Will the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola accept to run for Presidency come 2023? That is the big question many political analyst are asking now as the game hots up.
City People can authoritatively reveal that for quite a while now the former Osun Governor has been under intense pressure to think of coming out to run for office, but insiders say he can’t take such a decision without the blessing of his political leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who is generally believed to also be interested in the Presidency.
According to insiders, if Asiwaju decides not to run he would mostly likely back Aregbesola who is No 2 to him in hierarchy within their political camp. There are those who say that Asiwaju might still run despite the perceived hostility to his candidacy from the core North, who are afraid of Tinubu’s intimidating profile. But if he bows to pressure not to run, but backs a strong candidate Aregbesola might just be the candidate he would support. We have it on good authority that the North seems to prefer an Aregbesola who is a Muslim & a more acceptable Yoruba candidate.
The fact that the North supported President Buhari’s choice to make him Interior Minister last year was a pointer to this, because that portfolio has always been the exclusive preserve of the North.
Whether the decision to make him Interior Minister last year came from Asiwaju or was as a result of Asiwaju’s influence is not immediately clear.
But the comment Aregbesola made then that he does not know what his new job entailed showed that the portfolio came to him as a surprise because if he had been briefed he wouldn’t have made such an utterance.
One thing Aregbesola also has going for him is his excellent performance so far in office as Minister of Interior. He has spent a year. Many observers believe that Aregbesola has in the last one year performed creditably well as Interior Minister.
A recent Premium Times report showed that Ministry of Interior seems to be taking a turn for the better with various developmental policies introduced by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration beginning to yield good fruits.
Some of these policies came into being a year ago when Pres. Buhari constituted his second term cabinet and deployed Rauf Aregbesola to head the ministry.
The ministry has supervisory control over the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Federal Fire Service ( FFS) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
Mr. Aregbesola, a former governor of Osun State, took over the reins of power from Abdurahman Dambazau, who was not reappointed by the President.
He has scored high in the improvement in Staff Welfare:
On assumption of duty, Aregbesola promised to make life better for the staff in the ministry and the agencies under the ministry.
To the minister, equipping staff and giving them relevant training will motivate them to be efficient and productive.
He said staff welfare would be a top priority of his and that he would make a strong case for training, equipping and motivating the personnel, emphasising that a well motivated personnel will deliver well on the job
Aregbesola also promised to restore the confidence of the international community where business partnership will be established among Nigeria and other countries.
He also said his ministry would restore the confidence of the global community in doing business with Nigeria by enhancing the ease of doing business.
He promised to tackle the rising wave of general insecurity in the country, Aregbesola promised to ensure that national peace and stability is attained, although he did not specifically state how he would achieve such. .
As per the Nigerian Correctional Centres formerly called Nigerian Prison Service, Aregbesola said he would restore sanity and hygiene in the correctional service centres for the inmates.
Mr Aregbesola said that the dignity of the inmates must be well respected and that they must be free from any form of abuse & negative influence.
Also, the minister said the inmates ‘must have peace of mind by ensuring that the environment of the correctional centres remains a conducive atmosphere for them to reflect on their past life and make the transition to a new life easy for them.
Another major activity was the ministry’s decision to decongest the correctional centres in the last one year. So far, the de-congestion policy only occurred in some states in the country with 9071 inmates regaining their freedom in the last one year.
In the same vein, 870 inmates were able to continue their educational courses. Virtual learning center was opened in Kaduna State and pharmaceutical drugs distributed across the correctional centres in the country.
There is also the New Visa Policy in place which is the Nigerian Visa Policy (NVP) 2020 launched by Pres. Buhari.
The new Visa Policy now has 75 categories which include Religious Visa, Sport Visa, Entertainment Visa, several others which were not part of the old visa policy.
What will help Aregbe is the fact that Aregbesola is a Muslim born into a family of both Muslims and Christians. He had his primary and secondary education in Ondo State. He later attended The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where he studied Mechanical Engineering and graduated in 1980
Aregbesola’s interest and involvement in Politics dates back to his undergraduate days when he was Speaker of the Students’ Parliament (1977–1978) at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, and the President of the Black Nationalist Movement (1978–1980). He was also an active supporter of other progressive students’ movements nationwide, which earned him, for instance, a life membership in the National Association of Technological Students. In June 1990, he became an elected delegate to the Social Democratic Party Inaugural Local Government Area Congress. In July of the same year, he was also a delegate to its first National Convention in Abuja. Aregbesola, as a pro-democracy and human rights activist, was a major participant in the demilitarization and pro-democracy struggles of the 1990s in Nigeria.
