Governor Seyi Makinde’s Chief Press Secretary, Ap. Sulaimon Olanrewaju was guest on a popular Radio program anchored by Temitayi aka Aabo Oro.
He was on the program to x-ray the activities of the Oyo state Government in the past one year of the Governor’s second term.
I listened to the program with rapt attention and can not help but to pity the CPS who is said to be an Apostle.
An Apostle in Christiandom is a spiritual position that places a very heavy responsibility on the holder of the position.
To demonstrate the weight of this position, it will be apposite to let the reader know that the disciples of Jesus Christ were the first to be known as Apostles.
So, you can imagine the situation where an Apostle will have to defend the many lies associated with the Seyi Makinde Government without offending his Apostolic faith.
But you can not serve both God and Mammon and I think the CPS did his job according to the dictates of the flesh.
For example, how could someone justify the fact that a significant decrease was recorded in the number of the out of school pupils in Oyo state just because Governor Seyi Makinde stopped the payment of three thousand Naira per pupil per session?
If this ascertions by the CPS is correct, then it means Oyo state has one of the highest numbers of irresponsible parents.
Perhaps, it will be necessary to educate the CPS on how the issue of the payments of three thousand Naira per pupil per session came into effect.
There were series of consultations between Government and relevant stakeholders in the Education sector before the system was approved, not by Government but as a mutual agreement between Government, the parents/ teachers association and the old students of public schools.
No reasonable parent will have issues with the payment of a paltry one thousand Naira in a month on his own child.
This system was working perfectly.
It effectively took care of the day to day running of the schools.
Arrangements were made to take care of shortage of teachers and extra classes were also arranged for students.
Note, that this money went directly to the purses of the schools and not through Government.
Schools Governing Boards were established and these Bodies were doing a good job to rally old students associations and stakeholders to take care of the needs of the public schools.
Like I said, this system was working perfectly and a steady rise in the Education sector was visible.
The parents were not complaining because the plan was an agreement between Government and the stakeholders.
Unfortunately, without consultations with critical stakeholders, Governor Seyi Makinde unilaterally destroyed the system and the result is the decadence we currently have in our Education sector.
Governor Seyi Makinde obviously does not have his children in the Education sector he has created and I’m sure Apostle Sulaimon doesn’t have his kids within that system.
Some of us who have our children in the system are the better judges of the havoc they have wrecked in the Oyo state Education sector.
What we are made to pay now is far higher than the one thousand Naira per term we were paying during Ajimobi’s tenure.
In fact, I will choose to pay five thousand Naira per term per pupil to return to the era of Ajimobi.
The running costs promised by the Governor is not only inadequate, it is irregular.
I am surprised that Apostle Sulaimon is measuring the success recorded by his Principal on the quantity.
What happened to the quality?
Oyo state is now far behind in the WAEC index to the extent that states like Borno, despite the challenges they face have gone ahead of us!
I have said it times without number that Governor Seyi Makinde is a skillful deceiver.
He stopped the payments of a paltry three thousand Naira per session but have refused to help parents in the payments of the fees for WAEC and NECO.
Whereas, all his predecessors were paying for the WAEC fees of students in public secondary schools.
In fact, Akala paid for both.
May I also correct the impression created by the CPS, I will be modest not to call it a lie.
Whatever decadence that were in the Education sector have been addressed through deliberate wide consultations and dedicated commitments from Government and the stakeholders in the Education sector until Governor Makinde came and scattered the system.
So, rather than shifting blames on past Administrations, Governor Makinde should be apologizing to the parents and pupils of public schools in Oyo state.
After all, former Governor Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja once executed a policy of thirty students per class in this same state and he did so perfectly and without complaining about his predecessor.
Another area I will also like to ventilate is in the area of Agri-business.
The CPS claimed the Government of Seyi Makinde have stimulated the economy of Oyo state through Agriculture, even though, he didn’t tell us how.
If he had, I would have asked him to go to the Northern part of Nigeria, specifically, Niger state.
How much does a module of Garri, Elubo, Rice and beans cost in Niger state compared to Oyo state?
Is it not a very big shame to this Governor that a module of Garri costs less by almost one thousand Naira in Minna to what it is being sold for in Oyo state ditto for Elubo ( cassava flour)?
