Osun state, according to census record, is projected to have a population in excess of five (5) million. Out of this number, young people is believed to constitute at least 55 percent, highlighting the increasing needs for opportunities that will most certainly prevails in Osun state.
It’s an open fact that formal engagement will be insufficient to fill the gap even if the pedestrian sentiment of Ajibola Basiru, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is to be entertained. This makes the informal sector a suitable platform to leverage to unlock opportunities through the implementation of thoughtful government policies and interventions.
This is a time-tested approach in the many advanced countries, some of which Basiru may have visited as a result of political offices he held in Osun at different times and otherwise. In the United States of America (USA), for instance, the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), provides a monthly overview on the country’s employment statistics, using data sourced from businesses and government agencies as a basis for determining the number of jobs created in a month.
In the BLS report released on Friday, as it is the practice to do so every first Friday in the corresponding month, jobs created in the US economy in January is as much as 143,000, with most of these jobs coming from businesses and not directly from the government. Aside this, anyone on the payroll of a surveyed business during a referenced week, including part-time workers and those on paid leave, are considered in the employment data in America.
It is therefore embarrassingly low for a supposed leader and someone aspiring to administer Osun state to hold the ludicrous opinion that only those on the payroll of the government can be considered as the employed and should only reflect in government claim on job creation. Even the National Bureau of Statistics, an agency under Basiru’s APC-led government, had in 2023 introduced a new methodology to capture employment statistics of the country.
According to the NBS, employment will be measured by not just people on government payroll, but people who “have worked for at least 20 hours per week”, bringing in people in the informal sector or who are only able to find part-time work to the category of those in employment. This clear position effectively counter Basiru’s mischief in the unintelligent query of Governor Ademola Adeleke position on job creation.
Governor Adeleke did not claim he had employed 250,000 people into the state’s payroll because Osun doesn’t even have the resources to cater for such expansive labour force. What he said in essence was that he was able, through policies, interventions and developmental projects going on across the state, provided a means for livelihood for at least 250,000 residents indirectly in the space of two years of his administration.
This should not be hard to comprehend as the facts speak for themselves. Prior to the assumption of office of Governor Adeleke, Osun economy was on the throttle of death as capital flights and poor attitude to the welfare of pensioners and workers, which was a common feature under the APC, significantly impact the flow of money in the economy, putting businesses on the edge and incapable of expanding to generate jobs.
In two years, Governor Adeleke infrastructural strides with a strong emphasis on local contents, has not only put a lot of people in Osun state to work, but also stimulated local businesses that has enable them to engage more hands to handle the increased patronage. Pensioners deprived of their benefits for years are getting attended to by Governor Adeleke and they are inturn investing their benefits s in ventures that are putting many young people to work.
Even more, the Adeleke administration revived the cooperative societies in the state that the APC’s maladministration left to die due to negligence, providing small-scale businesses in the state with much needed capitals to expand businesses and create jobs in the processes. And, only recently, Governor Adeleke launched the Imole Agropreneur– a structured scheme that aims to explore the potential of the state’s agriculture to provide a platform to create wealth and gainfully engage young people.
Someone like Basiru may find it hard to grasp the ripple effect of some of this interventions in job creation because he was abysmally ineffective in the various positions entrusted on him in the past. As a Commissioner for two terms, Basiru scored low in making any meaningful impact on the people, even from Osogbo, where he comes from. And as a Senator, his only notable achievement throughout his four years was the installation of substandard solar streetlights, most of which are no longer functional.
This explains the dilemma of Basiru in using his past service record to canvass support for governorship aspiration, hence, the resort to lies and innuendos against Governor Adeleke and twisting positions on governance to launch himself back to public reckoning after exhausting the trust reposed in him in the past. But Osun people are smarter and can see through his manipulative tendency and conjured narratives to create a false sense about the Adeleke administration.
What characterised Basiru’s public service trajectory was the belief in self-aggrandisement, gerontocracy, exerting enduring pains on the people, willful deceit, and all that would reinforce and consolidate the misery of the people just to satisfy the privilege few. What this implies, in essence, is that Basiru is basically not about the people, and will definitely weave up all sort of things just to discredit a government that has shown to be about progress and benefits of the people.
Governor Adeleke could not have sacked people yet to be properly enrolled on the payroll of the state, and Basiru, having serve in the state in the past, knows this fact very well, but only choose the path of dishonourable lies. Basiru should keep his opinion on governance to himself because the last time such was entertained from him as a member of the state’s cabinet, Osun was almost plunged into the abyss, battling so hard to escape the consequences of the financial recklessness that characterised that time up till this moment.
•Sarafa Ibrahim is a Special Assistant to the Osun State Governor and writes from Osogbo, Osun state.
