Osun workers …Gratitude for what?
And six, the implementation of the new minimum wage ahead of other states, prompt payment of salary, regular promotion and conversion of qualified civil servants, appointments to vacant permanent secretary cadre, regularisation of the redeployed 138 teachers in the civil service, done; and upgrading the 2016 downgraded LAUTECH Teaching Hospital Staff, Osogbo, employment of 275 ad hoc staff to push O’Amblance service, made.
The leadership of labour in the state says, the good happenings to Osun workers under Oyetola’s government have fostered work satisfaction, work appreciation; and general morale fired up, with probable frustration bred disaffection and dissatisfaction capable of stimulating certain behaviour pattern that corrupts civil servants and their productivity nipped in the bud.
True! Oyetola knows the place of state workers in any strategic peace and development calculus and knows the Osun civil service is the cut-edge instrument of governance and service delivery, viably ensuring a successful execution of his government policies, programmes and projects in the state all through now.
Recall Oyetola’s inaugural indaba in the first quarter of 2019, was highly resourceful a powwow, confab with the Osun civil servants on how the state productivity could best augment the meagre monthly handouts from Abuja and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) as antidote to the persistent financial insolvency, scantiness of funds in the state. His government-labour dialogue was a commendable effort in transactional leadership that has had the state IGR, workers’ welfare, productivity and service delivery surged up, and today’s government’s efficient multifarious services to the governed made possible, abetting socioeconomic advancement of Osun.
That explains the State Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Distinguished Jacob Adekomi’s gratitude to the APC–Oyetola government ‘‘for bringing succour to the people and workers of the state,’’ with the latter, particularly turned on or activated to high productivity and increased government revenue, deployable for the state people-workers’ centered developments.
The implication is that, it’s not just the state workers that have bountifully benefitted from the Oyetola government, the equitable state welfare mimes, gestures also get to every stratum of Osun people through government’s immense financial empowerments – the conditional cash transfer scheme inked, made to 15,562 assailable, vulnerable Osun residents; monthly N20,000 stipends paid to artisans after free training; N250,000 to N2.5 million loan ranges also accessed by artisans in the state; N500,000 each to 2,000 on the line beneficiaries; and free Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) business registration certificates blazed for about 3,000 youths, out on a limb. The vulnerable.
The government welfare gestures, also have been through such social intervention gesticulations, with underlined plausible economic impact on the life and living of the grantees, beneficiaries as the N30,000 each paid to some 3,000 legatees, recipients from the post COVID-19 Survival Fund along side the April 2020 6,020 bags of palliative rice, and the March 2021 Osun Food Support Scheme, distributing monthly Food Without Payment to the vulnerable, the weak and sensitive Nigerians, cross cultural, resident in Osun.
And the School Free Feeding Scheme with 2,196 food vendors hired to serve 98,690 school pupil-beneficiaries with trickle down positive effects also on the producers and suppliers of raw foodstuff; the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) reinvigorated with additional 3,082 ad hoc cadets on revitalized monthly take home between N12,000 and N15,000; and the indigent Osun students’ West African School Certificate Examination (WAEC) fees paid by the government as a rite.
The assignees, beneficiaries in the Oyetola context, are the defenceless, unsafe Osun residents, susceptible, exposed to risks of poverty, social exclusion and in the count down, agitation or outright violence. But his welfare packages are qualitatively re-charting them for improved well-being, healthy life, good sleep, useful thought to start on a scales of business, commerce and get connected with better others for economic harmony to remove probable depression, anxiety, stress, disorder and suicide.
And Oyetola posits, “the State workers are the indirect beneficiaries of the government welfare gestures,” with the state workers now being relieved of the burden of dependants outside nuclear family just as Distinguished Adekomi, labour chief and apostle of reciprocal relations charges his Distinguished labour unions in the state to further strategic upscale in productivity and wealth creation to cause significant improvements in the Osun business climate, vitiating, attractive to many more investors and investments. Any other parallel view must be out-and-out wicked and politically appalling.
Oyetola has not shirked his responsibility of providing sufficient avenues for the citizenry to realise their potentials or be at their best to contribute to the Osun development governance without fear or intimidation. The “Governor’s Family Meeting,’’ now crisscrossing the state, not on any premium, is a practical expression of an all-inclusive governance, social collaboration and social fairness, drawing standing ovation from the Osun people and workers, with the latter’s endorsement of Oyetola’s conscientious leadership that continues to facilitate democracy and democracy dividends on grand scales in the state, uncorrupted by any manipulation of popular preferences.
And the endorsement, reeling in the glow of Oyetola’s contrasting achievements, came after the Osun workers’ inquisitive process, not dancing a little to the right, a little to the left in the orchestra of indecision. The endorsement entrusts constitutional power and responsibility in Oyetola for another term of 4years, measuring his today’s achievements as they unfold with an eye on the future, the hope evoked for tomorrow.
In more ways than one, Oyetola is a treasure island of the aspirations of the Osun workers as they speak Biblical: ‘‘Be still, only believe, those you see today as working not for the Governor, shall tomorrow support his value bid for second term in office.”
The Osun NLC has spoken the Holy Writ, nicked in the Lord’s Promise -‘ Ileri Oluwa ‘
And Osun moves on the wings of utilitarian support to coast home victory for the state APC, next governorship election.
(Concluded)
OLUSESI is Assistant Director, Directorate of Publicity, Research & Strategy, All Progressives Congress (APC) State of Osun
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