Former
Governor of Oyo State, Chief Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala, in this
exclusive interview with MOSES ALAO and SEGUN ADEBAYO, speaks on why he
is joining the All Progressives Congress (APC); his regret about the
last general election and why Nigeria needs to diversify its economy,
among other issues. Excerpts:
IT
was recently reported that you are joining the All Progressives
Congress (APC), a party peopled by those whom one could call your
‘enemies’. Why?
First, let me correct the impression that the APC or any other party for that matter is peopled by those you may call my enemies; I have no enemies in any party. Anyone who knows my kind of politics knows that I do not keep enemies; you can only call them my political opponents and in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies. Now, to answer your question on why I am joining the APC, I want to make it clear to you that I am not the only one joining APC. The name Alao-Akala is not only about me; it is about a large group of politicians, like minds and those are the people that took the decision to move to the APC, because their interests are no longer protected where they were. If they did not take that decision, we would have remained where we were.
So you are saying that the decision to join APC was not exclusively yours?
It was not my decision alone; the people wanted me to move and I followed the wish of my people.
When you and your followers took that decision, there were mixed reactions. A lot of people felt disappointed and some felt happy. It was also a shocker to a lot of people, because it was expected that after the election, your disagreement and misunderstanding with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be resolved and you would return to the PDP, what went wrong sir?
I already said goodbye to the PDP; I would not have gone back to the PDP. What would I have gone back to do in PDP? Those people that had dissenting voices were not the people who followed me to Labour Party (LP), so they must be the ones expecting that maybe I would come back to PDP. But the decision to leave PDP back then was unanimously taken by my followers, so if some people are expecting me to return to PDP, they are not many; they are very small in percentage and I will say they are insignificant. Nobody would have expected me to come back to PDP; the party will soon die a natural death, so there is no way I can go back to a party that is in comatose. At present, PDP is in comatose, why do I have to go and join issues or be part of the people that will bury PDP? I can’t go back to PDP. I have said goodbye to them and I wish them good luck. I hope they can get a good doctor to revive the party.
So if they get a good doctor to revive them by way of restructuring and rebuilding, will you return?
No, no, no; I cannot and I won’t return to PDP. The only way I can go back to PDP is if the thing that made me to be going to the APC, if that thing is no more there, maybe I can go back. But to be truthful with you, I am done with PDP and that’s just the truth of the matter.
What is that thing that made you to be joining APC, because if you would recall, immediately after the APC took over power in 2011, you were the subject of attack for the party and the government? Also, before the last election, they discredited you, calling you several names such as ATM and saying that you destroyed Oyo State before they took over. People expected that APC would be the last party you would go to, what can you say about that?
You are very right, but the truth is that what was happening at that time was politics and it was expected, because we wanted to contest an election. My opponents had to say something about me. People that were saying it were not actually members of APC. Don’t forget that most of them too have left APC and they left because they felt they were not getting what they thought they should get.
Let me now come back to your question, don’t forget that any good politician will always have an interest and that interest is what is permanent. There is neither permanent friend nor permanent enemy as I said earlier. It is my new interest now that brought me to APC. A lot of people that we have the same mindset as to how governance should be done are now in APC. If you look at my political career very well, my pattern of politics is to move in the direction where the interest of my people will be protected. It is not just about moving sheepishly. A lot of my friends have left the PDP for APC. A lot of my political associates have left the PDP for APC, so what am I still doing in PDP? In fact, 85 per cent of my political associates are now in APC.
But you did mention that there is one thing in the PDP which made you leave for APC, maybe if it is corrected, you would return to the PDP. What is that thing sir?
No, I cannot go back to PDP. What I am trying to tell you is that the interest that made me to stay in PDP has already been defeated, so PDP is not where I can go to again. The things they were supposed to do were not done before the election. How am I sure they will do it now? I have just told you now that 85 per cent of my political allies are now in APC.