Yet, we claim to be the largest growers of cassava?!
It is always nauseating when you listen to Governor Makinde and his men blowing grammar about Agriculture.
What are they doing well in the North that Governor Seyi Makinde have refused to learn from?
It is simple. The Governor of Niger state is involved in practical Agriculture and not some cosmetic approach we have here.
Governments up there ensure that tractors, fertilizers, chemicals are made available in extremely subsidized rates.
Their main target are the farmers not the traders we have been concentrating on in Oyo state.
When you compare the cost of ploughing an acre of land in Oyo to what is obtainable in the North, you will see why we have degeneraed to a point that we now order food stuffs from the North!
How can anyone explain a situation where Garri and Elubo will cost more in Oyo state than in Minna.
I would have thought such a day will never come but it is here and I think Governor Makinde should be ashamed of this sad reality.
However, if he is in doubt, he should just send a delegate to Minna to compare the prices of the items I listed he should however be humble enough to ask his team to stop over at the office of the governor of Niger state to learn some tricks from him.
After all, we have sent people to learn in Nassarawa state.
Awolowo did not record the successes he recorded in Agriculture because he was blowing big and irrelevant grammar.
Awolowo involved his Government in direct Agriculture.
In simple terms, he was engaged in planting and harvesting.
In fact, he was also engaged in buying and selling of the most valuable farm produce, Cocoa, through the Cocoa Board.
He was actively engaged in live stock farming.
That is why his Government was in control of pricing.
What has Governor Makinde planted?
What has he harvested?
It is a big shame that while Lagos state, with no single plot of agrarian Land mass still managed to collaborate with Kebbi state to produce LAKE Rice, Oyo state, despite the hundred of thousands of hectres of agrarian Land mass have not produced a module of corn since Governor Makinde because Governor.
Yet, the Governor is talking of stimulating the economy through Agriculture!
What are you stimulating?
High prices of food items?
If all the billions of Naira wasted on Agri-business have been chanelled on planting and harvesting like Awolowo did, like they are doing in Niger state, at least, there should be plenty of food reserves in Oyo state as of now.
Awolowo not only used Agriculture to boost income. He used Agriculture to create jobs.
How many jobs have we created in Oyo state through Agriculture?
Sadly, the CPS told us that the Ministry of Agriculture in Oyo state has Land for Agricultural purpose, but they’re leasing the Land out!
I would also like to talk about the claims of the CPS concerning security.
I am surprised that Governor Makinde equates purchase of vehicles for security Agencies with a secured environment.
The question is, how has the purchase of the vehicles impacted on the overall security of the state.
About a couple of weeks ago, while the Governor was busy plotting on how to extend his hold on the 33 Local Governments through an arranged election, Kidnappers struck at Maya, a village in Ibarapa East Local Government.
This daredevils kidnapped about twenty people in a string of operations.
Those who were kidnapped were in their captives for days.
In the end about ten people were brutally murdered by the kidnappers.
The stories around the kidnap incident in Maya doesn’t glorify a perfect security system.
Also, a couple of days ago, there were News about the kidnap of the relatives of a popular Senior Advocate in Iseyin.
Such incidents doesn’t suggest that all is well with security in the state.
I noticed that the CPS cleverly parried the questions being thrown at him about his Principal’s former associate, Lamidi Mukaila Auxiliary.
In his shoes, I will probably do the same.
How will you discuss Auxiliary and you won’t open the Pandora box?
The truth however is that sensible citizens of Oyo state now know better that Auxiliary was an unforced error, an avoidable menace brought upon Oyo state through greed and pursuit of self ambition.
The CPS did whatever he had to do but the reality stare us in the face.
Omi Tuntun 2. 0 is a continuation of fantasies and fallacies.
It won’t be different from Omi Tuntun 1.0 except that the Governor have become more emboldened and more determined to continue in massive borrowings, indiscriminate sales of Oyo state government owned spaces and continued plundering of the resources of the Local Governments.
We will continue to see the further dilapidation of Agbowo, we will continue to walk by the generators installed to power the streetlights under the Light up Oyo state project and we will wonder if the billions wasted on such needless project wouldn’t have been better spent on Education.
In fact, we will continue to wonder when exactly will our first shipment of maize leave for Botswana.
SOLA ABEGUNDE.
