Arch. Goke Omigbodun, a public affairs analyst, an educationist, and the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2022 governorship election in Osun State spoke with Kazeem Badmus on his assessment of Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration so far. Excerpt:
What is your impression of Gov. Ademola Adeleke’s Administration?
To start with, Governor Ademola Adeleke came in and started to pay the backlog of salaries owed to civil servants. I applaud him so much for that. I’m saying this because I have observed that people just want to criticise and say things that ought to be done but are never done, but those things that were also done should be acknowledged. So, the fact that Adeleke was able to pay the backlog of the salaries of civil servants in Osun is a great achievement.
However, I am going to start my criticism straight away from that. I know during the Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s administration, the federal allocation to Osun nosedived. That was why he was unable to pay full salaries and he went for modulated salary. During the last administration of Mr Gboyega Oyetola, both the allocation from the federation account and the figure of the state budget continued to improve, and as gradually as it was improving, whatever Oyetola felt he needed to do, he was doing it. But we all felt that Oyetola could have done better and started the payment of the backlog of salaries and made the economy of the state a little bit easier on the people.
During the third year of Oyetola’s administration, his total allocation from the federation account was N36 billion and with that, he was managing to do what he could which we thought was not enough. By 2022, when we had the election, the entire allocation from the federation account that year was N41.53bn, and that year, there was a budget of N130bn in Osun. The salaries and wages of workers in the state have been fixed earlier than that and still have not increased.
So, coming back to Adeleke, in 2023 when he was completely in the saddle, the allocation that came into Osun jumped from N41.53bn in 2022 to N141.5bn. That’s more than three times the previous allocation and yet, the salaries and wages of workers are still the same. Also, the budget of Osun state last year moved to N138bn and one would have thought that is the end of it.
For this year alone, they have gotten almost N100bn in the first five months of the year and the budget of the state for this year is N264bn which is about two times the 2023 budget, and yet, workers are still taking the same amount.
But the issue is that some loyalists of the government would not allow us to talk and I do not blame them because the people from the opposition All Progressive Congress who come to criticise the government are not coming with facts and figures and a lot of times, they say fables.
What do you think Governor Adeleke should have done better?
The economy of this state would have been better under a good governor who knows what he ought to do with the additional funds coming from the federation account and the Internally Generated Revenue that should have increased and improved, if there was a very smart governor in the state now.
If I were to be the governor of Osun State today, there are certain things I would first do. I would not be looking out to go and start breaking down already good roads in city centres. Like in Osogbo, we had relatively good roads. Oke-Fia and Alekuwode Road were good and then Adeleke came in and started digging potholes on those roads because he wanted to make flyovers. Are flyovers the next thing that can improve the economy of the state?
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I would have expected the government of Adeleke to look at how the state can generate its electricity.
Well, I may not know, there were insinuations that he is not doing that because he doesn’t want to compete with his brother on the issue of power generation.
If things now become issues of personal affairs and choices not to create competition for home enterprises, then you don’t have the masses of Osun state at heart. If you are going to do anything about roads at all, if I were to be the governor; I would look into rural roads to make sure that agricultural produce gets transported from those rural areas to other communities easily.
There would be a time in the future and we will eventually come back to build all the flyovers in Osogbo, Ile-Ife, Ilesa, Ede, and Ikirun. For now, we do not have the kind of economy that can generate the traffic that necessitates those flyovers. We could have done it in the future.
What we should have done now is how to generate electricity which will make Osun state the Silicon Valley of Nigeria, which will bring more people into the state, and in turn, there would be the need for people to consume more food which will be beneficial to the farmers.
Unfortunately, because they wanted the family of the deputy speaker to have access to about N10bn of the resources of the masses of Osun state, they went about doing flyovers which, to me, is arrant nonsense because we do not need them now.
Like what we have at the Federal level with an over-bloated cabinet, the same is happening in Osun. Governor Adeleke has about 30 commissioners and 50 Special Advisers and that is how the money of Osun is being spent. It is not about partisan politics. The evil that the APC government is doing at the Federal level is being replicated here in Osun. Too many commissioners, Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants, and others.
What do you feel should be done for those affected by the ongoing infrastructural projects?
I’m an Estate Surveyor and Valuer, so, I know about compensation and I know that every project that impinges on the social, physical, and economic life of the people should attract some financial compensation for any inconveniences that they may have suffered. Those people who have legitimate reasons to be in locations where they have been displaced should be compensated.