Upon the return of the country to democratic rule in 1999, he was a ranking member of the Alliance for Democracy, led by Senator Bola Tinubu, who would go on to become governor of Lagos State in the same year. Aregbesola was Director of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organisation (BATCO), who drove the electoral victory of Bola Tinubu in 1999, and he performed a similar feat with the platform of the Independent Campaign Group, with which he ensured the re-election of Tinubu for a second term in office.
Upon Tinubu’s inauguration as governor, Aregbesola was appointed Commissioner of Works and Infrastructure, which included supervision of the Public Works Corporation and the State Electricity Board He not only oversaw a large investment in road infrastructure in the state, but also birthed the master plan that has served as a basis for the infrastructural development and expansion observed in Lagos even after Tinubu’s 2 terms in office.
Following Tinubu’s tenure as governor of Lagos State, Aregbesola ran on the platform of the then Action Congress (AC) for the Governorship of Osun State in the April 2007 elections.
Aregbesola had to withstand several attempts by the incumbent state government to cut short his ambition, from the failed attempt to abort the launch of Oranmiyan, the campaign organisation of Aregbesola, which was fixed for Oshogbo Stadium until the state government deployed force to stop the event.
On 16 May 2005, a major financier of Aregbesola’s campaign, Alhaji Sulaimon Hassan-Olajoku, was assassinated at Gbongan Junction after attending a series of political events to mobilise support of Aregbesola. Aregbesola also narrowly escaped assassination plots in Ilesha in 2005 and on Osogbo Oroki Day in 2006
After incumbent Olagunsoye Oyinlola was declared winner of the 14 April 2007 elections, Aregbesola immediately proceeded to the courts to overturn this outcome.
The court unanimously nullified the election results of the 10 local governments pleaded for by Aregbesola and set aside the judgement of a lower tribunal which had confirmed the election of Oyinlola, after the deductions of the cancelled votes had left Oyinlola with 172,880 votes and Aregbesola with 198,799, thereby returning Aregbesola as the duly elected governor of the state, three years after the elections.
In his first term (2010-2014) as governor of the state, Argebesola outlined his goals for the state: banish poverty, banish hunger, banish unemployment, restore healthy living, promote functional education and enhance communal peace and progress. Aregbesola actively pursued all action points of this plan in his first 4 years in office. For instance, he introduced an initiative for the creation of 20,000 jobs for youths in his first 100 days, which he achieved through the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (O-YES).
Other initiatives he introduced in his first term included the Osun School Infrastructure Development Project, which involved the construction of about 170 new schools, the Osun mid-regional market (O-HUB), the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agriculture Programme (O-REAP), the Osun Elementary School Feeding Programme (O-MEAL), Osun Tourism (O-TOURS), and the Osun Special Ambulance Scheme (O-AMBULANCE), along with investments in roads and bridges.
Aregbesola did these while championing the cause of equality among all religions to promote peace among communities. Aregbesola introduced Isese Day as a public holiday for traditional worshipers to celebrate like the Christians and Muslims in the state have always done, and also adopted the title of “Ogbeni” (Mister), while also branding the state’s citizens as “Omoluabi”.
In the 2014 election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which controlled the federal government, sought to win the governorship to secure a stronger base in the south-west for the general elections to be held in 2015. National forces were therefore deployed in a plot to intimidate voters and reduce votes, but despite several arrests of his key associates, Aregbesola defeated the PDP’s candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore.
Upon re-election, Aregbesola consolidated his achievements in his first term.
Two months after he was sworn in, Aregbesola organized an Educational summit to chart a new way forward in the educational sector in Osun. The summit, chaired by Prof. Wole Soyinka, centered around the primary and secondary levels based on the belief that basic education is of paramount importance. Stakeholders at the summit resolved to a number of reforms that the Aregbesola administration implemented. This included changing the education structure from the primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary format to the elementary, middle school, and high school format as the best way to deliver education to school children, as well as designing effective monitoring and control of the process.
The state government then built new structures to benefit student learning. Across the state, a plan was drawn up to rebuild many schools, while tripling the capacity of each school and increasing the facilities therein. A number of those schools have now been commissioned and, in September 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari went to the state capital to personally commission the Osogbo Government High School, while showering encomiums on Aregbesola.
The Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (O-MEALS) was launched in the state under Aregbesola to provide free daily meals in school to students, in a move to encourage school enrollment. Osun won several endorsements from the World Bank and other world bodies, with the House of Commons in the United Kingdom also inviting Aregbesola to address it on the impact of the programme on child health and education. Also, the United States Ambassador paid a visit to Osun in June 2017, where he praised Aregbesola for his implementation of social investment programmes. The O-MEALS programme feeds about 252,000 elementary school pupils daily and helped increase school attendance by 25% within 6 months of its commencement. In addition, the scheme engages 3000 women community caterers and thousands of smallholder farmers. Today, O-MEALS is being used as the template for the current National Government’s Home-grown School Feeding Scheme. The state government also oversaw the standardisation of the school uniforms to create a unique identity for its students, promote its culture and stimulate the local economy. The implementation of the O-Uniform scheme led to the building of the largest garment factory in West Africa in Osogbo, Osun, where the uniforms are made and shared to students around the state.
Aregbesola continued to invest in Education throughout his tenure. The investments in education have started yielding results, as private proprietors have begun to comment on the loss of students to the public schools, which are now of increased capacity.
The Aregebsola administration rehabilitated and completed many states roads. His administration partnered with local governments to deliver many council roads across the 31 local governments. The administration also pioneered solutions in community-based rural road maintenance through the Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP 2) in partnership with the World Bank and French Development Agency.
Investments and production was on the rise in Osun during his tenure. In 2009, International Breweries Plc, Ilesa, known for its Trophy brand, doubled its production capacity to cater for the boost in the local economy. Tuns Farms, an indigenous poultry company, in partnership with small holder farmers, ramped up broiler production to position the state as the second largest broiler producer in the country. Omoluabi Garment Factory, a PPP between Sam and Sara Garments and the State, emerged as the largest garment factory in West Africa. An indigenous computer assembly plant, RLG Adulawo, also set up shop in Osun as a result of the favourable infrastructures in the State.
In 2015, The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative rated Osun second highest on its Human Development Index among the 36 states in Nigeria. In 2014, Rennaissence Capital ranked Osun as the 7th largest economy in Nigeria, while in 2017 the NBS rated Osun as the state with the lowest poverty rate in Nigeria. In Osogbo, there was a renovation of the Nigeria Railway Station terminus and urban renewal of the city center towards Olaiya junction and the building and repair of roads.
As for his principles, he supports Fiscal Federalism for Nigeria and Regional Integration as a means of attaining sustainable economic development and national competitiveness.
Aregbesola has supported the development of human values through extracurricular programmes, such as calisthenics, the Omoluabi Boys and Girls Club, and other schemes for youths to channel their energies towards a society that promotes the common good.
In Yorubaland, Olu-iwa is regarded as the custodian of good character. The concept of Omoluabi was derived from Olu-iwa. It was Omo ti Olu-iwa bi (the child of Olu-iwa), which was shortened to Omoluwabi and later Omoluabi. In Yorubaland, an Omoluabi is someone who is of impeccable character. Simply put; Omoluabi is the word in the Yoruba language that describes an individual, male or female, young or old that possesses the following qualities: hard work, honesty, integrity, fairness, and egalitarianism, respect for elders and constituted authority; and fear of God among other virtues.
When Aregbesola decided to embark on a rebranding of Osun State shortly after his inauguration, he did so by naming the citizens of the state “Omoluabi”, and driving a strong campaign about the values that make an Omoluabi in what was a rallying call to citizens to embrace such values. His contributions were recognized when, in 2016, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, a revered Yoruba traditional leader, named Aregbesola as the ‘Omoluabi of Yorubaland’ for being at the forefront of projecting the Omoluabi ethos.
Aregbesola has remained within the same political group even as it went through several mergers, first changing to the AC, then the ACN and the APC, which would later become the federal ruling party in the country.
When Aregbesola decided in 2005 to run for governor, a political support movement was instituted named Oranmiyan, after the son of Odudunwa, regarded as the founder of the Yoruba race. The Oranmiyan group was led by Prince Felix Awofisayo since its inception in 2005, and was a major force in ensuring the success of Aregbesola in 2007. The group has since evolved by entering into mergers to become a worldwide group called Oranmiyan Worldwide.