Talking about interests, how can you guarantee that the interests of your loyalists who will be following you to APC will be protected, given the fact that they worked against the interest of APC prior to the election that brought in Senator Abiola Ajimobi for second term?
See, what we are talking about is not about an immediate gain. We are not looking for any gain from the government per se; the sole aim is to see how we can be of help to the present government in order to take care of the people of Oyo State very well. We should not be seen to be antagonising or making things difficult for him. These are difficult times when all hands must be on deck. So, taking care of my people’s interests will not come first. That should be secondary and I believe water will find its level. If he knows you are good in a position, I am sure the governor will not say because you are just coming into the party, you don’t deserve to have this or that. For the advancement and progress of the state, we must all be seen to be working together. Anyway, it is not until you are in government that you will be useful to the state. These are the things we will tell them. We know where we are going and we will get there.
You said water will find its level and going by your pedigree as a revered politician in Oyo State and Nigeria at large, when a politician says water will find its level, it has a lot of meaning. One of the meanings could be that your followers and APC members you meet in the party will soon be in a show of might and the real politicians will be discovered. Don’t you think there will be confrontations in the APC because of you?
There can’t be any confrontation. As I said that water will find its level, when you get to a certain place, your substance will always show. For instance, if you take an elephant from Ilorin to Ibadan; won’t it remain an elephant? Take the same elephant from Ibadan to Lagos, it will still remain an elephant. So, wherever you go, if you are a good politician, you will be relevant. If you are a politician that should be reckoned with at your ward level, they will reckon with you. You don’t need to be confrontational. You know that politics is a game of number; if I know that you are very strong in a particular ward and that you can deliver your local government, you will be respected. We are not talking about paper weight politicians, but those who can make APC strong in the state. A politician will always be a politician. Presently in Oyo State, if you want to go to any place, you know those who can talk to the people there, because they are the movers and shakers of their locality. So, for God’s sake, water will find its own level.
Sir, in one of your recent interviews, you were quoted to have said that the incumbent governor did not win the 2011 election but that he only out-smarted you…
(Cuts in)… we have passed that. What do you want to know about that?
Four years after that election, he broke the second term jinx that you could not break as a sitting governor and now that you have finally joined the party, have you finally conceded that he’s smarter than you?
Look, at a particular time in politics, you have to outsmart each other. Abiola Ajimobi is the governor now, do I need to tell you that he has out-smarted me or he’s better than me? I don’t need to tell you that. At that material time, he was smarter than me. As I said earlier; that has already gone. Let by-gone be by-gone. You have to use what you have in the past to remedy the future.
But there is this political custom in Nigeria where the governor is recognised as the leader of the party at the state level and the president as the leader of the party at the national level. Now that you have joined the APC, does that mean you have conceded that Governor Ajimobi is your leader?
Currently in Oyo State, Governor Ajimobi is the leader of the party and if he’s the leader, am I coming to struggle for the leadership of the party with him? Don’t forget that I have had the opportunity to be a leader and also the opportunity to have worked with two ex-governors. I didn’t say they were not leaders, neither did they say otherwise. There is a way you go about things like that; if the man is on the stage, he deserves all the respect he can get, because he’s not representing himself. He is representing the whole of Oyo State. It is just like you asking me whether President Muhammadu Buhari is the leader of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Anybody on top is the leader. The governor of a state is the leader of everybody in the state. I am a citizen of this state; Senator Ajimobi is my governor. The kind of respect I expected to be given when I was governor should equally be extended to the current governor. But when you talk of politics, at different levels, we have leaders.
Are you aware that the Labour Party has accused you of leaving for the APC in hope that the corruption charges against you would be dropped? How will you react to this?
Unfortunately, the present government has nothing to do with the corruption charges leveled against me. Will they go and meet the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to come and arrest me? It is not ideal for us to talk about a case that is still in court but I want to tell you that this state government has nothing to do with my case with EFCC. The truth of the matter is that it was not the current government that took me to court; it was the PDP people that wrote a petition against us. It was done by people who wanted to become governor by all means. They thought they could indict me to get me out of the way.
