Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has identified intra-regional integration in educational and infrastructural developments as the tool which could for guarantee Nigeria’s national development.
In a speech delivered on his behalf by Mr. Ade Ipaye as a Guest of Honour at the Third National Conference of the Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies (AES) held at the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, on Tuesday, Governor Aregbesola assured that his administration had put in place the machinery to overhaul the educational and health systems infrastructure.
He told the gathering that “we have also embarked on the policy of urban renewal and the refurbishment of urban infrastructure”.
This, he said, was believed to be capable of providing jobs, empower then people and uplift them in every area of life.
According to him, one approach was the regional integration in education and infrastructure especially in transportation insisting that the South West, for instance, should be connected by roads “such that the longest distance within the region should not take more than one hour of each other”.
Nigeria, he observed, had been lamenting the death of energy with the national electricity generation that is hovering around 4,000 megawatts presently.
This figure, the governor stressed, was less than ten per cent of the power demands of the Lagos Central Business District alone.
Citing a recent survey on Nigeria’s power situation by experts, Aregbesola noted that at least, one billion dollars was needed to be invested on the power sector every year for the next decade before any appreciable impression could be made.
Lamenting that the target might not be achievable, the governor said “Our target is 2020, which is less than nine years from now. It is regrettable that we have not even started”.
Describing health as the biggest resource in human development, the Governor posited that it is the infrastructure of the body serving as the key to other infrastructures.
Recalling that Chief Obafemi Awolowo set a 15-year target and achieved greatly by setting achievable standard of one medical doctor to 2,000 people for the Western Nigeria during his tenure as Premier, Governor Aregbesola expressed regrets that the record remained unbeaten and unmatched till date.
His words: “It is only a healthy people that can be educated or mobilised for development. Awolowo made it an objective to train within 15 years enough medical doctors to have a ratio of one doctor per 2000 persons. That was about 40 years ago. We are far from this objective today”.
The electorate who choose governments, he argued, expected that they would be provided jobs, education, healthcare and infrastructure which he described as “the demand of leadership”.
Aregbesola concluded that “It is the tragedy of leadership in the country that they are often disappointed. For us, it is our passion to do all these and more. We have put in place the machinery to overhaul the education and health systems and their infrastructure in Osun State. We have also embarked on the policy of urban renewal and the refurbishment of urban infrastructure. This we believe will provide jobs, empower our people, and uplift them in every area of life. It is not an abstract; it is the raison d’être of government”.
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