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At the sidelines of the kick-off of the re-election campaign of the Oyo State governor, ‘Seyi Makinde, his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, speaks on why his principal deserves to be re-elected by the people of the state.
Your principal is flagging off his campaign for a second term in office. Are you not afraid that the jinx in Oyo State that no governor would serve a second term, which the immediate past governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi broke with his re-election in 2015, may be back in place?
There is nothing to be afraid of. Governor ‘Seyi Makinde has performed excellently well in the last three years and seven months and the people of Oyo State know that he has served them well. They will re-elect him.
You sound quite confident, but what about the jinx that…
What jinx? In only 43 months, the administration has made more impact on the state than what the previous administration achieved in eight years. Across all sectors, the governor has recorded major achievements, which have direct impact on the electorate. These are the same people that vote during elections and the reasons they refused to re-elect people in the past were because they didn’t perform up to expectations. In the case of Governor Makinde, he has exceeded expectations and the people of Oyo State know this fact.
Only recently, the governor emerged as Silverbird Television’s Man of the Year 2022. That is one award that is always keenly contested and people are made to vote. The governor defeated his colleague-governors and captains of industry to win that accolade and I am sure the people of the state can attest to the fact that the honour is well-deserved.
What are some of the achievements that make you sound so confident, because the opposition parties in the state are said to be planning another coalition like the one that brought in the governor in 2019?
What coalition? Have you not read Isaiah 8:10 where the Bible says “take counsel together, but it will come to nothing. Speak the word, but it will not stand, for God is with us?” The reality is that whatever device is being made to unseat Makinde is not in the interest of Oyo State people. And if you may recall, the governor said in a recent interview that his coalition is with the people of the state. If the people of Oyo State, who can see the giant strides that are being made in infrastructure development, education, health and the expansion of the economy, do not say that they have had enough of Makinde, then anyone talking about a coalition against him is wasting his time.
So, what achievements will the governor campaign with?
Look at the four pillars on which this government is rested upon – Education, Health Security and Economic expansion. The governor’s excellent performance can be easily seen. It is easy for anyone to say what and what is happening in different sectors. When you look at the infrastructure sector alone, you would think that this probably is the only thing the governor is doing, with different inter-city, inter-town roads being opened up, constructed or rehabilitated.
In under four years, the Makinde administration has built/or is still building roads to connect all five zones of Oyo State. Ibadan has been connected to OkeOgun through Iseyin-Moniya Road; Oyo is being connected to OkeOgun through Oyo-Iseyin Road, OkeOgun is being connected to Ogbomoso through Iseyin-Fapote-Ogbomoso Road, while Eruwa is being connected to Oke through the limited rehabilitation of Igboora-Iganna Road.
Let me tell you clearly that in eight years of the previous government, the only inter-zone road that was attempted was the Ido-Eruwa Road, and it was abandoned.
Are you saying the governor will be re-elected only based on what he has done in terms of infrastructure?
No, you can’t narrow his achievements only to infrastructure. Governor Makinde’s achievements transcend infrastructure. When you talk about education, you will see that Oyo SUBEB is one of the most active agencies in this country. It is the agency that takes care of the early education up to junior secondary school. Immediately Governor Makinde got into office in 2019, he paid arrears of counterpart funds that the previous government failed to pay and this has helped the agency to build at least close to 60 schools in three years. In all, over 500 education infrastructure projects have been completed by this administration.
You would also recall how the governor introduced free and qualitative education to the state. We started with free and qualitative education and the N3,000 fees imposed on the children was stopped and the governor said, instead, we will be paying the schools that same 3,000 per child into the purse of the schools so that the School Governing Board can run the schools with the money.
At a point, we noticed the standard of education had gone down and what did we do? We recruited 5,000 teachers and the government went ahead to distribute a compendium of WAEC questions and answers, free notebooks and textbooks that are given to them. So, there was a concerted effort from day one on how to drive education in the state and, today, the results are there.
Equally, the governor has been able to surmount the challenge of out-of-school children with the stoppage of the N3,000 levy imposed on the students by the previous administration. It was one of the problems we inherited. Over 400,000 children were said to be out-of-school and the governor was shocked to have noticed that in a state that was capital of Western Region, where the late sage Awolowo declared free education, such a challenge could exist. He declared what is akin to an emergency in the education sector, declared free education and infrastructure-wise, we started some works, boosted the morale of the teachers and within the first six months of our administration, we saw parents moving their children from private schools back to government schools. Even people from Lagos and other neighbouring states were moving their wards to schools here. As of December 2022, over 60,000 out-of-school children have returned to the classrooms.
