Oyo Govt Confers Obaship On 21 As Coronation Holds Sunday.

The Oyo State Government on Friday issued letters of conferment of Obaship on 21 chiefs in Ibadan, just as it announced that their coronation will hold on Sunday, August 27, 2017, at Mapo Hall, Ibadan.

Oyo To Establish 13.5 Hectares Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market. Endorses PERA

The Oyo State Government on Thursday disclosed that it has approved 13.579 Hectares of land for the establishment of Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market in Iseyin area of the state, saying that the foundation will be laid during the 2017 Aso Ofi Festival coming up on September 16, 2017.

The State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Toye Arulogun made this disclosure during a Ministerial briefing on the 2^ndedition of Aso Ofi Festival and PaceSetter Entertainment and Recognition Award (PERA) of the Ministry held at Film Theatre Unit, Ibadan.

Arulogun stated that Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market will contain 500 weaving sheds/workshops, 500 exhibition shops, a warehouse, 1st indigenous textile museum in Nigeria, a fire station, a clinic and a police station, adding that the state is determined to fully reap maximally from the economic potentials of Aso-Ofi.

The Commissioner explained that Aso-Ofi festival was conceptualized to showcase and celebrate our locally made fabric that is now an internationally accepted brand saying “the celebration opened our eyes wider to the potentials that abound which include trade and commercial activities, employment and job creation.  Financial institutions have also been having serious and genuine engagements with the weavers and marketers while export opportunities are also being exploited.”

Arulogu noted that the 2017 Aso-Ofi Festival is expected to attract Iseyin sons and daughters at home and in diaspora, as well as national and international tourists and traders, adding that the programme is slated for Friday, 15th and Saturday, 16th September, 2017 during which the Foundation laying ceremony will be performed at the grand finale on Saturday, 16th September, 2017 at the proposed site of Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market in Iseyin by Governor Abiola Ajimobi.  

He said that the highlights of the two day event include Rally/Carnival round the city of Iseyin, Aso-Ofi Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Aso-Ofi Weaving Competition, Colloquium, Musical Concerts,  Parade by the 4 zones of the Iseyin Weavers and Marketers Association and other stakeholders, Cultural Performance, Awards presentation, Aso-Ofi fashion show Foundation laying of Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market, stating that the programme will be held at the Proposed site of Aso-Ofi International Tourism Market, Iseyin.

Arulogun said “Oyo State Government through this Ministry currently operates an IPPP policy.  This is IDENTIFY, PACKAGE, PROMOTE and PARTNER.  We created a data base of all the cultural tourism potentials in the State; package them by making them more attractive.  The next step is to promote them by creating awareness about their existence and because of the paucity of funds and the new direction in international tourism, the state must partner with the private sector and individuals to sustain our cultural tourism. We are now in the process of shortlisting companies for the Public Private Partnership engagement of our major cultural tourism sites.”

Speaking on the PERA, Arulogun said that the state government recognizes the role and importance of the creative and entertainment sectors in the economy of the state, saying that this necessitated the endorsement of the Pacesetter Entertainment and Recognitions Award (PERA) which has Nollywood Actress and an Oyo State indigene, Bimbo Akintola as Ambassador.

In his address, the Chairman Organising Committee of PERA, Mr. Rotimi Martins, popularly called Alariwo of Africa, said that PERA promises to be the largest coming together of Oyo State biggest and brightest entertainment and business stakeholders, disclosing that 35 outstanding indigenes of the state would be honoured.

Martins explained that the voting process for the award will run from October 1 to November 15, 2017 to allow adequate collation of votes and final selection of the peoples’ choice, adding that the award night has been slated for December 3^rd, 2017 at Jogor Centre, Ibadan with the theme:  Celebrating Excellence and Achievement in Oyo State.  

In his own remarks, the Chairman of Aso Ofi festival local Planning Committee, Mr. Adewuyi Kazeem said that they want international recognition for Aso Ofi all over the world and consequently commended the Oyo State Government for supporting the Aso Ofi weavers.     

The Shape Of The 2019 Presidential Election As Captured By Dele Momodu In Pendulum.

Fellow Nigerians, let me do a recap of my last column for the benefit of those who might have missed that important forecast of who and what may determine our next President. I will try to predict the principles that would guide how people are likely to vote in that election. Some names have surfaced as potential aspirants and candidates for this all important election that will likely determine what lessons we have learnt and what the medium term future portends for our great country.

