Following the radio interview granted last Saturday by the candidate of All Progressive Congress in 2019 governorship election in Oyo State, Oloye Bayo Adelabu, the camp of Governor Seyi Makinde has witnessed a total unrest as they made four press releases in less than 24 hours.
Adelabu, who was hosted by Mayor Isaac Brown and his gang on FRESH FM POLITICAL CIRCUIT, illuminated the radio audience with facts and figures as he made the 120 minutes worthwhile and educative while analysing the state of governance in Oyo State two years after Makinde took over.
Adelabu, while addressing the level of insecurity in the state, faulted the state government for not being proactive enough regarding security issues as Makinde has only adopted the reverse gear in paddling the state affairs in resistance to what he inherited from the past administration.
“How can you dismantle a working security model you inherited from the past administration?”, he asked in disbelief. Adelabu assured the interviewers that he was not being bookish as he boasted that he was part of those who formulated the then working model while he served as the Chairman, Oyo State Security Trust Fund during Ajimobi’s tenure but instead of Makinde to emulate the model, he only chose to scatter the whole system at the detriment of the state.
Adelabu also made it known that, Governor Seyi Makinde’s non-chalant body language is one of the factors affecting the security of the state. He recalled that, despite the national security unrest during Ajimobi’s regime, late Ajimobi stood his feet and secured Oyo State to a reasonable extent which was so visible to the blind.
Adelabu concluded by pointing to some of his contributions toward ensuring improvement in the area of security as he recently empowered wives of the slain police officers during the recent ENDSARS protest plus his effort towards rebuilding three of the burnt police stations in the state which is believed to be prevented by Governor Seyi Makinde. He therefore urged Makinde to stop playing politics with security as he needs to motivate security personnels and by spending security vote judiciously for the purpose it is meant for.
The former deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria.(CBN), shared from his vast experience in finance as he took time to briefly explain the concept of ‘productive use of loan’. Adelabu thereby analysed that government loans should be more spent on productive projects (income generation) than on consumption in order to guarantee a feasible repayment plan. He therefore tagged some ongoing consumption projects of the current administration as misplaced priorities as the government possibly didn’t consider their scale of preferences before embarking on such projects fully funded with loans.
Adelabu recalled that Seyi Makinde promised during electioneering campaign that after six months in office, his government would not go to Abuja anymore for pressing need of federal allocation.
“I hereby challenge them not to go to Abuja for the next allocation, and we shall see if they would be able to pay salaries “, He submitted.
Oloye Bayo Adelabu also spoke on other germane sectors of government where he offered appropriate advises. These include the Agricultural sector which he said was our main strength as a state and the government needs to focus on it. He mentioned the need to clear more farmlands, revamp the farm settlements, build new irrigation systems to assist the farmers, ensure there are adequate preservation systems for farm produce, construct access roads to the farms and get involved in price stability for farm produce.
While admitting that the progress of Oyo State is his concern, he faulted the government on the use of the state’s meagre resources which are not focused on projects with immediate impacts on the livelihood of indigenes and residents. He cited the examples of spending huge amounts of money on building motor parks which are not immediately required while renovation of stadium with N5.5bn at this point in time was not compelling.
He also mentioned the fact that Security, Agriculture, Healthcare and Education should be the main focus of government at this critical period but nothing major has been achieved in this regard. He cited the example of the governor’s promise to build a primary health care center in each ward totalling 351 and asked how many of such have been constructed in two years of this administration. While he commended the effort of government in completing Moniya Iseyin road, he frowned at the quality of the road which he maintained is not wide enough for an intercity expressway.
He charged the government of Seyi Makinde to drop politics aside and complete the remaining work on the roads of critical economic value left behind by the administration of Abiola Ajimobi such as the Bashorun Akobo road and the Gbagi Airport road. He finally advised the government that they should include as many people as possible in governance while more capacity should be developed instead of externalising everybody including his party and coalition partners that assisted him in his electoral victory.
Instead of responding to pressing issues raised by Adelabu and/or go back to the drawing board to make necessary corrections, Seyi Makinde’s camp only resulted to their usual blame games and condemnations as nothing perse was directed to Adelabu’s assertions.
At this junction, I want to advise Governor Seyi Makinde to rise up to his responsibilities and give us a better Oyo State that we deserve so that we can also say good things about him when he leaves the office in 2023.
