Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi spoke with BISI OLADELE in Ibadan, the state capital, on his achievements, his opponents in the Oyo governorship race and chances at the poll.
With the elections just few weeks away and four other top contenders in the race, what makes you think you can win the election?
Among all the contenders, we have three that have been in public service. Of those three, we have two that have been governor before and one a senator. When you check the track records of each and everyone of us, you can safely say that the assessment of each of us is easier than one who has never been in public service. I believe that the records of the two former governors are there for everyone to see. When you check those records, whether in the area of social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, peace, security and safety, which I consider to be most important for development in any state or nation, you will find out that we stand out. The government of APC led by Senator Abiola Ajimobi is synonymous to peace and development. In the last few years, like eight to nine years before we came on board, Oyo State was known as a place of violence . Today, the records, even as highlighted by the security agencies and published by the police, suggest that Oyo State is safer, more secured and more peaceful than it used to be. Murder cases have gone down considerably.
Apart from murder cases, we have established agencies that support the security agencies such as Operation Burst. We have been able to bring together all security agencies – the police, army, SSS, immigration, NSCDC et cetera. We have supported all of them with vehicles, bullet proof vests and all sorts to ensure that Oyo State is very safe for our people. So, I can say the foundation of our administration is safety and security of lives and property. And, I make bold to say we are far ahead in the area of peace and security than the former governments. I can provide the statistics. For instance, prior to 2011 and 2012, murder cases were recorded to be about 24 per cent in Oyo State, it has reduced to about four per cent. Armed robbery cases were about 48 per cent and since we came in it has been reduced to less than five per cent – kidnapping and others included. The statistics also support the fact that Oyo State, is one of the safest and most peaceful states in Nigeria. I believe that if you also look at other parameters, for instance, social infrastructure, you will notice the difference. Social infrastructure means health, education, water, energy in general. We have done better than other administrations and again, the statistics are there. Before we came in, Asejire Dam and Eleyele waterworks were functioning at less than 10 per cent capacity. Today, we are producing at over 82 per cent, which has resulted in more water for the people.
Again, we have repaired and rehabilitated many waterworks, including Oke-Ogun, Ibarapa, Oyo and others. In terms of providing potable water, we have done better than previous administrations. If you talk about education, we have recently recruited about 5,300 teachers into service. This is unprecedented. But, the uniqueness of this is in the fact that unlike in the past where they will recruit like 500, 1000, maximum 2000, we recruited a higher number at once. We are picking those teachers from their neighbourhoods unlike before where people were recruited in Ibadan and sent to Ogbomosho or Oke-Ogun. This resulted in broken homes and several divorces. The teachers came to appeal and we decided that wherever we are going to appoint anyone, the person must come from that locality. This is to encourage the teachers. More importantly, we have rehabilitated many classrooms, we are introducing model schools in each of the senatorial districts. And these model schools will have state-of-the-art equipment, laboratory, recreation centers, and where emphasis will be on practical education, where there will be sufficient teachers. Education stands on three legs, that is, teachers, students, and infrastructure. With the teachers, we are recruiting more and training them. Last year we trained more than 7000 teachers. The loophole that existed within teachers in primary schools that are graduates have been plugged. This encourages them. Not only that we have provided them with enhanced salary packages, when you train the teachers and encourage them with welfare packages and all, they tend to give their all in their teachings. With the students, we have provided extra trainings where we liaised with the University of Ibadan and other schools to teach them. We have also introduced supervisory roles with the University of Ibadan, Lecturers go round and supervise the teachers and students.
On the third leg is the infrastructure. We have provided more chairs, furniture and equipment for the schools. I have talked about the model schools. Some people want to know why we are pulling down some buildings, those schools are located strategically. We do not want to go to some bush now and build a school there and there will be problem of transportation. So, those who are arguing that we should get a virgin land and build on do not consider the proximity of the schools to the children. That is very essential. The schools we are pulling down are important. So, all these we have done apart from the usual payment of WAEC and NECO fees. When you look at our performance and also about good governance, I will say good governance is about transparency, accountability, transparency and productivity. When you look at all that combined, you will see that we stand a better chance than other competitors, since they have once been governors. Even in the area of welfare, let us look at it from the area of environmental. Removing people from trading on the street to the side of the street and we have provided them with alternatives. The previous administrations of the two that are competing now also drove people off the streets in Elekuro, Aperin and Iwo road. They did not provide alternatives. We have provided alternatives. For instance, we have provided shops for traders. Look at Scout Camp, it can accomodate 3000 traders, and they are there, given free of charge. Not only that, we provided for them N20 million trading fund. No administration has ever done this. Recently, we also provided 300 million interest-free loan to 6000 traders which comes to N50,000 per trader. We took this loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and they have charged us nine per cent interest. We did not collect any interest from our traders.