WAEC Results: Of Awo’s Mud Classrooms And Govs’ Model Greed-Festus Adedayo

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) recently released its 2016 results. Over the years, they have remained a major index of assessing states’ performance in education, barring societal ills like fixing of results, hiring pliable invigilators and allied ills. While Abia led with 81.54 per cent, Rivers, Edo, Imo and Bayelsa followed with 78.59, 77.41, 76.46, 74.38 per cents respectively among candidates who passed five subjects in the examination, including English and Mathematics. Anambra, which came sixth, had 71.83 per cent. Instructively, the South West suffered a huge fatality in the results. Apart from Ondo, Lagos and Ekiti which emerged in the seventh, ninth and fourteenth positions respectively, five northern states which included the insurgency-ravaged Borno, outperformed Ogun and Osun states, which had 53.24 and 46.77 per cents respectively while Oyo State scored a dismal 36.69 per cent, placing 29th position and adjudged least of the South West states.

This columnist listened to a commissioner of education in one of the states which performed woefully in the results and later some online wayfarers, in defence of the state, asking that it should be judged by increment in the number of students who passed same examination from 1999 till date. While 2,389 students passed WAEC exam in 1999 in the state, they said, 17,051 did in 2015. This poor logic is easily defeated when you tell them that enrolment figures too have more than quadrupled within the same intervening period in virtually all the 36 states of Nigeria.

What went wrong? Why are South East states that were over the years profiled as dominated by a culture of commerce, rather than education, on the ascendancy in WAEC results, while South West, where Chief Obafemi Awolowo bemused Nigeria with his huge strides in education, is sinking in the ranking? Why did many of the Northern states, otherwise known as home to a legion of homeless youth, outperform states thought to possess Awo’s education DNA?

The answer is not far-fetched. Many of today’s governors are so fixated on the illicit wealth they can make from office, so much that the idea of leaving legacies is to them hogwash. It is unfortunate that we need to continue to make Awolowo, who 65 years ago, administered a Region which today approximates nine states, a model of analysis. By 1952, even before the Universal Primary Education (UPE) began, Awo had come up with its blueprint. Confronted by a #10m estimate for both the UPE and the free health program, even when the projected 1954 expenditure stood at #5m, Awo first cut capital costs on school buildings and cancelled housing subsidy for civil servants. He opted for mud blocks in place of pre-fabricated block cement classrooms and budgeted capital tumbled down by 70 per cent. His critics said he was opting for ‘substandard’ buildings but by 1955 when the scheme started, 400,000 pupils turned up, contrary to his projected 175,000. Assured that the quality of teachers held the ace rather than cozy classrooms, in 1956, Awo established many Grade 3 Teacher Training Colleges and trained, between 1955 and 1958, 11,000 teachers.

Many states with those shameful WAEC results are manned by governors who are captives of the fad of gigantic classroom structures, at the detriment of training teachers. Some of them invest in neither of the two, preferring the infectious obsession with stacking billions of naira on infrastructure. The results are scores of unnecessary dualised roads and humongous bridges from where substantial billions of naira kick-backs are funnelled into governors’ ghost foreign accounts. In South West today, the rotten cake of education that is kissing the canvass is decorated with glamorous icings of roads/overhead bridges that are at best white elephant.

Whatever you may have against Adams Oshiomhole who, at some point insisted on training the trainers and disgraced a teacher who could hardly spell her name, he focused on mental outputs of teachers rather than the glitz of structures. Today, Edo came third on the ranking. Peter Obi did same in Anambra. He stabilised Basic Education with a singular and courageous handing over of schools to missions. He gave the schools N6billion operating grants, donated buses, laboratory equipment, transformers and power generators, dispensary consumables, sports gears, computers and other ICT tools. Indeed, his model was adjudged the best in improved school infrastructure in Nigeria and a World Bank study headed by Professor Paul Collier of Oxford University, recommended his model for Africa and other developing countries. Today, Anambra has consistently ranked top six in WAEC.

In 2013, this columnist was on an entourage to Rotimi Amaechi’s Rivers. We were stupefied. While structures of primary and secondary schools equalled private universities’ in the West, Amaechi hired Indian and Pakistani teachers. Primary school pupils had computers, well-equipped clinics and stand-by generators. The commissioner of education of the entourage state momentarily became a photographer, snapping shots of the earthly wonders of Rivers. The man who led the entourage confessed: calling him governor where Amaechi was, was a lexical cruelty. Rivers’ state-of-the-art Bombadier which ferried the entourage was the lesson of Rivers he learnt. A friend who lived in Rivers then said it was senseless enrolling one’s wards in Rivers’ private schools; public schools were better. A week after, an adviser in the entourage state who beheld Amaechi’s wonders resigned, saying he didn’t want to be part of his state’s impending calamity. We all agreed that if the visiting state could score 1% of Amaechi’s feat in education, it would be a hero in the west. Today, Rivers is second on WAEC’s tally.

