Ogun State - Olaniyonu: Amosun Has Demystified Critics

[OgunState]

 With over 25 years of experience in journalism and having edited many newspaper and magazine titles, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, could be said to be in a familiar terrain as the Ogun State Commissioner for Information and Strategy. In this interview with Olawale Olaleye, he runs through the two-year journey of the Senator Ibikunle Amosun administration. Excerpts:

It’s almost two years since you left the newsroom for politics, would you share your experience?

I always say to people that the newsroom is my natural environment; my comfort zone and leaving that comfort zone where I had operated for more than 22 years to government where things are done differently- where you need to watch what you say, where you need to put what you say in the context of the government and the political party in government, it has been a radical shift from that comfort zone to another zone where you need to be careful.

Again, one is no longer responsible for his views like in the newsroom where you can express your views. Any view you expressed is seen as the viewpoint of the government and for that, it must be in the interest of the governor and the people of Ogun. So, it is a different environment where you will continue to learn.

You man a critical ministry which is information and your government came into office at a time you had different political challenges, especially the attacks from the opposition, how were you able to manage it?

Governor Senator Ibukunle Amosun has always said that there are three answers you must give to the opposition and they are: one, performance; two, performance and three, performance. And that the only way you can silence the opposition is for the government to continue to fulfil its promises to the people; that government must continue to meet the needs and yearnings of the people. It is for the government to continue to be responsive and responsible to the people.

So, once you are doing all I just described, then, you will have a good answer for the opposition. Though, we are in a democracy where the opposition is free to express its opinion or misinterpret what the government is doing, but what is important is that the government should not lose focus. Government must continue to serve the interest of the people.

Anybody in the opposition has no responsibility to anybody because no opposition will be talking of construction of roads, whether teacher’s salaries are paid, whether hospitals are functioning, they are all businesses of the government. They have all the time for mischief; they have all the time to criticise the government and because they also want to be in that position, it is natural for them not to see anything good in government or praise government.

So, has this administration been able to deploy performance to silencing the opposition and in specific, what areas of performance can you point to?

I have always said that if you want to judge or assess this administration, you can only do that within the ambiance of the five cardinal programmes that the governor, Senator Ibukunle Amosun, used in seeking the mandate of the people. Those five cardinal programmes are affordable and qualitative education; efficient health care delivery; increase in agricultural production and industrialisation; affordable housing and urban renewal and lastly, rural-urban infrastructural development and employment generation.

Now, if you take education for example, in Ogun State, we are taking the people back to the era of Chief Olabisi Olabanjo, where not only was education free, text books are also being provided for the students in primary and secondary schools.

Today, in Ogun State, we have free education. Nobody is paying tuition in primary and secondary schools; you have text books been provided for students, with materials like note books, biro and files being provided free. If you are in SS3, your WAEC fee will be paid for you. Apart from that, in all the schools, the dilapidated buildings are being rebuilt, furniture are been provided. And because of the need to return to missionary schools, we are building modern schools that will have hostels.

We are building 26 of them but 15 is almost completed and majority out of those 15 will soon be inaugurated. Also, government has reduced the school fees in the higher institutions and we are also working on public private partnership programme that will ensure that the state government-owned higher institutions are provided with modern facilities on their campuses. We also have a programme for training teachers and they are motivated with good salaries and allowances.

If you move away from education to health, we are rebuilding and equipping primary health care centres. The plan is to ensure that we have functional and well equipped primary health centres and we have already completed about 100 of them. In the first 100 days, we did 50 and equipped them. Apart from that, we are also doing some advocacy programmes to ensure that malaria is reduced to the lowest minimum in Ogun State. We also have another advocacy programmes to prevent cancer, while at the same time, building a cancer centre in Ogun State. The state has also commenced the building of new hospitals in each of the constituencies and one is completed now.

