Two years into the administration of Governor Ibikunle Amosun in Ogun State, the leading opposition party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party has dismissed Amosun’s All Progressives C0ngress government as a failure. The PDP speaks through its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Waliu Oladipupo, in this interview with SEGUN OLATUNJI
How will you assess the performance of the Amosun-led administration in the past two years?
The performance of the Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led administration has been everything but inspiring. At inception, the government held a lot of promises for the people; it had a lot of goodwill as a result of the mistakes made by his predecessor who was a member of our party. But since then, what do we have? It has been high on promises and low in service delivery. Indeed, a highly-placed member of his party, former deputy governor of the state and a senator has repeatedly accused the government of misplaced priorities. The government talks glowingly about its urban renewal projects, but at what cost? What is the impact of the projects on the lives of the people? Do they have any bearing on the lives of the vast majority of our peasant farmers and largely agrarian people? Has the government been able to provide the enabling environment that would galvanise our people and unleash the potentials in them? The answer is no. Rather, it is contented with embarking on some grandiose and yet highly- inflated projects that have no direct impact on the lives of the majority of the people.
The Amosun administration prides itself on the urban renewal projects and rebuilding of infrastructure it has embarked upon. What’s your take on this?
Again, as I said before, most of these projects are inconsequential and misplaced. In fact, the propaganda machinery of the state government, called urban renewal, is no more than the bridges that the government is building in some parts of the state – the very reason it has been destroying people’s properties across the state without any reasonable compensation. Now, the questions any discerning mind should ask are: perhaps, apart from the flyover at the Ijebu Ode end of the Shagamu/Benin Expressway, what informed the building of the other bridges? What is the level of both human and vehicular traffic on the other roads? Have they attained the optimal capacity? If not, why the obsession with building overhead bridges when there is absolutely no need for it? It is like buying a car for a hungry man. It is nothing but misplaced priorities all the way.
How will you rate the financial well-being of the state under Amosun?
There have been a lot of claims and counter-claims about the actual status of the state’s debt profile. Some say it is in the region of N200bn, others say it is N100billion. In debunking the claims, the state government merely came out to debunk the figures being bandied, yet failed to tell us exactly how much it has borrowed and the current debt status of the state, However, it gleefully announced that it has considerably reduced the N87bn debt it inherited from the immediate past administration to N61bn in spite of the N14.95bn bank loans. But one fact that cannot be disputed is that the government has gone aborrowing since its inception. It has accessed bonds about twice. That is besides the bank loans and the increase in the Internally Generated Revenue. Our people are being made to pay more taxes without commensurate service delivery on the part of the government.
I recall that in June, this year, the state government told the media that its financial books as at December 2012 were at the final stages of being audited and that as soon as they were ready, they would be published. But four months after, nothing of such has happened. The truth is that, we may never know the truth about the state’s debt profile until the Amosun government is voted out by the good people of Ogun State.
The Amosun administration since inception has been executing a five-point cardinal programme. What do you think have been the effects of such a programme on the people of the state?
I challenge you as a journalist to go and ask an average Action Congress of Nigeria or APC member what is the five-point agenda of the government and see if they will be able to tell you. I doubt even if the governor himself can articulate the five-point agenda. His urban renewal project is no more than demolishing people’s properties for overhead bridges. What major initiative has the government carried out in the education sector that you can recall? The other day, a lot of people died in Abeokuta-North, Abeokuta-South and Odeda local government areas as a result of cholera outbreak? This goes to show that even in Abeokuta, the capital city and its environs, people still go to fetch water from the streams and other unclean places because of the lack of potable water. What major agricultural initiative has been championed by the administration? Every day, you hear of pregnant women dying as a result of complications arising from child birth. Nothing of substance is being done about primary health care in the state. All we see is some haphazard and knee-jerk approach to developmental.
The opposition has continued to insist that Amosun’s programmes have no direct impact and benefit to the people of the state. Is it because you are the opposition?
It is not just the opposition. As I said earlier, some honourable and respectable leaders and members of his party have also said so. It is either most of the programmes were not well thought out or those who have been saddled with the responsibility of governing our state lack the capacity to implement them. It needs no restating that Ogun State is an agrarian state and we would have thought that agriculture would form the fulcrum of the totality of the programmes geared towards making the state self-reliant and sustaining. Whereas some less-endowed states are building human and physical resources, underpinned by strong institutions, ours is the exact opposite. The government embarks on cosmetic projects that are meant to institutionalise their names. They say they want to be remembered as having built the first overhead bridge in Ogun even when the people have no need for it.
But the supporters of the governor have said that he has been executing pro-people programmes…
I challenge them to name such projects. Perhaps what they meant by pro-people projects are the houses that are being destroyed all through the length and breadth of the state without any reasonable compensation. Is it scholarships that have been given to indigent and/or brilliant students or houses that have been built for low income earners or civil servants? Is health care free for majority of our people, especially the vulnerable among us? Tell me, where are the pro-people projects? Instead of implementing projects that have bearing on our people, I hear they are stashing money away in preparation for the 2015 elections. But I know that the Ogun electorate are sophisticated and enlightened. They cannot be bought by anyone, no matter how powerful and no matter how deep his pocket is.
How do you think the people of the state have accepted the programmes of the Amosun government?
I can tell you authoritatively that the good people of Ogun State are already disappointed and disillusioned with the Governor Ibikunle Amosun government. They have tasted both worlds and they have seen that they have been literally deceived into buying wares in the dark. The dummy they sold to our people was that if they wanted to experience the kind of transformation that was going on in Lagos during Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola’s first term, they should vote for Amosun. Angered by the shenanigans of the PDP-led state government under Gbenga Daniel, the electorate bought into the lie and voted out the PDP and embraced the then ACN hook, line and sinker. So, after over two years in the saddle, our people have seen that if it is not Fashola, it cannot be like Fashola.
Your state chairman recently said it had now become imperative to rescue the state from Amosun’s grip and bad governance. What’s the PDP doing to achieve this?
The need to rescue the state from the clueless and rudderless administration of the Governor Amosun-led government cannot be overstated. First and foremost, on behalf of the elders, leaders and members of the PDP in Ogun State, I wish to apologise to all those who were disenchanted with the former PDP-led government. The party has undergone a process of rebirth. Thankfully, all those who brought the party to its sorry past are no longer with us. We have learnt our lessons and we are prepared to provide the alternative and purposeful leadership that they deserve.
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