I don’t want to predict what the court would do, but the charges hold no water. Don’t forget that it was all about roads in the local governments. They didn’t charge me for anything about the state. Was I a local government chairman? I can’t even remember the year I was a local government chairman. So, the LP people don’t know what they are saying, because they don’t know the fact of the case. Unfortunately, it is not their fault, when you are drowning, you will look for anything that you could hold on to. And because I didn’t want PDP to bring me down politically, I had to hold on to the Labour Party at that time. But as I said, my associates and allies have taken a decision to leave the party for the APC and that is why we are leaving.
Another very critical issue that I would like to ask you…
(Cuts in)… And I will give you a critical answer.
In the last four years, you have been one of the most active critics of the activities of the APC government in Oyo State. Now that you have joined the APC, how will things change?
Don’t forget that I am not in government, I am a party member. If I am in that party and I now have the opportunity to advise on how things could be done differently, because they will take note of the fact that I was once a governor and they say experience is the best teacher, I believe we can turn things around. Let me also tell you that you can’t compare what is happening now to what happened in my time as the governor. By the time I was governing, Nigeria was selling a barrel of crude oil for about 165 Dollars. We got our allocation from the Federal Government regularly and that’s why I did not borrow money. I found out later on that the income of the government is not the same with what we had when I was there. If it is not the same while I was there, then the expenditure may not be the same and you will have to cut your clothes according to you cloth, because you will need money to execute a lot of projects. And if money is needed and you are not getting the money, there are bound to be subventions in taking care of the need of the people, especially when it comes to recurrent expenditure such as salary.
Really, I don’t see any government that would not like to perform and if you look at it very well, I have never condemned this government in all my interviews. If you look at them, when anybody asked me about the performance of the governor, I always said they should let him do whatever he can do and leave the place. I can never condemn any government, because no government will come to power without having plans to do something good for the people. Nobody will like to leave the government without an achievement and for you to achieve something tangible, you need money. I think we are even blessed in Oyo State that we do not owe so much salaries. Some states owe their workers more than what Oyo State owes.
So, now that I am going into APC, I think I have a cause to be part of those who will advise the government in accordance with the resources available to them, because if there is no money, there is nothing anybody can do. I think any good government will not borrow to pay workers’ salaries. If you borrow to pay this month, would you still go ahead to borrow next month and so on to pay salaries? The truth is that the economy is bad and it is affecting every Nigerian.
In Oke Ogun which many believe to be your stronghold, the APC took over in most of the local governments. With your joining the APC, it is believed that you are just seeking a soft landing because you have already lost your territories. Is that true?
No, I don’t agree with you. What happened during the last election in Oke Ogun was misinformation, because some people said I had a working agreement with a particular political party. Unfortunately, those that didn’t want to have anything to do with this political party decided not to work for the Labour Party or that party. So, most people there went to vote for APC.
Secondly, the people we thought were in the Labour Party with us, we left them in charge of consultations and mobilisations; we left them talking to the electorate on our behalf. I thought those people that I met in LP, who defected from APC, would be of use, so we allowed them to use their powers to mobilise the people, but they failed us. I would have done the mobilisation on my own, but if I know Moses is a good politician and can talk to his people, why do I have to confront him and mobilise people in his locality when he can do it and we are in the same party? Unfortunately, these people failed us and allowed our enemy to have a field day. So, we lost largely because of miscalculation and misinformation. There were some elements that thought they should be left alone; that in their areas they should be able to bring out votes but they all disappointed us. Some people were given the opportunity to be candidates of the LP, but they also failed us. So, everything boiled down to out-smarting and miscalculation.
As a former governor that oversaw the affairs of the state at a time of plenty, how can you advise the government in terms of the call for diversification of the economy at this trying moment?