Bola Ige wanted to incubate students who would be the best in Nigeria. His government spent hugely on books, uniforms, training and re-training of teachers.

This writer is one of the proud products of that experiment. Lateef Jakande did same in Lagos and the results were outstanding. On the contrary, a governor in one of the South West states is so obsessed with structures that he demolishes old school structures, changes old school names and erects in their stead humongous classrooms that almost stand shoulder to shoulder with Sheraton Hotel. Less than 40% of the hotel rooms, sorry classes, are occupied by students whose morale are nil and teachers who haven’t been paid in months. His commissars superintend over a central school garments factory like Lenin’s USSR and they both smile to their banks with kick-backs from their humongous structures and earnings from exploitation of pupils. Can anyone be shocked that such a state towers from behind on WAEC’s score sheets?

The problem is, most governors are fixated on the billions in heists they can axe off their states and coast home with at the end of their tenure, rather than the prospect of garlands of brilliant students to be recorded in their names like Awolowo. Ask them how many teachers they have trained in the years of their tenure and instructional facilities they provided for schools and they will draw blank. The truth is, they cannot make billions of naira kick-backs from education as they do in roads and bridges. If a state hasn’t paid teachers six, seven months salaries, how can it expect them to bend over backwards to teach? If the state helmsmen thump their chests that they are making Hussain Bolt’s strides in education, ask them how many of their children attend the schools? None! When Awolowo was building those mud classrooms, his children attended them, just like children of cocoa farmers. How can you offer me what you call your best meal when you and your family see same as poisonous? Until we de-radicalize South West governors of their destructive thirst for so-called infrastructure at the expense of education and mis-belief that structure is education, the region will continue to disgrace in national education ranking.

Oyo Govt Puts N25m Fine On Illegal Building Conversion. To Demolish 1000 Flood Prone Structures.

Oyo State Government has said that illegal conversion of residential buildings for commercial purposes will now attract N25m fine, disclosing that over 1000 illegal structures in flood prone areas will be demolished.

Ekiti Assembly Crisis: Hon. Aribisogan Writes Speaker Over Media Attack Plans On Olujimi's Person.

Minority Leader in Ekiti House of Assembly and the honourable representing Ikole-Ekiti Constituency 1, Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan has written an open letter to the Speaker of the House, Hon. Kola Oluwawole, over plans of the honourables loyal to Governor Fayose to attack the person of Senator Abiodun Olukimi.

120,000 Oyo Residents Benefits From FG Social Investment Program. As FG Sets Aside N1.6b For Women.

The Oyo State Government on Monday disclosed that 120,573 people from the state have benefitted from the Federal Government Social Investment programme just as the Federal Government through the Minster of Women Affairs and Social Development announced the setting aside a special exclusive fund of N1.6billion for women across the country in a scheme known as the National Women Empowerment Fund (NAWEF).

Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari Speaks After Returning From Medical Leave.

President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Arm Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has spoken after returning from 1O4 days medical leave in the United Kingdom.

Ajimobi launches N120k Home Owners Charter, Electronic C of O …Partners NIESV On House Enumeration.

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State at the weekend launched the Homeowners Charter policy designed to enable home owners in the state to regularize their land documents, saying that it is one of the measures being put in place the government to lessen the pains of the current economic downturn.

The governor also announced that the State Government is changing from the current use of the paper-based Certificate of Occupancy to 'e-C of O', the Electronic Certificate of Occupancy with security features to make it a lot more copy proof.

Governor Ajimobi, who made these disclosures at the official Flag off ceremony of the Enumeration and Assessment of properties in the State at the Housing Corporation Ibadan, explained that the scheme is created to enable home owners in Oyo State who currently have no title documents like Survey and Building plans to obtain titles with great ease and at very affordable rates of N120,000.00, assuring that every measure has been put in place to ensure the scheme is transparent and devoid of unnecessary bottlenecks.

According to the governor, “This is one of the measures being put in place by our government not only to lessen the pains of the current economic downturn on our people but to empower them for greater economic possibilities. Also, Oyo State Government is changing from the current use of the paper-based Certificate of Occupancy to 'e-C of O', the electronic Certificate of Occupancy with features to make it a lot more secure and copy proof.

“The electronic C of O will contain the following elements: a scanned photograph of the Owner printed on a copy-proof security paper; an encrypted and enhanced 2D bar code that is unique to the owner; an additional embedded security characteristic containing vital security information that can only be viewed with an enabled barcode reader that is unique to the Owner only; and​ a distinctive Certificate of Occupancy number that will be very legible for all to see,” the governor stressed.

