Some shops at Iwo Road, Egbeda local government were demolished by Oyo State Government under the leadership of Engineer Seyi Makinde.

This is coming at a time when the covid-19 pandemic has already crippled a lot of businesses due to interstate restriction and reduction in movement within the state, a means to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Many people who witnessed the demolition were heard saying that the government of the day has embarked on the anti-masses policy that put the previous administration in the black book of the good people of the state.

Sources close to the Governor have hinted that the area was being cleared to create a garage to accommodate Auxiliary’s Car Park Management System hence Auxiliary’s direct supervision of the demolition of the shops.

It should be noted that the ultramodern park at Ìwọ road is just a stone throw away from this location.

Oyo State has recorded two new cases of coronavirus.

This is contained in a tweet from Governor Seyi Makinde at around 9:10am on Sunday Morning.

According to Governor, Oyo State have received more results from pending COVID-19 confirmation tests, the results of two suspected cases came back POSITIVE today and the cases are from Ibadan.

He further revealed that the two new cases confirmed as at this morning 3rd May, 2020 out of the 4 new cases reported by @NCDCgov were captured in the 1st of May update.

This brings the number of active cases in Oyo State to 33.

This means that 171 out of the 300 pending results have now been processed and more are being expected.

He urged all who qualify for testing to please, call the Emergency Operations Centre on 08095394000 | 08095863000 | 08078288999 | 08078288800, to book a test.

COVID-19 pre-screening is also available through your phone by dialing 72319*6# free of charge. No internet connection is required.

Popular Ibadan Cleric, Alhaji Taofeek Akeugbagold, whose twins were kidnapped last week by some gunmen in his Ojoo house have been released.

The abductors have demanded for £100,000, which is equivalent to N55 million for the release of the children some days ago but this morning Sunday 3rd May around 5:30 am, the abducted twins were released to their father beside a bush in an unknown land.

The father of the twins Alhaji Akeugbagold made this known through his Facebook account this morning and use the medium to thank everyone for their support and prayers so far.

“ALHAMDULILLAH! AT 5.30AM OF SUNDAY 3RD MAY, MY ABDUCTED TWIN KIDS ARE RELEASED TO ME BESIDE A BUSH AFTER 8DAYS IN AN UNKNOWN LAND. THANKS TO U ALL FOR FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT, JAZAKUMULLAHU KHAIRAN. ABERE MI BO SINU OKUN, OLOUN YO PADA FUN MI.“

I make no apologies for highlighting some of his deficiencies so often. I am an unabashed APC member. What do you expect?

If you have followed my writing for the past 10 years or so, you should have noticed that I take no prisoners when it comes to MY OPINIONS (right or wrong) on issues of governance.

It didn’t matter to me that Ajimobi was/is leader of my own party in the state when, throughout his time in office, I held his feet to the fire in my own little way. If you know how Google works, make it your friend in verifying this. I criticized Ajimobi so much and so publicly that my friends thought I ran the risk of being expelled from the party.

But it was not personal for me, It was duty. Ajimobi was not perfect. Nobody is. Not all those criticizing government do it for pecuniary reasons. Not all of them do it for political reasons.

So, I dutifully started criticizing Makinde two months into his administration. Some folks reading this now, who, I had thought, criticized Ajimobi because they loved the state, started ‘inboxing’ me to leave Makinde alone and let him settle down first.

But I was shocked that a man that had been running for governor since before he was born would take so long (just like Buhari) to form a cabinet. And when he finally did, it consisted mostly of inept folks…just like Buhari. These friends were happy to criticize Buhari but wanted to give Makinde a pass.

Six months came, Makinde was still ‘dilly-dallying’, chasing Ajimobi’s shadows.

Nine months came and it was clear he was more about empty propaganda that real performance. Someone appropriately coined the sobriquet “Audio Governor” for him. And it stuck.

He is now one year in the saddle, what new initiative has he started and/or completed?