Unfortunately, we have a mono-economy. I agree with you that there must be diversification and I strongly believe that an agro-based economy is the best for us in this country. This is what we have been using before the advent of crude oil. And as such, we should try as much as possible to go back to the land, let us go and cultivate the land. We made a lot of money from agriculture many years ago, so I think we should go back to what we used to know. This is the only thing that will not let us down. Having said that, a return to agriculture may not be sufficient because we didn’t plan for this population explosion; we never thought about it all along. So now, we should get everybody working in a farm. The largest percentage of our population should go back to farming; this is what can help us. I know that this is permanent than crude oil, because I know that some technicalities could be applied to determine the prices of oil as it is being done now. I hope we will not get to 10 dollars per barrel. The governments at all levels need to take that decision, because if they don’t, we will remain where we are for a long time.
Sir, if there is something that you regret about the 2015 governorship election in Oyo State, what would that thing be?
Unfortunately, I do not regret anything; I was only happy that I participated in the election. With due respect to Governor Ajimobi, I hope he will be able to sleep at nights. I don’t know what I would be doing now in the face of the financial crisis, if I had won the election. I thank God that I did not win the election and I am sleeping in my house peacefully. Governance at this time in the history of our country is not a bed of roses. The truth is I don’t know what would have happened to me. When I look back, I don’t regret that the election went the way it went, because I can’t imagine what the governor is going through now. You want to execute projects but the money is not there for you to use.
The problem we have in this country is that we are practising federalism in a funny way; how can we insist that all states must pay the same minimum wage when the same resources are not available to all states. How can a civil servant in Oyo State earn the same salary as his counterpart in Rivers State? The internally-generated revenue that Lagos State is making is more than the allocation they get from the Federal Government every month. The truth is that Oyo State takes more money than Lagos from Abuja but we will expect the two states to pay workers the same salary. You can’t compare Oyo State with Rivers State or Akwa Ibom State. For God’s sake, we are not the same in this country but people have refused to accept that fact. The same reason the a civil servant in Oyo State should not take the same salary as a civil servant in Rivers State should also mean that Osun State should not be paying the same salary that a civil servant in Oyo State earns.
First, let me correct the impression that the APC or any other party for that matter is peopled by those you may call my enemies; I have no enemies in any party. Anyone who knows my kind of politics knows that I do not keep enemies; you can only call them my political opponents and in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies. Now, to answer your question on why I am joining the APC, I want to make it clear to you that I am not the only one joining APC. The name Alao-Akala is not only about me; it is about a large group of politicians, like minds and those are the people that took the decision to move to the APC, because their interests are no longer protected where they were. If they did not take that decision, we would have remained where we were.
So you are saying that the decision to join APC was not exclusively yours?
It was not my decision alone; the people wanted me to move and I followed the wish of my people.
When you and your followers took that decision, there were mixed reactions. A lot of people felt disappointed and some felt happy. It was also a shocker to a lot of people, because it was expected that after the election, your disagreement and misunderstanding with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be resolved and you would return to the PDP, what went wrong sir?
I already said goodbye to the PDP; I would not have gone back to the PDP. What would I have gone back to do in PDP? Those people that had dissenting voices were not the people who followed me to Labour Party (LP), so they must be the ones expecting that maybe I would come back to PDP. But the decision to leave PDP back then was unanimously taken by my followers, so if some people are expecting me to return to PDP, they are not many; they are very small in percentage and I will say they are insignificant. Nobody would have expected me to come back to PDP; the party will soon die a natural death, so there is no way I can go back to a party that is in comatose. At present, PDP is in comatose, why do I have to go and join issues or be part of the people that will bury PDP? I can’t go back to PDP. I have said goodbye to them and I wish them good luck. I hope they can get a good doctor to revive the party.
So if they get a good doctor to revive them by way of restructuring and rebuilding, will you return?