If you go to agriculture, we are already refurbishing all the farm settlements that we have. We are doing these to enable it serve the purpose Chief Awolowo conceived them for. After doing it, we will now employ graduates there. We are also trying to partner a private organisation- Songhai- in the Republic of Benin to assist us in promoting our farming so that it will become what everybody wants to do. We also have a very good land policy that we have unfolded where big farmers come to Ogun State to establish farms. We also have N1million agricultural loan been given to farmers in the state to encourage them.

As we are focusing on agriculture, we are also attracting investors so that those farm products are not just taken cheaply out of Ogun State. We will create a value chain where a lot of them will be processed and turned to ready consumables. So we want to create a value chain that will create more employment because the government and industries cannot employ everybody but with agriculture, you can employ a lot of people.

Now, if we go to our fourth programme, affordable housing and urban renewal, the building of three housing estates is on. One in Abeotuka, another at Ota and there is also another one at Ijebu. We are going to partner some private investors. You know there is o sufficient land in Lagos and Ogun State being close to Lagos, if we develop good housing estate and provide good roads in Ogun State, people can live in Ogun State and work in Lagos. Lagos State is the commercial capital of Nigeria and it just like the American set-up where New York is the commercial capital and behind it is New Jersey.

You won’t even know you have left New York when you are going to New Jersey and that is how Ogun State is. So, we want to be the New Jersey of Lagos. Our plan is to feed Lagos and House Lagos. How do we house Lagos? We will create housing estates that people from Lagos can live in. As part of urban renewal programme, we are also building drainages to prevent flooding. Today, Abeokuta is among the cleanest city in the country.

Then, when we talk about the last programme which is rural and infrastructural development and employment generation we have also recorded success. In fact, when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu commissioned a flyover built by the state government in Abeokuta, he said the state has become a construction site. Across the three senatorial zones, we are constructing 16 roads. We now have what we call ‘The Ogun Standard’, meaning, any road you are building must be six lanes with drainages, street lights and where flower will be planted. We are working all over the places. We have the Arepo road, Abeokuta, Shagamu, Ijebu-Ode and others. The plan is to make the environment friendly for investors and businesses to thrive when they come.

The problem of insecurity was subduing when the government came on board, what is the situation now?

By the time our government came in, things were bad. It was easy to get a gun in the state than to buy a bottle of coca cola. But when we came in, the government realised that there was nothing you could achieve when there is no peace and security in the state. We moved straight to tackle it. The government first set up a security task force followed by another joint military patrol group called Operation Messa and Rapid Respond Squad and the situation was arrested.

Apart from funding them, the government also bought 13 armoured cars and several rounds of ammunitions with communication gadgets for all the security agencies. Even as we have done all these, we are still on the alert because we know that Ogun State has some disadvantages because of its location. We share a border with Republic of Benin and Lagos, the commercial city of Nigeria where the hoodlums have been chased out. So, the state government is seriously fighting crimes because if we are not active, they can easily relocate to Ogun State and that is why we are doing our best to ensure Ogun State is not a safe place for them.

Performance aside, some people complain about the governor’s brand of politics?

Well, I don’t understand the basis of this allegation you are talking about because I know that the governor always consults the party leaders and from time to time, the leadership of the Assembly meets with the governor. The governor consults them all the time and it does not stop there because he also consults the traditional rulers and the premier leaders.

So, I don’t know the basis of the allegation but it is a political environment where there are various interests and they must clash. But for the Assembly, I think the governor has done well in terms of consulting them and that was why he did not find it difficult to resolve the crisis that happened in the Assembly last month.

In another two months, the Amosun-led administration will be two years in office, how has it fared in totality?

Before the two months, a lot will happen. Most of the projects must have been completed. There is a hospital that we built in Abeokuta which is going to be replicated in all the federal constituencies that we have and the hospital is going to be ready by May. It will further enhance medical facilities in Ogun State. The sets of equipment for the hospital are already at the sea port and before May, they would be cleared and the hospital will become functional. So, most of the ongoing projects would be completed and others will commence.

Via: Ogun State Government - Official Press Release