To those blinded by Makinde’s real charm offensive, what are we commissioning to mark the one year anniversary of someone that branded himself as Omi Tuntun?

On-time civil servants’ salary payment? Ajimobi really caught up with that before Makinde came on board.

NURTW “peace”? There was a relative peace in the union, achieved by Ajimobi and sustained through his entire time. Makinde came, used PDP thugs to upend the peace, foment new crisis and now we have bated peace, with an explosion waiting to happen because he imposed his thugs on those who were duly elected.

Distribution of books to students? Ajimobi already ordered and paid for the books before leaving office. In fact, the books were already supplied, waiting to be distributed once students resumed.

LAUTECH? No movement on the issue. We have kicked the can down the road.

Construction of Circular road? Contract already awarded by Ajimobi. In fact, work already started under Ajimobi. Makinde, ill-advise first stopped the project, but had to back pedal when the contractor threatened to sue for defamation.

Debt profile? He has borrowed no less than N30 billion since taking over without evidence of any particular thing done with it. And this is on top of the debt he inherited on which he has not voluntarily paid a single kobo apart from what the FG statutorily deducts every months.

Internally Generated Revenue increase? For where? He has no guts to do the needful. He is talking aspirations…theories…when he is the man on the saddle. He doesn’t want to offend anyone. Yet, a leader who is afraid of not offending anyone will not be leader for long.

Construction of Moniya-Iseyin road? Contract already awarded by Ajimobi and contractor already moved to site before Makinde, in a bid to give “food” to his own people, re-awarded the contract.

Amotekun? That’s a regional program. Gov. Kayode Fayemi and Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu take credit for leadership on that.

COVID-19? That’s more like an albatross on Makinde’s neck given the irresponsible role he played by hosting a rally in the middle of the pandemic. We do not yet know the extent of infection in the state because our testing rate is still very, very poor.

Fire Engines? When we had a fire outbreak in Akesan market, Oyo, in January, Makinde flew to Turkey (a whole governor!) to PERSONALLY inspect and supervise the purchase of 10 fire fighting trucks. Turkey? Turkey? It’s been five months and those trucks have not arrived. If they were driving them in from Ankara, they should have been here by now. Last month we had another bad fire at Dugbe, in Ibadan, the fire engine that first arrived belonged to the Central Bank, Ibadan. The state’s fire truck that responded was one of those that predated Makinde. So, what happened to the 10 “new” (hopefully) ones that we went to buy in Turkey?

Hospitals? He has not hired a single new medical doctor, a single new nurse, a single new pharmacist, let alone build a new hospital or village health center since coming to power.

So, what are we commissioning in Oyo state this month?

Some Northerners suspected to be coming from Sokoto State has been apprehended by security operatives at the Osun/Ibadan boundary.

The apprehended northerners have been immediately taken to one of the isolation centers in Ibadan.

Details Later

The Oyo State Government through the Oyo State Road Transport Management Authority, OYRTMA has acquired a new maximum tonnage truck to enhance the operations of the Agency at Oyo and Ogbomosho zones of the State.

In a statement made available to OYOMIND.COM.NG, the Executive Chairman of OYRTMA, Dr. Akin Fagbemi said that the heavy-duty tow truck has the ability to recover accident vehicles in emergency situations, as well as tow impounded small and heavy-duty articulated vehicles that may obstruct the free-flow of human and vehicular movement within Oyo and Ogbomosho zones of the state.

“This, which the Authority lacked for over 8 years, makes it two of such heavy-duty equipment that the State Government would acquire for the agency in less than one year”, he added.

Fagbemi also said, “It would enhance our statutory duties and enhance our statutory mandate of enforcing the compulsory anti-covid-19 dusk-dawn curfew imposed by the Oyo State Government”.

He further expressed gratitude to the Oyo State Government, under the leadership of Governor Seyi Makinde, who has put all logistics, physical and human resources in place to further enhance the activities of the Authority.

He opined that “with this newly added feat, we can say categorically that Oyo State is the only state in the Southwest Geopolitical zone that can boast of three of such machinery for its road traffic management agency”.

