{Opinion} Oyetola: Doing Much Without Noise

 

 By Kola Olabisi

POWER indeed is responsibility. There is a correlation between an ability and performance. Trial is a prerequisite measure to know the ability of a human being. Some talents have been eternally buried because of lack of sufficient pedestal of such a gifted fellow to prove his mettle. 

No human being is out-rightly useless in this world. Rather, it is only that some people are not saddled with a tasking responsibility which is in line with their core area of comparative advantage that it will appear that such a person is a failure in life. 

Life can be likened to a metaphorical partisan political space where there is latitude for all manners of characters to exhibit their God-given endowments. There is an allowance for the wise ones just in the same way that the gate is not shut out for the pathologically stupid ones and those who are skilled in thuggery.

My cursory and systematic study of the activities of an illustrious son of State of Osun with primary source of power for over two years running revealed so many things. Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, with his rare ability to squeeze water from the stone in his efforts to provide qualitative and enviable leadership for the state, despite the paucity of fund, qualifies him to be described as an unrivalled financial engineer, financial wizard or a financial magician.

Discerning minds within and outside the ruling party, APC the state have been wondering how the technocrat turned politician has been able to smoothly run the state. The shocker handed down to the major opposition party in the state by this maverick state governor is legendary as he has been steadily fulfilling his campaign promises without any hitches. The state workers have not only been collecting their pay in full but it has also been effected as and when due.

This singular achievement of the Governor in the area of salary payment has sent jitters into the spine of the major opposition party in the state, PDP. At the onset of the Oyetola administration, the sing-song of the opposition had been that the government would soon go under by reason of its inability to pay salaries. But they have been proved wrong as the Governor would not have anything to do with obstruction of the payment of the workers’ salaries.

If the prompt payment of salaries by Oyetola is marvellous, of equally wonderful fact is how he has turned the entire state into a construction site. There is no local government across the state where legacy road construction projects are not either in progress or already completed. Of particular interest is Edeland where Oyetola has been introducing and effecting rapid and ferocious reconstruction of their township roads despite the fact that the voting pattern during the last governorship election showed that the ancient town was an opposition enclave. 

Another noticeable attribute of the Oyetola administration is that it does not neglect any sector for another as health, security, welfare, education, culture etc have also been given due attention in the overall interest of the people of the state. The Governor who cherishes behind the scene approach to issues requiring attention is a workaholic who has no time for frivolities. Behind his taciturn, easy-going, suave, urbane nature is a strong will resolution to entrench exemplary beneficial governance in the state. It is equally of importance to state that all the inherited projects from his predecessor are all works in progress across the state.

The superlative achievement of the Oyetola administration on its effective tackling of COVID-19 pandemic is still fresh in the memory of the people of the state. The technocrat-Governor refuses to be distracted by the needless noise oozing out from the market but rather, he is concerned with the activities of his co-patrons to the market. It is not for fun that the man-made series of orchestrated distractive tendencies from both within and outside the party have been refusing to stand or fly. This is in fulfilment of the adopted moniker for the Oyetola campaign movement, Ileri Oluwa(The Promise of God).

There is a nexus between the approach of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, former Premier of the old Western Region and leader of opposition in the First Republic who was Vice Chairman of Federal Executive Council and Finance Minister (Federal Commissioner) during the General Yakubu Gowon regime, and the Osun State Governor Oyetola.

When Awolowo (Awo for short) was in charge of the country’s finances, Nigeria embarked upon many infrastructural projects and even executed a three-year civil war without borrowing money. That is just what Oyetola has been replicating in Osun as despite the fact that he has been ferociously impatient to develop the state, he has been systematically repaying all forms of inherited debts without no known case(s) of borrowing a dime from anywhere to run his government.

 

OLABISI is the Media Consultant to the Governor (Office of The State Party Chairman, Osogbo).