OSUN State has been rated second in the human capital index in a report released by a body, identified as National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria (NCCN).

The report released early November by NCCN took two years of research into the factors that drive.

competitiveness in Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT, while the research was funded by Ford Foundation and The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

This was contained in a statement issued by one of the media aides of Governor Rauf Aregbesola, Mr Kikiowo Ileowo, a copy of which was made available to the Nigerian Tribune on Sunday in Osogbo.

According to the statement, the research covered more than 2,000 businesses, 8,000 households, 400 indicators and 4 pillars, with emphasis on education, migration, gender equality, and health, stressing that “Osun came second after Delta State whilst Enugu state took the third position, whilst Kebbi, Borno, and Gombe took the last three positions respectively.”

It reads in part, Osun State has received several knocks after Budget; a socio-economic organisation released its State of the State 2016 report, stating Osun cannot meet its obligations due to its huge deductions for debt repayment from its Federal Allocation. Though the state continues to pay its workforce in an arrangement that sees workers in levels 1-7 (67% of workforce) receive their full salary, whilst workers in grade level 8-12 (25% of workforce) receive 75% of their salaries and workers in grade level 13-17 (8% of workforce) receive 50% of their salaries.”

“The state invested heavily in human capital, saying independent reports from several credible local and international organisations have ranked Osun high in all the Human Development Index.  Osun maintained the 2nd position after Lagos in the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), recently released the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), for the year 2016.”