No, no, no; I cannot and I won’t return to PDP. The only way I can go back to PDP is if the thing that made me to be going to the APC, if that thing is no more there, maybe I can go back. But to be truthful with you, I am done with PDP and that’s just the truth of the matter.
What is that thing that made you to be joining APC, because if you would recall, immediately after the APC took over power in 2011, you were the subject of attack for the party and the government? Also, before the last election, they discredited you, calling you several names such as ATM and saying that you destroyed Oyo State before they took over. People expected that APC would be the last party you would go to, what can you say about that?
You are very right, but the truth is that what was happening at that time was politics and it was expected, because we wanted to contest an election. My opponents had to say something about me. People that were saying it were not actually members of APC. Don’t forget that most of them too have left APC and they left because they felt they were not getting what they thought they should get.
Let me now come back to your question, don’t forget that any good politician will always have an interest and that interest is what is permanent. There is neither permanent friend nor permanent enemy as I said earlier. It is my new interest now that brought me to APC. A lot of people that we have the same mindset as to how governance should be done are now in APC. If you look at my political career very well, my pattern of politics is to move in the direction where the interest of my people will be protected. It is not just about moving sheepishly. A lot of my friends have left the PDP for APC. A lot of my political associates have left the PDP for APC, so what am I still doing in PDP? In fact, 85 per cent of my political associates are now in APC.
But you did mention that there is one thing in the PDP which made you leave for APC, maybe if it is corrected, you would return to the PDP. What is that thing sir?
No, I cannot go back to PDP. What I am trying to tell you is that the interest that made me to stay in PDP has already been defeated, so PDP is not where I can go to again. The things they were supposed to do were not done before the election. How am I sure they will do it now? I have just told you now that 85 per cent of my political allies are now in APC.
Talking about interests, how can you guarantee that the interests of your loyalists who will be following you to APC will be protected, given the fact that they worked against the interest of APC prior to the election that brought in Senator Abiola Ajimobi for second term?
See, what we are talking about is not about an immediate gain. We are not looking for any gain from the government per se; the sole aim is to see how we can be of help to the present government in order to take care of the people of Oyo State very well. We should not be seen to be antagonising or making things difficult for him. These are difficult times when all hands must be on deck. So, taking care of my people’s interests will not come first. That should be secondary and I believe water will find its level. If he knows you are good in a position, I am sure the governor will not say because you are just coming into the party, you don’t deserve to have this or that. For the advancement and progress of the state, we must all be seen to be working together. Anyway, it is not until you are in government that you will be useful to the state. These are the things we will tell them. We know where we are going and we will get there.
You said water will find its level and going by your pedigree as a revered politician in Oyo State and Nigeria at large, when a politician says water will find its level, it has a lot of meaning. One of the meanings could be that your followers and APC members you meet in the party will soon be in a show of might and the real politicians will be discovered. Don’t you think there will be confrontations in the APC because of you?
There can’t be any confrontation. As I said that water will find its level, when you get to a certain place, your substance will always show. For instance, if you take an elephant from Ilorin to Ibadan; won’t it remain an elephant? Take the same elephant from Ibadan to Lagos, it will still remain an elephant. So, wherever you go, if you are a good politician, you will be relevant. If you are a politician that should be reckoned with at your ward level, they will reckon with you. You don’t need to be confrontational. You know that politics is a game of number; if I know that you are very strong in a particular ward and that you can deliver your local government, you will be respected. We are not talking about paper weight politicians, but those who can make APC strong in the state. A politician will always be a politician. Presently in Oyo State, if you want to go to any place, you know those who can talk to the people there, because they are the movers and shakers of their locality. So, for God’s sake, water will find its own level.
Sir, in one of your recent interviews, you were quoted to have said that the incumbent governor did not win the 2011 election but that he only out-smarted you…
(Cuts in)… we have passed that. What do you want to know about that?
Four years after that election, he broke the second term jinx that you could not break as a sitting governor and now that you have finally joined the party, have you finally conceded that he’s smarter than you?