The Governor, through the state House of Assembly, has reversed some policies of the previous administrations, what is your take on this?
Adeleke should stop reversing what the previous state governors had done. He is now building statues all over the place. I would not have minded if he stopped at every other person, but he included even his own. That is immodest. He should go and remove it.
The Governor has forgotten that all of us are stakeholders in Osun and I’m saying this authoritatively. Once you are not a member of the PDP, you cannot do anything in this state. I have sought to do things that are purely professional and I was told I am not a member of the PDP. What concerns being a member of the PDP with professional affairs when we are talking of intellectuals? All of us are taxpayers and stakeholders. So, for goodness’s sake, they should not make everything about the PDP.
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Anybody that is not a member of the PDP is not listened to. Ipade Imole, a supposed public engagement with the government is a party affair and many people have attested to that. You dare not go there if you are not a PDP member.
The executive is not the only steering controlling the vehicle of the state, what is your impression about the House of Assembly, and its members?
I have not felt their impact other than throwing away certain laws that were made before this administration. I have never been an advocate or even an opposer of the State of Osun. To me, I have no issue with Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola coming and changing the name, that’s his business. Has that changed the price of petrol or the exchange rate? Somebody now comes again and just wants to negate everything that every governor who came before him had done.
Honestly, I don’t want to comment much about the performance of the House of Assembly members. I have not really had much about them and I don’t know much about their individual performances. Honestly, I have not seen much about them to impress me. It is when people articulate arguments that you will know them. I don’t even know their names. They are not articulating any argument that is in favour of the people. They are only taking contracts.
You were a member of Alliance for Democracy (AD) before moving to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and later to Social Democratic Party (SDP), what necessitated your political movements?
My political movements have been purely dictated by Afenifere. The only time that I did not listen to Afenifere was when I moved from the Action Congress (AC) to the PDP, by which time Afenifere was divided. There was an Afenifere of Chief Bisi Akande and there was another Afenifere of Senator Akinfenwa. Some people later gathered together and called themselves Afenifere Renewal Group.
I moved from the AD to AC and left for PDP when I saw that certain things were being done that were not fair. In 2007, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola was one of those who scored 93 points during the screening to contest for governor and he got his ticket. Prof. Sola Adeyeye wanted to be a senator and he scored 93 points and was given his ticket.
I wanted to contest for the State House of Assembly seat and I also scored 93 points in my category, but I was not given my ticket. Some people were saying because I’m a Pastor and a Christian, Osogbo people would not vote for me and that a Muslim should replace me. I protested and I called all the leaders including Baba Bisi Akande and Rauf Aregbesola and Baba Dosu Oladipo to intervene and do the right thing, but nothing was done. I scored 93 points and the nearest to me in that category scored 70 points from another constituency. The nearest to me in my own constituency scored 65.
I decided that I was not going to stay in that party because of the cheating, then the PDP people called me. They told me they don’t discriminate and gave me enough reasons to believe that because I saw their lineup in government then.
I gave the AC one week to return my ticket, but I was not given the ticket. So, I left the party. That was my first journey out of a political party and it was purely based on principle. I will not cheat anybody but I would not allow you to cheat me and get away with it. Whatever I might have missed in that party, I do not care because that was cheating. When I was running around and was detained, they didn’t recognise that I was a Christian. In fact, the PDP government detained me the moment they came in. I remember some of the AC leaders were asking if I was going back to the people who detained me and I told them, ‘I will feel better with them’. So, that was why I left AC and went to join the government of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and he made me a Special Adviser.
While in the PDP, somebody who also associated with us in the Afenifere wanted to be the national chairman of the party. That was Professor Tunde Adeniran. One event followed another and with a lot of permutations, he lost to Uche Secondus. The leadership of Afenifere said we own the Social Democratic Party, and we have not done much about it because it was newly registered then. So, they asked Tunde Adeniran to move to the SDP with the Afenifere members. That was why I move to the SDP, and I eventually became the flagbearer of the SDP in Osun State.
Shortly after, Iyiola Omisore joined us in the SDP and the rest is history. The SDP has been hijacked by the APC. The people who are in the national secretariat of the SDP right now are not the real Afeniferes. They are not the ones who understands abundant for all. They are not the ones who understands good governance.
