Written by:
Adegbenro Adebanjo
Abeokuta

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.