Look, at a particular time in politics, you have to outsmart each other. Abiola Ajimobi is the governor now, do I need to tell you that he has out-smarted me or he’s better than me? I don’t need to tell you that. At that material time, he was smarter than me. As I said earlier; that has already gone. Let by-gone be by-gone. You have to use what you have in the past to remedy the future.
But there is this political custom in Nigeria where the governor is recognised as the leader of the party at the state level and the president as the leader of the party at the national level. Now that you have joined the APC, does that mean you have conceded that Governor Ajimobi is your leader?
Currently in Oyo State, Governor Ajimobi is the leader of the party and if he’s the leader, am I coming to struggle for the leadership of the party with him? Don’t forget that I have had the opportunity to be a leader and also the opportunity to have worked with two ex-governors. I didn’t say they were not leaders, neither did they say otherwise. There is a way you go about things like that; if the man is on the stage, he deserves all the respect he can get, because he’s not representing himself. He is representing the whole of Oyo State. It is just like you asking me whether President Muhammadu Buhari is the leader of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Anybody on top is the leader. The governor of a state is the leader of everybody in the state. I am a citizen of this state; Senator Ajimobi is my governor. The kind of respect I expected to be given when I was governor should equally be extended to the current governor. But when you talk of politics, at different levels, we have leaders.
Are you aware that the Labour Party has accused you of leaving for the APC in hope that the corruption charges against you would be dropped? How will you react to this?
Unfortunately, the present government has nothing to do with the corruption charges leveled against me. Will they go and meet the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to come and arrest me? It is not ideal for us to talk about a case that is still in court but I want to tell you that this state government has nothing to do with my case with EFCC. The truth of the matter is that it was not the current government that took me to court; it was the PDP people that wrote a petition against us. It was done by people who wanted to become governor by all means. They thought they could indict me to get me out of the way.
I don’t want to predict what the court would do, but the charges hold no water. Don’t forget that it was all about roads in the local governments. They didn’t charge me for anything about the state. Was I a local government chairman? I can’t even remember the year I was a local government chairman. So, the LP people don’t know what they are saying, because they don’t know the fact of the case. Unfortunately, it is not their fault, when you are drowning, you will look for anything that you could hold on to. And because I didn’t want PDP to bring me down politically, I had to hold on to the Labour Party at that time. But as I said, my associates and allies have taken a decision to leave the party for the APC and that is why we are leaving.
Another very critical issue that I would like to ask you…
(Cuts in)… And I will give you a critical answer.
In the last four years, you have been one of the most active critics of the activities of the APC government in Oyo State. Now that you have joined the APC, how will things change?
Don’t forget that I am not in government, I am a party member. If I am in that party and I now have the opportunity to advise on how things could be done differently, because they will take note of the fact that I was once a governor and they say experience is the best teacher, I believe we can turn things around. Let me also tell you that you can’t compare what is happening now to what happened in my time as the governor. By the time I was governing, Nigeria was selling a barrel of crude oil for about 165 Dollars. We got our allocation from the Federal Government regularly and that’s why I did not borrow money. I found out later on that the income of the government is not the same with what we had when I was there. If it is not the same while I was there, then the expenditure may not be the same and you will have to cut your clothes according to you cloth, because you will need money to execute a lot of projects. And if money is needed and you are not getting the money, there are bound to be subventions in taking care of the need of the people, especially when it comes to recurrent expenditure such as salary.
Really, I don’t see any government that would not like to perform and if you look at it very well, I have never condemned this government in all my interviews. If you look at them, when anybody asked me about the performance of the governor, I always said they should let him do whatever he can do and leave the place. I can never condemn any government, because no government will come to power without having plans to do something good for the people. Nobody will like to leave the government without an achievement and for you to achieve something tangible, you need money. I think we are even blessed in Oyo State that we do not owe so much salaries. Some states owe their workers more than what Oyo State owes.