In the area of health, we have treated close to 1,000 000 people by bringing the hospital to the doorsteps of the poor. We go to a local governments, call people to come for free consultancy, treatment and surgery. Apart from rehabilitating the hospitals, we have employed more doctors. When I came in, the ratio was far below the UN recommended ratio. We have brought in about 300 medical personnel. In terms of welfare, when we came in we met a salary and wages of about N2.9 billion. Today, we have N4.9 billion wages. We have increased the salaries even without the prompting from workers. Today, many of the salary scales and levels are incomparable with neighbouring states. Oyo State ranks first in some levels and second in others. We have never been third. In terms of taking care of employees, we have increased their salaries and even provided them with buses for free transport. It is free for students and workers. And for the public, it is 75 per cent subsidized, compared to what commercial vehicles charge. For instance, if you have a family of five, you save an average of N500 per day, in a week is N2,500, a month N10,000, a year, N120, 000. Whether you like it or not this government is providing you a yearly savings of N120,000. It is the work of the government to provide you basic things like that. No government will line you up on the street and start distributing money. It is the job of the government to make things cheaper and you pay less.
How are you coping with paucity of funds and how do you hope to overcome it in the fsce of dwindling federal allocation?
On the paucity of funds, Oyo State has about 10 million people. When we came in, we were given N4.2 billion or N4.5 billion. Bayelsa State has an average of 700,000 people and it gets not less than N20 billion a month. Right from the onset we are at a disadvantage. In the last one year we have been getting an average of N3 billion. Recently. We even got about N2.8 billion. Every month we have a deficit of about two billion or average of about 1.5 billion. How do we cope? That is why it is essential for every government to provide an attractive and enabling environment for investors to come in. When they come in you will be able to get tax gains and also create commercial activities that will provide more employment for people. It has a multiplier effect. What we are saying simply is that our own approach is to create a foremost, a safe and secure environment for people to come and also build physical infrastructure that will attract people to the state.
Once there are good roads, water, electricity and all that, people will come. Then you also have more people working. But, above all, we have brought in at least eight big international companies because the state is more peaceful, better and aesthetically improved. The largest edible oil factory in Nigeria is in Oyo State. The largest soya bean manufacturer in West Africa is here. The largest producer of bread in Africa is here. The largest ICT service provider is also here. We can go on. Also the largest producer of day old chicks is also here. The largest producer of powdered milk called Kamal Milk is now in Oyo State and the largest Shoprite in Nigeria is in Oyo State. The more of these companies we have, the more we increase our Internally Generated Revenue which goes up with these companies coming in. We also have Agodi Gardens, which is an income-generating park, which is where we now have international conference centre, health farm, recreational activities like amusement park, hotels et cetera.
It is a park we are trying to develop like the one in South Africa. We got a South African company to do it in conjunction with Nigerians. What we are saying is that we are making it conducive so that people can come when it is attractive and safe. Now we are getting the cumulative effects. In whatever we are doing, we have been able to partner with most of these investors, rather than the government spending most of its resources, we are getting investors to partner with. Like Agodi Gardens, we have got investors coming in and partnering with us. Like four point Sheraton hotel, we have got the land, they are partnering with us. Also in the area of housing estates, previous administrations sold all the government quarters. One of them even sold all the quarters and got about N3 billion. He wanted to pay pensioners. The week before we came in, they took the money and spent. And it was meant for pensioners. An average government quarters is sold for N15 million to N18 million. The quarters, about eight, facing the Government House, if sold for that price will be about 120 million. We decided against it. We invited investors, we said UAC should come and work with us. They agreed. We decided to give them the land as our contribution. The site is near completion. It should be completed around March or April. At the sale of those prices, we now have about 89 apartments. These apartments, when sold, should bring in about N5.6 billion from which the state government owns 45 per cent. Compare this to the N120 million we would have got. We will get not less than N2 billion. That, to us, is good governance. For us that is re-engineering and a way to save money. We are also trying to communicate to our people to make them know that the Federal Government has reduced our money by at least 40 per cent. It is not even enough to pay staff salary. Do you know that we are the only government that has been paying 13 months salary since the inception of Oyo State. Despite the paucity of funds, we still manage.
As for the allegations, we make sure our contractors are competent and financially capable. Sometimes they say we do not patronize local contractors, but about 80 per cent of the jobs we give out are to local contractors. The major jobs are for those who can finance the jobs. And we are financing them as well. When you finish we pay you within 18 months of completion. We are structuring our finances through IGR, PPP and through third party participation. I think it is politics when people say that. This government has developed all zones more than any government. One, no government has dualized all entry points into major cities. When we came in, for the first time, the entry into Ibadan was dualized. That is the Challenge axis, Adelabu Market axis and Orita. We are also doing the network road system. We take an area, look at the network, where it leads and connects, then we construct it. We have dualized more roads than any government. Two, Ogbomoso has never had a dualized road, this government has done that. Ogbomoso now has a modern town hall which this administration did. Oke- Ogun is divided into Zone One and Two. Iseyin is the entry point. We have dualized their roads. The best NYSC Camp in Nigeria is built by us and it is in Iseyin.
All the satellite campuses in Oyo State have been upgraded to full polytechnics. In other words, education has a multiplier effect on development. There are cities and towns in the US that are called university towns where once you establish it there, development will spring up. So in Oke-Ogun, we have given them schools, roads . We have done about 15 roads: Saki-Otu-Alaga, Ogboro-Road, Saki-Apinnite, Otun-Oyo et cetera. We have just awarded the Saki-Polytechnic-Bariba Road; we are dualizing it. We have done their town hall. More importantly, for Oke-Ogun we believe more than anybody else we have developed their road networks. Oyo has never had a dualized road, ours is the first and the people there are happy. We are also building a radio station there. I want to know any other government that has worked in terms of development in each of these zones; zone by zone.
