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Twenty thousand unemployed youths find succour in OYES-Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme

Rauf Aregbesola Jnr., son of the governor of Osun State, is a United Kingdom-based student. In September, the young man was in the country on holiday. He travelled to Osun Sate to have a feel of his father’s administration. As he rode into Osogbo, he was fascinated by the activities of some fully kitted young men and women, members of Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme, OYES, cutting grass on the median of the dual carriage way into the state’s capital.

Inside the town, he found more male and female volunteers de-silting gutters and cleaning sewages. Without prompting, within two days, young Rauf enlisted in OYES, his father’s job creation panacea for the teeming unemployed graduates of the state. With the relevant kits and a cutlass, he soon embarked on volunteer work. “The experience is good. I have worked as agbale oja (street sweeper) and I also cut grass,” he told Newswatch. Even with blisters on his palm, the young man was unperturbed. He said he would continue until the end of his holiday.

 The volunteers were happy at the participation of the governor’s son in the scheme which has taken about 20,000 unemployed youths off the streets of the state. On September 23, as soon as Eniibukun Oyewole, a retired colonel and commander general of the scheme, introduced Rauf to over 400 volunteers who had gathered at the playground of Origbo Community Unity School, Ipetumodu, headquarters of Ife North local government area, for the monthly identification parade, there was a thunderous applause for the young man.

Simeon Olaniyi, a volunteer from Edunabon, said Rauf’s participation, though for a short period, was a psychological boost for the scheme. “It showed that he appreciates the dignity of labour which the scheme teaches us,” he said.

 At his swearing-in ceremony on November 27, 2010, as governor of Osun State following the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Ibadan, the previous day, declaring him as winner of the April 14, 2007 governorship election in the state, Aregbesola promised to create 20,000 jobs within his first 100 days in office. He said this was part of his six-point integral action plan code-named ‘My Pact with the people of Osun State,’ popularly referred to as the “Green Book” and launched in 2006 at the start of  his campaign.

When the government advertised for volunteers into the scheme barely a month later, more than 200,000 graduates who had no means of livelihood applied. Ten percent, that is, 20,000 of the youths were selected from across the state’s 31 local government areas. Oyewole said between February 14 and 24, majority of the volunteers were camped at the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Orientation camp at Ede, and other centres in the state and thoroughly schooled in the programme’s philosophy and guiding principles: “to enable trainees gain knowledge, practical skills, imbibe the values and work ethic of Apalara, ise l’ewa Osun (the beauty of Osunland derives from the people’s labour).” They were equally taught the core values of the scheme – honesty, integrity, hard work, leadership and loyalty. Each of them was paid a stipend of N8,000 during training.

A volunteer scheme is supposed to be free but OYES is different. Each volunteer now gets N10,000 stipend monthly. “It is workfare instead of welfare,” Oyewole said. Banks handling the payments were instructed to charge minimally, such as flat rate of N500 for the use of their facilities like commission on turnover and automated teller machines, ATM.

After the training, there were eight areas of likely deployment but government chose sanitation first to clean up the dirty state. On the first day, Aregbesola came out, took shovel and helped in de-silting drains. Some of the youths were deployed to areas like traffic management and environmental sanitation while pregnant and nursing mothers were assigned sweeping of local government offices.

OYES does not discriminate against the physically challenged. For example, Adeyemi Lawrence, an Economics graduate of the University of Uyo, was absorbed into the scheme. But he told Newswatch that he would love to be deployed to a school and finally converted to a full time teacher.

Nine months after it began as the state’s first direct approach to solving mass youth unemployment, OYES is reflating Osun’s economy with N200 million monthly paid as stipends to the youths by the government. The multiplier effect is unquantifiable. For instance, from his stipend, Adeyemi has started a fish pond in which he has about 1000 fish. On September 23, some of the volunteers came for the verification exercise at Ipetumodu with various items for sale including shoes and bags.

Kayode Ojeyinka from Moro and leader of OYES volunteers in Ife North LGA, said many of his colleagues have joined co-operative and credit thrift societies to save money and ultimately take loans for business. The 2008 Political Science graduate of the University of Ibadan, described the scheme in superlative terms. “It has been a wonderful experiment for government to put this in place and I commend my colleagues for their excellent conduct so far,” he said.

Recently, officials of the World Bank visited Osun and gave the government a thumbs up for the efforts at reducing youth unemployment. But Aregbesola wants to do more. According to Oyewole, the challenge now is how to absorb the remaining 180,000 youths roaming the streets before the tertiary institutions turn out more graduates to swell the ranks of the unemployed in the state.

But there is a ray of hope. Some of the trained OYES members have been securing better jobs. Afolabi Folashade Oluwakemi from Odeomu in Ayedaade LGA is an example. On July 18, the lady with scheme number 138 wrote the commander general that she had got another job and would disengage. “I shall be leaving on August 31, for another assignment. I thank the state government under the leadership of Rauf Aregbesola for the laudable programme and for allowing me to partake in the exercise,” she said.

Oyewole said that as a result of some of the volunteers getting better jobs, he now has about 18,000 volunteers across the state. Thus, he is set to take the third batch of young men and women into the scheme.