Fagbemi said the heavy-duty articulated vehicles would help the Agency in enforcing Government’s orders, particularly against those going flouting the curfew orders of Oyo State, by smuggling into the State myriads of persons, as against the permissible essential goods and services.

As part of the measure to contain the spread of coronavirus in Nigeria, the Federal Government has given an order that people without face make will be arrested and prosecuted.

As stated in the new guidelines for the new phase of containment of Covid-19 signed by the Secretary to the Government of Federation, Boss Mustapha, the will take effect from May 4 to May 17, 2020.

“Any member of the public who violates the ban on Inter-State movement as outlined in this guideline will be prosecuted.”

The new guidelines also prohibited the mass gathering of more than 20 people outside of a workplace while there would be controlled access to markets and locations of economic activities.

The FG retained the ban on all passenger flights with religious gatherings also restricted.

For intra-state travel in public transport, the guideline recommended a maximum of 50 percent of usual occupancy while taxis were ordered to carry an only guideline-recommended driver.

Credit: Oyoinsight

A Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Chief Niyi Akintola SAN has aired his view on the Covid-19 endowment being raised by the Oyo State Government.

The Ibadan Born Lawyer while speaking during an interview on a popular radio station in Ibadan said that he will not donate to the Oyo Covid-19 account until the management team is put in place by the state government.

According to him, money donated by an individual, private organizations, and philanthropists is better used to support the people directly than making donations to the government.

He further stated that recently, he received a letter of support for covid-19 from Former Governor Rashidi Ladoja. Being a highly respected leader in the state, he drove down to his house where he got to know that the letter didn’t emanate from Governor Ladoja as he was not in the country at the moment.

The lacklustre attitude of Kano people has backfired. People are dying in droves. Within a week, almost a hundred people have died mysteriously. The Kano State Government has been forced to its knees. In a week, the Government has speedily created two isolation centres to respond to the spread of coronavirus in the State.

Unfortunately, the Oyo State government is still taking issues with levity. Either good or bad, our actions and inactions have consequences. The authorities in the State are still playing populist politics with corona pandemic. I pray we all not live to bear the brunts of our uncanny dispositions.

In Oyo State, I can tell you that nothing is on ground. All we keep hearing are nothing but failed promises. In spite of almost two billion naira the government announced it had spent on war against COVID-19, Oyo State does not have a well-equipped isolation centre.

The Chest Centre in Jericho and the Olodo Centre are not fully functional. A week ago, the University College Hospital (UCH) made it known that the State Government was not ready for collaboration with the Teaching Hospital. “The State Government is still dragging feet in the fight against the novel pandemic”, a source said.

Just this week, Governor Seyi Makinde announced that the State did not have reagents to carry out Coronavirus test on suspected victims. What is the price of reagents that it becomes an uphill task for the Government to procure? If I may ask, assuming there were no fund, what has the Government done with the huge donor funds from some corporate organisations?

Up till today, Oyo State Government has not, officially, given a grain of rice or a sachet of water as palliative to the poor masses of the State. People are languishing in abject poverty. It is an obvious fact that the citizens of the State are groaning in excruciating pains under the iron fist of lockdown.

Coronavirus keeps spreading like wildfire in Oyo State. Cases have been recorded in Ibadan. Yesterday, Ogbomoso has recorded new cases. I don’t know how the virus bypassed Oyo and flew straight from Ibadan to Ogbomoso. If care is not taken, Oyo Town may be a potential abode of corona virus victims. The people of Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa are travelling in and out of their domains without an iota of restriction. I pray the consequences will not be devastating.

The people of Oyo State are helpless. Apart from the two Ibadan isolation centres, I can authoritatively say that there is no other isolation centre in any part of the State. I pray there is no outbreak of this pandemic in Shaki, Iseyin, Igboho, Ogbomoso, Lanlate, Kishi or any parts of the State; the effect may be catastrophic. Why? The State Government is not ready to protect her people.