So, now that I am going into APC, I think I have a cause to be part of those who will advise the government in accordance with the resources available to them, because if there is no money, there is nothing anybody can do. I think any good government will not borrow to pay workers’ salaries. If you borrow to pay this month, would you still go ahead to borrow next month and so on to pay salaries? The truth is that the economy is bad and it is affecting every Nigerian.
In Oke Ogun which many believe to be your stronghold, the APC took over in most of the local governments. With your joining the APC, it is believed that you are just seeking a soft landing because you have already lost your territories. Is that true?
No, I don’t agree with you. What happened during the last election in Oke Ogun was misinformation, because some people said I had a working agreement with a particular political party. Unfortunately, those that didn’t want to have anything to do with this political party decided not to work for the Labour Party or that party. So, most people there went to vote for APC.
Secondly, the people we thought were in the Labour Party with us, we left them in charge of consultations and mobilisations; we left them talking to the electorate on our behalf. I thought those people that I met in LP, who defected from APC, would be of use, so we allowed them to use their powers to mobilise the people, but they failed us. I would have done the mobilisation on my own, but if I know Moses is a good politician and can talk to his people, why do I have to confront him and mobilise people in his locality when he can do it and we are in the same party? Unfortunately, these people failed us and allowed our enemy to have a field day. So, we lost largely because of miscalculation and misinformation. There were some elements that thought they should be left alone; that in their areas they should be able to bring out votes but they all disappointed us. Some people were given the opportunity to be candidates of the LP, but they also failed us. So, everything boiled down to out-smarting and miscalculation.
As a former governor that oversaw the affairs of the state at a time of plenty, how can you advise the government in terms of the call for diversification of the economy at this trying moment?
Unfortunately, we have a mono-economy. I agree with you that there must be diversification and I strongly believe that an agro-based economy is the best for us in this country. This is what we have been using before the advent of crude oil. And as such, we should try as much as possible to go back to the land, let us go and cultivate the land. We made a lot of money from agriculture many years ago, so I think we should go back to what we used to know. This is the only thing that will not let us down. Having said that, a return to agriculture may not be sufficient because we didn’t plan for this population explosion; we never thought about it all along. So now, we should get everybody working in a farm. The largest percentage of our population should go back to farming; this is what can help us. I know that this is permanent than crude oil, because I know that some technicalities could be applied to determine the prices of oil as it is being done now. I hope we will not get to 10 dollars per barrel. The governments at all levels need to take that decision, because if they don’t, we will remain where we are for a long time.
Sir, if there is something that you regret about the 2015 governorship election in Oyo State, what would that thing be?
Unfortunately, I do not regret anything; I was only happy that I participated in the election. With due respect to Governor Ajimobi, I hope he will be able to sleep at nights. I don’t know what I would be doing now in the face of the financial crisis, if I had won the election. I thank God that I did not win the election and I am sleeping in my house peacefully. Governance at this time in the history of our country is not a bed of roses. The truth is I don’t know what would have happened to me. When I look back, I don’t regret that the election went the way it went, because I can’t imagine what the governor is going through now. You want to execute projects but the money is not there for you to use.
The problem we have in this country is that we are practising federalism in a funny way; how can we insist that all states must pay the same minimum wage when the same resources are not available to all states. How can a civil servant in Oyo State earn the same salary as his counterpart in Rivers State? The internally-generated revenue that Lagos State is making is more than the allocation they get from the Federal Government every month. The truth is that Oyo State takes more money than Lagos from Abuja but we will expect the two states to pay workers the same salary. You can’t compare Oyo State with Rivers State or Akwa Ibom State. For God’s sake, we are not the same in this country but people have refused to accept that fact. The same reason the a civil servant in Oyo State should not take the same salary as a civil servant in Rivers State should also mean that Osun State should not be paying the same salary that a civil servant in Oyo State earns.
No comments:
Post a Comment