By Israel Afolabi
Speaker, Osun State House of Assembly, Dr. Najeem Salaam has tasked electorates to vote only politicians who have the interest of the masses at heart instead of greedy and self-serving ones.
He said, the electorates should votes those who have conquered their greed, saying it was acquisitive tendency that compels political office holders to indulge in corruption and outright stealing of collective resources of the people; asking people to ask questions about politicians seeking public office.
Addressing All Progressives Congress leaders and faithful at a consultation tour in Osu, Atakunmosa West Local Government and Iperindo, Atakunmosa East local government respectively, Dr. Salaam said the public office should be regarded as public trust that must be held for the good of the people, not to service narrow interest of some individuals.
He debunked the rumour milling the round that he had collected money from the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu with the aim of getting him to step down for an aspirant linking to him; insisting that he was never asked to shelve his ambition for anyone, let alone collecting money from any source.
Dr. Salaam asserted that his governorship mission is to drive the economy of Osun with technology driven agriculture that would engage thousands of youths, as well as wean the state from total dependence on crude oil scooped from another region of the country.
He admitted that Osun has been financially challenged, a situation that made the government to deploy all available financial instruments to provide infrastructure; stressing that contending with modulated salaries is regretted; saying the only way to redress the situation is to embark on mechanized farming of comparative advantage and reorganization of informal sector of economy.
“Osun state has vast agricultural resources, it promises to fetch a big investment for the state and its potentials and potentialities for job creation and meaningful engagement of the youths is a task that must be done. Besides, technology would be deployed to harness agricultural resources and with a timeline, the state would be rolled back to prosperity,” Salaam reiterated.
He further stressed that agricultural revolution can only be achieved in an environment where all-inclusive governance is established, promising to run his government based on information that would be supplied by contact committee that would be regularly interacting with all communities in the state for the institution of bottom-up budget approach.
