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Ogun’s
Route to 2025
One key ingredient that all stakeholders agree is key to the
process of development
is planning. Indeed even the unlettered have come to realize
that the best way to
fail in an endeavor is to fail to plan. In the last six
years the Government of
Otunba Gbenga Daniel has demonstrated in words and deeds,
the high premium it places
on planning. In 2003 before the Governor offered himself for
service there was a
blueprint that clearly showed how he intended to steer the
ship of state if elected
into office. After the election the manifesto dubbed, “My
Contract with Ogun People”
became the charter of service to the people.
The faithful execution of the Contract
changed the course of the State and turned
the fortune of the government and the governed for better.
In 2006 Just before
asking the people for their mandate again, Governor Daniel
and his egg heads produce
another blueprint of service called Agenda for a secured
future. That blueprint is
what is now driving the economic and social transformation
of Ogun State.
Now the government has taken planning for development to
another level with the
completion and presentation of the document of the State’s
Regional Development
plan. At the presentation inside the Valley View auditorium
of the Government House
on Wednesday February 11, 2009, a cross section of
stakeholders including the
academics, members of the business community, teachers,
students, market women,
elder statesmen, top government functionaries, religious
leaders, no governmental
organizations, labour unions traditional rulers and public
servants gathered to get
a glimpse into the Ogun State of the future as enunciated in
the regional plan
document.
Engineer Bayo Adeola, the man who led the
team of experts that worked on the
document says it gives a holistic and factual evaluation of
what it takes to plan
Ogun State for the next 16 years.
The document has also been rated high because a painstaking
consultative process
gave birth to it. The lead consultant to the project says
the inclusion of all key
stakeholders in the process was to achieve sustainability of
the vision and ensure
that it becomes the overriding document when it comes to
planning for development in
Ogun State.
The document provides guidelines for development in all
sectors .It tackles the
challenges of the present and projects into the immediate
future to the end that
Ogun may avoid the pitfalls of lack of planning and chronic
urban squalor that have
tend to become the defining characteristics of most
developing cities in Africa.
The document is actually the road map that will take Ogun to
year 2025. It
enunciates what the next sixteen years is likely to look
like and how to tackle
challenges and harness the state’s human and material
resources for the good of the
people. There is also a bird’s eye view of the impact the
growth poles being driven
though the special economic projects such as the free trade
zones, the deep sea
port, the airport and the sustained infrastructure renewal
would have on the four
divisions of the State.
The initiative of the State Government on
the project to Professor Foluso
Okunmadewa, Lead Social Protection Specialist with the World
Bank, is in tandem with
the parameters of good governance that can be replicated in
any part of the world.
Describing it as a visionary step, Okunmadewa says the use
of local indigenous
knowledge, wide consultation, and participation of intended
beneficiaries and
development workers is highly commendable.
The World Bank Chief says it is also noteworthy that the
regional plan sets out to
provide a template of what needed to be done – starting
small and moving into bigger
and more complex plans in the future.
While carrying out a review of the document Okunmadewa
submitted that the main part
of the document is divided into 15 sections: Population and
Land Use,
Transportation, Water resources, Power Supply, ICT,
Environment Management, economic
Development, Agriculture, manufacturing, Other Major
Economic Activities, Education,
health, housing, Sports and Recreation and Human Capital
Development. He says each
section was properly discussed along vision, current
Situation, Current impact on
People and Environment, What we want to achieve, how do we
get there? And
anticipated impact on People and Environment.
He says the document also provides good guidance for actors
in each sector – to
formulate specific programmes and projects that can help to
actualize the
anticipated impacts.
The fact that the document also looks at
human capital development scores it high
in Okunmadewa’s rating. He commended the very innovative and
daring effort of the
State Governor on delving into the often overlooked and
unappreciated sector –
called Human Capital Development which he says some planning
agenda would call
Social Protection.
Professor Akin Mabogunje, one of the country’s foremost
authorities on development
planning, also lends his weight behind the initiative. The
erudite professor lauded
the Daniel administration for embarking on the project and
the consortium which
handled it for doing a brilliant job. He described the
regional plan document as a
joint dream that is the beginning of reality. Professor Mabogunje also suggested the establishment of a
regional development
council that should comprise of community leaders, academia,
media, government and
private sector to ensure implementation of the plan.
For Dr Onaolapo Soleye, former Finance Minister, Governor
Daniel has shown though
the regional plan document that good governance is more than
construction of roads,
provision of infrastructure, and regular payment of salary.
He ascribed the
phenomenal growth of the last Six years in Ogun State to the
fact that the Daniel
administration is planning its work and working its plan.
The elder statesman says the results of planning are obvious
in Ogun State
describing the assertion by the Jack Warner led delegation
of the Federation of
International Football Association that Ogun State was the
only one ready to host
the youth of the world out of all the states bidding for the
FIFA Under 17 World Cup
as a verdict that gives credence to planning and good
governance in the Gateway
State.
Oba Otudeko president of the Nigerian
Stock Exchange also agrees that Governor
Daniel has changed the face of governance through his
purposeful leadership.
Governor Daniel while speaking at the event said the
document was generated because
of the need to make careful plans for the future and
determine the course of
development. Describing the regional plan as a master plan
done by the people for
the people who need it, Governor Daniel says the era of
determining life changing
issues by the rule of the thumb was over. He described
planning as fundamental to
every successful human endeavor.
The Governor also believes that with the regional plan
document, Developmental
decisions which were left to the vagaries of politics and
the whims and caprices of
ever-changing incumbents in the past will now be determined
by the socio-economic
and developmental matrix.
This Regional Plan is also another
measure to ensure that no part of the state is
denied the needed development. In essence, the document
through its implementation
would take out marginalization from the lexicon of Ogun
State.
The Governor also listed some of the gains of his
administration planning effort to
include the Free Trade Zones, the Deep Sea Port and the
Gateway International
Airport. He said the projects were scientifically derived as
initiatives that would
help in making Ogun State a major transportation hub. The
planning for new towns and
settlements have also benefited largely from the empirical
data collated in the
initial conceptual plan document.
Some of the end users of the regional plan are already
counting their gains. Chief
Ogoluwa Bankole, a foremost industrialist says the regional
plan document will
become the main feasibility study for all businessmen,
industrialists and investors
since it gives holistic data about what businesses need to
know in their operating
environment
It is because of this and its many other advantages ,that
Professor Okunmadewa of
the World Bank says the document provides the template to
achieve the developmental
vision of the state. With the coming of the regional plan
Okunmadewa says it is
obvious that Ogun State has the resources, education, and
now the initiative to
achieve its vision.
.Adegbenro Adebanjo is the Chief Press
Secretary to Gov.Daniel
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