Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is Uhuru Times ‘Man of the year’ 2016
Nigeria’s is a young democracy by any standard. The institutions that serve to nurture and protect due process in a participatory system of government, which ours was designed to be, are very weak, not non-existent. The presidential system of government we run has the Judiciary, Legislature and Executive as its branches. The Mass Media, aptly described as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, is expected to perform oversight functions on our three arms of government.
Recent developments since the advent of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration have provided irrefutable evidence that the Judiciary is not what it was meant to be. Corruption at its highest echelon has rendered it prostrate to a very large extent. The Legislature at the national level has been established since 1999 to be a haven of persons, who ordinarily should not hold political offices. At the state levels, legislators are more or less glorified errand boys of their respective Governors. They hardly query anything done by the Executive in the manner expected of them by the 1999 Constitution, which they took an oath to uphold. Local Government Councillors are worse.
The Presidency is not better. Official instruments of governance are regularly deployed for personal reasons. Excerpts from a book by the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona, detailed as much about former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s serial abuse of power. Buhari’s is not different despite claims about an anti-corruption war. Petitions and claims against persons serving in close proximity of Mr. President have either being ignored or treated shabbily. Almost all the 36 state Governors control their legislators in a manner suggestive of dictatorship.
We do not intend to curse the darkness Nigeria has found itself in. To borrow the words of Moral Rearmament, a group that was active in Nigeria in the 1980s, ours is to light a candle in the prevailing darkness, and hope that by doing so, others will follow suit in their respective areas of competence. It is the Governors we beamed our searchlight on, being possible agents of change in a system, where almost everything depend on Government. In their respective states, these Governors literally hold the power of life and death over residents of their respective states.
For us, four issues are important in a society like Nigeria, where life expectancy still remain very low due to a nonchalant attitude by political leaders to the real needs of the people. These are,
Education – accessible and affordable, especially for the downtrodden aged between 5 – 18 years.
Healthcare services (preventive and curative) – As above.
Gainful employment – For persons aged 25 – 35 years.
Infrastructural development – Especially rural roads and potable water.
The foundation of Uhuru Times vision rests on late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s political philosophy about the place of man in the society, and how those in positions of leadership ought to behave while in office. Of the five Governors picked as possible winner of the ‘Man of the year 2016’ only Osun State’s Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Lagos State’s Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode met our standards.
In Lagos State, urban renewal has continued since Ambode got into office, especially in the area of roads, street lighting and the like. But potable water remains a problem, not just in the rural areas, where we are most concerned about, but in the urban centres as well. There have been no significant new ideas about education and schools for the ages we considered. It is the same for Healthcare services in the rural areas. But roads in the rural parts of Lagos East (Epe and Ikorodu) along with the same sections in Lagos West (Badagry) have been receiving a well-deserved attention from Ambode, unlike when Babatunde Raji Fashola was Governor.
Ambode scored an A+ in his initiatives agains
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