Osun State has major towns with relatively good infrastructure but a large percentage of its residents live in rural areas without basic amenities. The situation is particularly dire for border communities, which suffer from significant infrastructural deficits, writes BOLA BAMIGBOLA
Osun State, with its capital in Osogbo, was carved out of Oyo State in 1991 and has a unique feature of a state with about nine major towns with relatively good infrastructure.
That, however, has not taken away the fact that a larger percentage of the residents still reside in rural areas where basic amenities to live comfortably are either nonexistent or barely available.
A further look at the communities in the rural areas of the state shows that those located on the borders with other states are facing an alarming infrastructural deficit. These border communities often find themselves neglected and overlooked during the distribution of essential amenities. The lack of adequate roads, reliable electricity and basic healthcare facilities are some of the major challenges these residents endure daily.
Furthermore, the remoteness of these areas from the state capital exacerbates their marginalisation, as they are frequently overlooked in developmental plans. This infrastructural neglect has severe implications for the socio-economic well-being of the inhabitants, often forcing them to depend on neighbouring states for basic needs and exposing them to security vulnerabilities.
Generally considered to be located at the geographical centre of the South West region of Nigeria, Osun is often referred to as the “heart” of the South West, due to its strategic location, which makes it easily accessible from all parts of the region. Geographically, Osun has in its boundary to the west, Oyo State; Ogun in its south boundary and Ondo in its boundary to the east. Ekiti is located at Osun’s boundary to the northeast and Kwara to the north boundary.
At Osun’s boundaries with these states are communities that are often not reckoned with in the distribution of infrastructural amenities, largely due to their location at far-flung places to the state capital, where the seat of government is located.
From Ikoyi, a town located in Oyo/Osun boundary with a distance of about 71.2km to Osogbo, to Owena, a border town with Ondo, of about 79.6km distance to the Osun capital, to Esa-Oke and Imesi-Ile, Osun border communities with Ekiti, among others, the residents have been grappling with stark realities of government neglect.
While waiting for government’s intervention in their areas of infrastructural needs, residents of these communities have had cause to also endure incessant security breaches being perpetrated by inter-state criminals that find it convenient to strike occasionally and retreat to their base in another state.
Despite Osogbo enjoying a relatively stable power supply, checks have shown that many of its boundary communities with other states are not enjoying such luxury, as they hardly have supplies.
Beside the general infrastructural deficit peculiar to these communities, boundary disputes with neighbouring communities located in other states are frequently experienced by the residents. In some of these conflicts, lives would be lost and properties destroyed, and authorities concerned may not even have clear information to enable timely action.
‘We are forgotten’
Speaking with The PUNCH, a prominent indigene of Esa-Oke, Prof Abiodun Oni, said the community, being at the boundary with Ekiti, has been forgotten by the state, adding that erosion and lack of good roads topped the pressing needs of the town.
The university don, who is the spokesman for the Esa-Oke community, said, “We have the issue of poor roads. The one from our Poly (Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke) to Oke-Imesi, Imesi-Ile junction, is horrible.
“It (the road) has been a topic of debate for a very long time. The community had to take graded it alons, so, we are feeling a sense of neglect by Osun State. Also, our township roads are not developed. The ones done by the previous administration have been debased, so we don’t have motorable roads around the town,” he said.
When asked what could have made the town, which has produced some notable personalities in Nigerian political history, including the late Governor of old Oyo State and Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, to be struggling with such magnitude of infrastructural deficit, Oni added, “This might be because we are too far from the centre, (the state capital), and nobody seems to see us.”
A resident of Ila-Odo, Mrs Sola Jokotola, rued the complete extinction of economic activities due to lack of electricity in the town. Ila-Odo is the last Osun community before the Kwara boundary and Jokotola said besides farming, many able-bodied male residents usually go to Offa in Kwara to work as commercial motorcyclists. She said socio-economic life has been paralysed in the town as basic infrastructure that could make life meaningful was unavailable.
Jokotola, who could not hide her displeasure over the alleged lack of government presence in Ila-Odo, said the community hardly had electricity supply, adding that exorbitant charges by the electricity providers had made many residents opt for disconnection, as they could not afford to pay for the few hours they were supplied per month.
Highlighting some of the challenges his community, located on the Oyo/Osun border, as well as the Osun/Ogun border, a community leader from Ikoyi, Oluwatoyin Ajagbe, said many business owners were moving out of the town due to poor electricity supply. He decried the forceful takeover of land belonging to Osun by some communities at the border with Ogun, which he said had generated tension among the residents.
On several occasions, Ajagbe said trucks of loggers in Osun forest at the Ogun boundary would be impounded and taken to Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, with their planks, on the pretense that they trespassed into another state.
Speaking in separate interviews, Prince Jide Akinyooye from Ifon Orolu, a town on the boundary of Osun and Oyo and Tunji Adesokun, a former Secretary of Obokun Local Government Area, who hails from Imesi-Ile, an Osun agrarian community on the Ekiti boundary, both decried the perceived neglect of boundary communities by the Osun State government.
They expressed concerns that the specific needs of the neglected communities are beginning to coalesce into a bigger challenge militating against the socio-economic well-being of the residents and, therefore, urged the government to consider establishing Osun Boundary Community Commission, an agency that would be given a specific responsibility of seeing to the welfare of the communities at the boundary with other states.
Residents demand border commission
Akinyooye said due to the location of many Ifon villages, they were closer to Surulere Local Government Area of Oyo State, so they are often not remembered by the relevant authorities and called for the establishment of an agency that would take care of the peculiar needs of all Osun boundary communities with other states.
On why he was agitating for a boundary commission, Akinyooye stated, “It is definitely going to help in addressing the peculiar needs of communities belonging to Osun but located at the boundary with other states. It is needed at this point.”
A lecturer at the University of Hull, England, Dr Misbau Lateef, urged the state government to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment of these towns and villages. He also suggested the establishment of a dedicated border community development fund, the creation of a special administrative unit focused on border community issues, the implementation of regular town hall meetings and feedback mechanisms for border community residents and the creation of a long-term strategic plan for border community development with clear timelines and accountability measures.
Lateef, who hails from Ifon Orolu, an Osun community located at the boundary with Oyo, said, “These approaches should be adapted to the specific context of Osun State and its border communities, taking into account local, cultural, economic and social factors.”
Osun denies neglect
Responding to the alleged neglect of boundary communities by the government, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr Kolapo Alimi, dismissed the allegations.
He said Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration had reached out to almost all parts of the state in its infrastructural renewal drive.
Using the borehole project of the administration to drive home his point, Alimi said the project was sited in each of the 332 wards in the state. He also said apart from projects being financed by the state government, there were agencies already having as part of its brief, the welfare of rural communities, including Osun towns at the boundary with other states.
“That allegation of neglect of boundary communities by the state government can never be true. What I just want to say generally is that no government can complete all things at once. With the way we structured this government, nowhere will be neglected. Talking about the borehole projects we did, we placed them on a ward basis, and since we used the ward as a template, those boundary communities will belong to one ward or the other. We have done the first phase and second phase.
“Now, renovation of maternity centres is ongoing. We placed it on a ward basis. We have 345 centres, which is even more than the 332 wards. Now, for the local governments roads slated for construction, we distributed that on a local government basis, 1.5km for each local government. There are some projects like grading of roads; we also place it across the local governments. The point now is that evidently, no community has it all.”