As you may also be aware, the governor promised to set LAUTECH free permanently from the shackles of joint ownership with Osun State. He has achieved that and has even gone ahead to achieve the upgrade of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education into a University of Education.
If you talk about economic expansion, the governor has been able to raise the IGR bar in the state, with the state’s IGR of N1.4 billion monthly that he inherited now hovering between N3.6 billion and N3.8 billion monthly. You may say how the economic expansion agenda has affected the people; many industries and agribusiness investments have sprung up in the state and thousands of Oyo State residents will be gainfully employed in the not-too-distant time. One example of such investments is the Brent Sugar Plantation in Iseyin, a N300 billion investment.
Also as a result of the governor’s commitment to boosting the state’s economy through salary payment, workers and pensioners get their full payments of salaries and pensions on or before 25th of every month. The implication of this is that about N11 billion is pumped into the economy monthly and the money revolves around businesses and households in the state.
In the area of healthcare delivery, this administration embarked on the renovation and equipment of 351 Primary Health Centres in all the Electoral Wards of Oyo State. The governor felt strongly that his people should move beyond one kilometre to access healthcare and so, he immediately mobilised to see that at least one PHC is renovated and equipped in each of the Wards. As of today, close to 299 PHCs have been touched. Over 250 of them already being put to use. This fact is what all residents of the state can attest to and they will also tell you that these facilities existed prior to Makinde becoming governor but most of them had either become dilapidated or taken over by rodents and thick forests. So, if the governor can fix that huge number of health facilities in under four years, imagine what he will do if he spends eight years in office. That is one reason any coalition against him will fail.
Let me also quickly point out to you that Governor Makinde’s politics has been different in a positive way and the people of the state appreciates this fact and it is one other reason they will re-elect the governor. Upon assumption of office, the previous government had awarded many road contracts, paid out huge sums to contractors despite the level of work being low and unworthy of such payments. But the governor set his mind to fixing those projects, because he always says that he would do anything to ensure that Oyo State people derive value for every kobo spent. Within a short time, we completed the Iwo Road-Oke Adu Road. The Idi Ape-Basorun-Akobo-Odogbo Barracks Road and the General Gas Flyover were also completed. The Saki Township Road was completed.
We have the Akala way, which was abandoned for many years by the previous government and it is also nearly completed. There is only about one kilometre left to complete the road.
Sometimes, governments concentrate too much effort on city centres and abandon rural roads. How well will you say your principal has fared in terms of rural development?
I make bold to say that no governor in the recent history of Oyo State has done better than Governor Makinde in terms of rural development. You would see that most of the roads I have mentioned are linking rural settlements to urban centres and there are many that time will not permit us to mention. You have the Sabi-Gedu-Oroki Road constructed by this administration for ease of transport in Oyo town. The governor’s determination to create zonal economic hubs has also seen him start the construction of Saki-Ogbooro-Igboho Road, linking three local government in rural OkeOgun to Saki, while the government has also committed to extend that road from Igboho to Kishi and from Kishi to Igbeti. The same commitment has been given for the Ijio-Idiko Ile Road in OkeOgun Zone 1.
Right now, we are linking rural Ibadan to Ogun and Osun states through the Akanran-Dagbolu Road in OnaAra Local Government and the Iwo Road, Ibadan to Iwo to Osogbo. The latter is a joint work between Osun and Oyo states and this is one of the first times we see two states coming together to do major infrastructure. Part of the road belongs to the Federal Government and other parts to the two states but the states decided that they could not wait for the Federal Government while their people were facing hardship on the road.
You would recall that the Oluwo of Iwo cried out many times on the state of that road. But the governor of Oyo State met his counterpart in Osun State and they agreed. The project has been given to the contractor and they are working on the road right now.
So, we are doing infrastructure that is not just targeting the food basket of Oyo State but also the economy of the state and that of South-West at large. I can also tell you that very soon; you will see hundreds of kilometres of roads being constructed under the RAAMP. But all the projects I mentioned are not under RAAMP but are major projects that are being taken up by the state government, some of them under the Alternative Project Funding Approach(APFA).
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