Governor Ajimobi appealed to the people across the State, especially property owners, to please cooperate with members of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Oyo State Chapter, who will handle the enumeration and assessment exercise, noting that the essence of the enumeration is to generate data that will aid sustainable developmental objectives in the state.

“Without a dependable data base, neither significant nor sustainable developmental objectives can be achieved. However,   in order to generate, categorise and databank these critical information, the State Government decided to engage the services and collaboration of the Oyo State chapter of The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV).  Our decision to appoint and work with this Institution as Consultants for this very important assignment is a further testimony of this Administration's recognition of the role of professional bodies as able stakeholders in the daunting task of returning our dear state to its traditional and enviable position of the pacesetter.” Governor Ajimobi added.

In his address, the State Commissioner for Land, Housing and Survey, Mr. Ajiboye Omodewu said that the enumeration of properties became necessary for effective planning and determination for the provision of infrastructures like water, health centres, police posts, roads among others, appealing to the people of the state to cooperate with the state government to achieve the desired objectives of the exercise.

In his goodwill message, State Chairman of NIESV, Mr. Adegboyega Quadri appreciated the state government for establishing a record in the annals of the state by engaging professional for the enumeration exercise, pledging that the Institute will discharge its responsibilities effectively and efficiently.

He noted that the exercise will encourage spatial spread of residential areas as well as being used to challenge census figures and resolve housing deficits, urging that other professional bodies should enjoy patronage from the government.  

Exclusive!!! All You Need To Know About Late Veteran Actor, Pa Adebayo Faleti. .His Last 80th Birthday Interview.

The Broadcast Industry, Movie Industry and the society generally was thrown into a deep mourning mood since the death of Pa Adebayo Faleti, one of the brilliant brains Nigeria has ever produced; his death was announced a few weeks back. He died at age 86 on 23rd July, 2017, after a brief illness. He will be missed for his talent in all the sectors he touched. He was a seasoned journalist, poet, broadcaster, writer and actor. No wonder condolences have been pouring in from every corner, to sympathize with his family and to celebrate his virtues as an accomplished man.

Oyo govt prosecutes street light vandals, warns against disturbance of public facilities

The Oyo State Government has said that the full weight of the law will be applied on anybody caught vandalizing government properties, disclosing that one Ademola Ibrahim caught vandalizing solar powered streetlight is being prosecuted.

Similarly, the government has urged the people to serve at the watchdog of government properties as well as informing the security agencies of any trespass they notice.

The State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Toye Arulogun, in a statement on Monday said that the incessant theft and vandalisation of street and traffic light installation parts by the men of the underworld is thwarting government’s efforts to illuminate major roads in the state.

Arulogun disclosed that the Nigeria Police Force, Yemetu Divisional Headquarter arrested and charged one Mr. Ademola Ibrahim, who was caught in the act of vandalizing solar powered street light along Total Garden/Mokola Road (Queen Elizabeth Road) Ibadan to the Magistrate Court 1, Iyaganku, Ibadan for prosecution.

According to the Commissioner, “We have observed with dismay the attitude of some individuals who vandalise government property. The street light panel along Queen Elizabeth Road, UCH was stolen and this has caused street lighting around the area to malfunction, throwing the city into darkness. The same thing is happening to the street lights around Jericho area.

“We have notified the security agencies about the activities of these vandals. Anybody caught will be dealt with and the full weight of law will be applied. We will not tolerate anyone thwarting our developmental efforts and causing a breach of security.

“We want to call on the citizens to be vigilant as well. The government cannot do it alone and we cannot be everywhere at the same time.  This is one of the key reasons for the government's Safe Security Initiative. We want the people to support us by engaging in community policing.” the government spokesman explained.

Fraud Allegation Rumour, Bayo Adelabu's Camp React.

There seems to be what could be best described as political shotgun flying about within the Oyo state political class, ahead of the coming 2019 election. If not, how can one describe the purported interrogation rumour of the CBN Deputy Governor, Bayo Adelabu, in connection with former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke's ongoing fraud case? It was claimed that Bayo Adelabu is being interrogated by the Economics and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over his involvement in a bad load said to have been awarded at the First Bank and the Diezani's saga.

Oluwo Affirms Commitment To Feed All.

The Oluwo of Iwo land, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi Ilufemiloye Telu 1, has reinstated his commitment to feed all through his "Feeding All, Nobody Should Be Hungry' program, which he has embarked on since he ascended his forefathers' throne.