‘There’s no room for violence in Ondo politics’

[MrVan]

By Chioma Gabriel

The Director General Of Dr Olusegun Mimiko's Campaign Mr Akin Adaramola, former Head of Service in Ondo State and now Commissioner for Economic Planning however assured that Governor Mimiko's catalogue of achievements remain the springboard that will bounce him back to power at the end of the October 20 guber polls.

You have been  appointed the DG  of Governor  Mimiko's campaign, how do you intend to tackle this challenge?

No doubt, it's a big challenge, but with God, nothing is impossible. I am happy I am working with a team of politicians who understand the terrain. They are the best you can assemble for a task like this and by the grace of God, we shall deliver on our promises.

We are happy that we are working   for a tested and credible candidate.  We also give glory to God that there are so much work that he has done which we are going to sell his candidature with. We are showcasing the achievements that have been recorded in the last three and a half years in all sectors of the economy which will now form the basis for asking the people for a fresh mandate because we know they will want the good works to continue.

A pocket of crisis  erupted shortly after the primaries of the three major political parties, what is your organization doing to prevent this in the course of the campaign?

Thank you very much, all the transformation the people are witnessing in the state is mainly as a result of the peaceful atmosphere in the state. Talk about either urban renewal, Mega School or other things, were as a result of the peaceful environment.  If there is no peace nobody will be talking about development, all attention will be focused on achieving a peaceful atmosphere and we want to give God the glory that in the last 3½ years at least people can compare what the situation was before Governor Mimiko came on board, and also what they have enjoyed in the last 3½ years.

Before he came on board, we know how people were being terrorized by thugs but we thank God for the leadership provided by Governor Mimiko, this is to show that once the head is good, the whole of the body will be good and that is what we are witnessing.  Because the headship of the present administration does not believe in violence, he is a man of God and he has demonstrated that always.

Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko And now we see everybody joining in our volunteer scheme where we have provided jobs for over 10,000 youths.  So those people that usually foment trouble are now fully engaged.  We have those directing traffic among other jobs that have been created for them.

The governor has vowed to do everything within his power to ensure our people live in a peaceful atmosphere.  And may be because our opposition don't have anything to tell the people, they now make the issue of thuggery a campaign issue or may be their strategy,  and it will not work for them.  We are already contacting the security agencies in the state.

We know what the state has gone through in the past years and we can't allow anybody to breach the peace that we have enjoyed in the state, in the past 3½ years.  So those people who are now throwing stones at Ondo State from their own states, we know them and we are not going to close our eyes and allow them to destroy our state. I know our people will not allow foreigners to destroy their own heritage. But one thing is clear, you cannot force yourself on the people.

In a civilized world,  when you campaign, you tell the people what you can do, what you want  to do, what you have the capacity to do and on the basis of that they will now compare, they will vote for anybody with better programmes, it should be the same for the people of Ondo State and let the people now  judge which is better between what they have seen and what is just being promised them.  So the issue of peace is very germane and we thank God for the peace that we have enjoyed in the last 3½ years.

You said  Mimiko has done so much in the last three and half years, what has he done to tackle unemployment in the state?

Governor Mimiko has done so much in the area of job creation and still doing more because he realized that this is one area that must be tackled headlong. He believes that we must creatively engage our youths if we want to take them off the streets. To do this, we need to generate mass employment.  For him, the most credible route is to leverage on areas where we have relative advantage.

Because we have fertile land and incredible range of vegetation here, we thought agriculture was one primary area where we can engage the youth massively in, not in the routine or conventional salaried employment. We want to encourage our youths to get engaged in productive agriculture, and that is what we have done. Mimiko has put in place three Agro Business Cities which are essentially patterned, though modified a bit, after the old farm settlement scheme in the old western region.

The first of our farm cities in Ore for example, was designed to make farming attractive, acceptable and comfortable for graduates. The government of Dr Mimiko provided them with modern accommodation and the machines that will drive mechanized farming.

Under a participant owner scheme they were given all the inputs; land preparation, seedlings, chemicals and all of that to them and whatever profit they make in the scheme will ultimately be their own. The government also  amortized its  investments over time so that they can start getting good results.

Like I said, we have built three; at full capacity we expect these to employ at least three thousand youths. Number two, we also know that ICT and renewable energy are two other areas where we can get a lot of youth gainfully employed. And under  Mimiko's Tech View project, a set of young men and women  have been trained  in renewable energy- how to assemble inverter, do solar power audit etc. and all of them are gainfully engaged now.

Of course we've also tried to renew our capacity in the civil service because for more than six years before Governor Mimiko's administration, there was a sort of embargo on employment. So when you look at our structure in the civil service, it is an inverted pyramid. We have a lot of people up there and at the base of the pyramid, because we haven't been employing for some time, we have only a few people.

So we are deliberately bringing in young people especially in the areas of critical need. We have engaged new engineers, quantity surveyors, architects, doctors, lawyers and some administrators into the system. At the last count, we have engaged about a thousand and we are still engaging depending on the availability of funds and our perception of the areas of need. The Governor's intention is to be able to create the top management force that will drive the economy that we are building.

What has the government  done to engage the youths who could not be directly engaged in the civil service?

We also started what we call the volunteer scheme. The programme is three years old now and the whole idea is to get a lot of our young men and women away from the streets, from desperation and the precipice. We get them gainfully engaged. When we got them on board, we did not just bring them in and give them hoes and cutlasses; we trained them.

Those people you see directing our traffic are part of our volunteer scheme. They were trained in the Police College and then gainfully engaged. We trained some of them in ICT and community engagement and they are the people we call community change agents that we deploy under our integrated community development programme we called the three I's initiative.

We trained some of them as environmental officers and they are engaged in very many areas of our economy. Again, that is a way of mopping up the excess resource in the economy that is begging for useful engagement and  Mimiko has  promised to continue to look for  creative ways of engaging our young men and women because it is big challenge.

What has been done so far in the area of industrialization?

As we grow the economy, we also deliberately craft our industrial policy to be mass employment focused. I give you an example. The tomato factory at Arigidi Akoko fits classically into our industrial development paradigm. One, it is agro-based so, the raw materials are there. Two, it also creates a lot of indirect engagement throughout-growers  scheme, so apart from those working in the factory, there will be like a thousand out growers who will be feeding the factory.

The administration had already brought Israeli experts who have trained the first five hundred of these out growers. Soon the second batch of 500 will be trained too. It also has a backward integration that will further engage quite a number of our people. That is the type of industrial development we are trying to engender to grow our economy and engage our young ones.

The bane of industrial development in Ondo State like every other state is power. When you go round the state, you'll see that most of the old industries are down because they are no longer competitive due to the cost of power. So we are trying to solve the problem of power in a multi faceted way. First, we know that geography favours us in Ore because the Lagos-Escravos gas-line passes through Ore.

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