The Governor of the state of Osun, Ogbeni
Rauf Aregbesola on Wednesday evening said should anything happen to any
member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun ahead of the
August 9 election, the Minister of State, Defence, Mr. Musiliu
Obanikoro, should be held responsible.
The governor, at the launch of the students’ smart identity card at
Salvation Army Middle School in Alekuwodo noted that it is on good
authority that Obanikoro in conjunction with the Police Affairs
Minister, Mr. Jelil Adesiyan have instructed security personnel to shoot
and kill two of APC members.
He charged security agents to play by the rules, saying with what
happened at the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park Monday morning, where people
who were supposed to campaign for APC were turned back by security
agents while same security agents allowed People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) campaign in Alekuwodo in Osogbo.
Aregbesola questioned what Musiliu Obanikoro is doing in Osun; noting
that members of APC have been told to be law-abiding but with the
recent provocation, people when pushed to the wall will react.
He said, “How could a party like the PDP be this desperate, Obanikoro
with Jelili Adesiyan told the security agents that by the time two
members of the APC are shot at and killed by the police, other members
will learn from it, and with that the stiff resistance of APC will be
destroyed.
“We want to use this medium to appeal to our security agencies
not to allow themselves to be used by these PDP candidate and the two
ministers whose party before this administration had been terrorising
the good people of our state.
“I am using this medium to tell the security operatives that Osun
people are law-abiding people, they have always been contributing to the
payment of your salaries and you are not supposed to harass them with the guns which were bought for you with tax money”. The governor told people who witnessed the launch.
On the smart Identity card for students, the governor noted that
information Communication Technology is among other promising paths his
administration has chosen to tread in the march towards realising the
state’s development dream.
With the launch of this smart identity card, Osun becomes the first
state in Nigeria to provide it’s students with a card that contains all
information that may be required on the student.
Aregbesola held that in the history of human inventions, there are not too many that are as useful as ICT in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness at providing solutions to human problems.
He stressed that ICT is the solution that his administration has
embraced in order to solve and ease the problems of public
administration in the state.
The Osun Student Smart ID card will have all the biometric, personalised identifying features of the workers’ smart ID cards but without the ATM enablement.
With the card, each student is a uniquely identifiable individual
that cannot be mistaken for another person. With it, government can
identify all the genuine students in all the public schools, and have
access to their information at the push of a button.
Aregbesola said the O’MEALS and other supplies to pupils will be
checked off through this smart card, adding that it will give government
the exact number of beneficiaries and eliminate fraud and accounting
error of any type.
According to the governor, “We have applied it to our revenue collection
and tax administration which gives us a good results, immediately we
deployed it to our revenue collection system, our internally generated
revenue jumped by 100 per cent from N300 million to N600 million.
”We have deployed it to our salaries and pensions
payment system, with very happy results for all. It has helped
eliminated situations where our hard-working civil servants are
short-changed in the payment of money due to them.
“In a similar vein, we have applied it to our pensions system in a
manner that makes it possible to eliminate the stress and troubles that
our retired elderly citizens are subjected to”. The governor noted.
Aregbesola pointed out that the technology has removes the usually
untoward intervention of intermediaries in payment to workers and
pensioners that often makes underhand dealings and cheating possible.
He also added that government has recently applied ICT to the
identity system of all his workers in Osun, saying it is the same scheme
that is being extended now to the students.
Aregbesola revealed that, “with the new ID card, our workers now
have a small smart card that can identify them as authentic Osun workers
without the possibility of impersonation.
“The same small smart card enables them to cash money at the
automated teller machines (ATMs) as well as gives them the capacity to
cash up to 20 per cent of their salaries before they are paid.
“The card eliminates for all time the possibility of ghosts rising up
from their graves to collect salaries and pensions in Osun”. The
governor told the audience.
Speaking earlier, the Deputy governor, Osun, Madam Titilayo Laoye-Tomori
who also doubles as the Commissioner for education noted ICT is the
solution that Aregbesola led administration has embraced thus making
governance easy and productive in the state.
“We cannot but continue to pray for the governor for what he has done
in the state. This is governor who is committed to the development of
education. Presently, this administration is feeding close to 300,000
elementary pupils among others.
“With this innovation now Osun becomes the first state with this kind
of identity card. Every information needed on each pupils is contained
in the card”. The deputy governor averred.
The Group Managing Director, Chams PLC , Mr. Charles Aladekomo in his
remarks commended the governor for building of the ultra-modern schools
and developmental stride in the education sector in the state.
He said,” I am proud and astonished that Osun is feeding pupils of elementary schools, this is a very serious business, it will gladdens me more if we have other state governments tapping into feeding pupils.
“What we are doing here is the first of its kind, this is more than
an identity card because we have their full details and their family
trees. It is with this that government will be able to plan for them.
“This will also afford the government of Osun the opportunity to plan
it’s education as it affects student and education”. The Chams boss
emphasised. oranmiyan
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