The All Progressives Congress is claiming that ‘the state of Osun has again taken the lead to initiate a comprehensive Social Protection Policy framework of global standard that will continuously engage in alleviating poverty and promoting a dignified life for all segments of society.
‘This policy targets the vulnerable, especially from birth to working age, in the sustainable provision of healthcare, education, training for skill acquisition and the empowerment of youths and provision of access to social amenities for the under-privileged’, the party disclosed.
In a statement from the Directorate of Publicity, Research and Strategy signed by its Director, Kunle Oyatomi and circulated to the media in Osogbo today, the party said that ‘Osun Social Protection Policy’ is the framework for institutionalising the efforts of the state government to alleviate and eventually eliminate poverty in all its ugly manifestations in the state’.
According to the APC, ‘when fully incorporated into the laws of the state, it will become mandatory for any government in power to continue with the policy by prioritising measures to ensure a life of dignity for all in the state’.
The party reminded people of the state since seven years ago that the Aregbesola-led APC (then ACN ) government started the revolution of re-branding and re-engineering the state for sustaininable development and a life more abundant, Osuñ has been at the forefront initiating and excelling in providing social protection programmes and services to the people.
‘One of the most extensive and impactful of the programmes was the school feeding service.
Not only did it significantly affect the health of the children involved, it took some burden off parents and massively had the unintended effect of increasing school enrolment’, the party said.
‘In a similar way the O’YES programme also pulled 40,000 youths off the streets of Osun and gave them not just jobs, but also training and start-up funds to empower some others to establish enterprises after their training.
Twenty thousand more youths will again be caĺled up soon!
‘Besides, the social security scheme that covered vulnerable senior citizens in Osun (added to the two signature schemes above) set Osun apart from the rest of Nigeria so much so that people of goodwill all over the world applauded while negative people and misinformed critics especially in the opposition riled against and condemned the government for initiating these schemes’, the APC protested.
‘However, the United Nations, especially, in collaboration with the Federal Government, is ignoring critics and fake news outlets that perpetually demonize the APC government, to single out the state as the best place to start institutionalisation of this Social Protection Policy to alleviate and eventually eliminate abject poverty from our society’, the APC argued.
‘While cynics and kleptocrats demonize Aregbesola and the APC government at home, Federal Government (even during the PDP administration of Goodluck Jonathan) and United Nations continue to approve and appreciate the efforts of Osun to address the issues of poverty and access to good and healthy social life style of its citizenry.
‘The culmination of this collaboration was the approval over the weekend of a draft proposal which will make Osun the first state in Nigeria to institutionalize the ‘Osun Social Protection Policy’, the APC said.
‘When passed into law, any politician who attempts to abrogate it would be guilty of a crime against humanity because it will take only a virtually inhuman political actor to scrap that law’, the APC concluded.
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