. A government that is constructing a minimum of six to seven kilometers of roads per each of the 30 local governments through direct labour directly and indirectly engages thousands of state citizens from artisans to laborers. Osun is a huge construction site with our people directly involved and indirectly included as wages of artisans and laborers serviced local food and service vendors.
A smart government takes records of such direct and indirect creation of jobs through its statistical agency. This is what the Bureau of Statistics in Abuja does and this is what is being done in Osun. Bashiru won’t know because he is embattled and lacks economic understanding.
Small businesses when financially strengthened engage many workers. In fact ,in settled economies , small businesses are relied upon for job creation. Data is subsequently harvested. If you have 100,000 small businesses and they engage at least two staff , you have 200,000 jobs already created. This is what the European and United States economies operate upon. This is what the federal Bureau of Statistics in Abuja is doing and this is what Osun.state government is replicating.
In Osun state, the administration of Governor AAdeleke created 332 ward based cooperatives to serve small businesses. The same government advanced huge funds to the mainstream cooperative which are all over towns and villages. Both modes of cooperative societies service local small businesses which are thriving because of the financial lifeline from the state government. Data harvested from the field confirms expanded hiring by small businesses across the state.
Again, we won’t blame Bashiru. Oyebamji or Alabi may understand the above context better if they are also not blinded by their elusive political ambitions. At least, they are not economically illiterate like the Osogbo rabble rouser.
The reality is that the Adeleke administration has a clear understanding of economic, social and political policies. Let us ask Bashiru if he understands why the Adeleke administration places workers’ welfare as the number one priority? He won’t know. Let us help him. Osun economy depends on the formal sector for it to thrive. So when Bashiru, Oyebamiji and Alabi stifled the public service, they indirectly killed the informal local economy.
Governor Adeleke on assumption of office revived the state informal sector from death by nurturing the formal sector, the public service. The billions of naira pumped into workers’ welfare service, the informal economy, the market system, the transport sector, the service sector. That is partly why real estate is growing in Osun among others. By boosting the informal sector , Governor Adeleke retained existing informal workers and even expanded the capacity of local businesses to hire more hands.
When Mr Governor made an assertion on job creation, he spoke from data driven records and a sharp understanding of interplay of economic forces when it comes to job creation.
We hope Mr Bashiru has accepted to be the campaign manager of the NIWA boss who is struggling to maintain waterway safety since his appointment.
