Former Senate Leader Teslim Folarin is the Oyo State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in next month’s general elections. He spoke with reporters in Ibadan, the state capital, about his programmes and chances at the poll. Jeremiah Oke was there.
Why do you want to become the next governor of Oyo State?
Like I always say, there are lots to be achieved in government, especially in a state where we have teeming youths and limited industries. Many of our youths are so smart, intelligent and industrious, but there is nobody out there to assist them to achieve their goals. I believe when I become governor, it will be a gateway for the people of the state to improve their standard of living, especially the youths.
While in the Senate, the people of Ibadan expected you to facilitate the creation of Ibadan State as one of the ranking members of the House. Did you make any effort at all?
Yes, I did. You will agree with me that there are procedures and stages of facilitating and executing of projects in democracy, unlike military regimes. Having said this, during my tenure in the Senate, we were going round the 36 states of the federation to meet with the traditional rulers and opinion leaders to know their plight. Topmost on our findings was the quest for the creation of more states; it was the only thing from Maiduguri to Calabar, from Lagos to Sokoto, it kept reverberating. The report was submitted to the President and he was bold enough to set up a National Conference to discuss how Nigeria will move forward, unlike his predecessors. Meanwhile, topmost on the agenda of the National Conference was the creation of more states, of which Ibadan State was among. The document has been submitted to the President and he is working on it. The President just mentioned in Lagos recently that he deliberately did not hand over the document to the present Senate because they might not be able to conclude working on it. He said he will submit it to the incoming Senate. So, we can see that to create states in a democratic government is not a child’s play. We kick-started the process of creating Ibadan State and we are happy the process is still progressing and I’m sure that the next four years, starting from May 29, Ibadan State is going to be created.
Many people believe you did not execute any project in Oyo State while in the Senate. How will you react to this?
As a senator, you are just a glorified councillor. It is not as if you are given an allocation to run the affairs of your state or you are getting funds somewhere to run the affairs of your state. A lot of people are looking at it as if, as a senator, I should have been be able to affect the whole of the state, forgetting that my constituency is limited to Oyo Central, which comprises of five local governments in Ibadan, four in Oyo and two in Ogbomosho land, which makes it 11 local governments. So, if you are in Oyo South and you are expecting my project in such areas, it is not possible because I cannot bring money from the Central to spend in the South. I cannot influence the siting of projects in the Central and push it to the South. Having said that, I did a lot of projects while in the Senate; the kind of hospitals that were influenced here, the state government does not have such standard of hospitals. Olode used to be a remote area without health centre before we facilitated a comprehensive one there. Pade village used to be a village of one of the former governors of this state, another hospital was also sited there with full facility. Read my lips, go there and confirm these. All were well equipped, but the inability of the state government to staff the hospital is shameful and disgraceful. Apart from the hospital in Oyo, we also facilitated the Araromi market in Oyo and 7.5 kilometre of road was tarred in Sanusi Ishola to link Oyo-Ogbomosho Road. We also facilitated the construction of many roads in that community, which also include Awe-Ilora Road. Olubadan-Gbagi-Monatan express roads, which links Iwo roads and Olode area with drainages were facilitated by me too. Our intention was to bring Egbeda Local Government, which is far from people, closer to them and to reduce the traffic pressure on Iwo Road, by bringing people off from Gbagi. It will make it easier for those who are coming from any part of that axis to use that road as alternative and it really worked. In terms of education, we constructed many classrooms across our constituency. In terms of water, over 100 communities benefited from enjoyed borehole projects from me. Ordinarily, I don’t believe in celebrating such things. Over 52 communities also benefited from our electrification projects. We gave 500kva transformers to nothing less than 15 communities or more. We have roads that were tarred and fitted with streetlights in Egbeda Local Government. I did all these things, but I don’t believe in celebrating them. Now, gentle men of the press, let me ask you this question: how many times did you see Obama commissioning a project like that? These are the things that should ordinarily come to the people because it is their money.
Few weeks ago, the governor advised you to wait till Ibadan State is created before you can run for governorship…
By God’s grace, we shall all live to celebrate Ibadan State. Meanwhile, he was not advised to wait till we create Ibadan State in 2011 when he contested for the same office.
Are you not afraid of the election, considering that you are a first timer, while other candidates are former governors?
I am not afraid of any of them because I have experience, exposure and commitment to take the state to the next level.
What gives you the confidence that you will win?
When you talk too much, you will talk nonsense. If you talk too much, you tell lies. I am confident of victory and we are going to win with a large margin. I draw my strength from the fact that the people of Oyo State see that there is need for change. The youth have not really benefited from this democratic government since 1999 because the setting has not been favourable to us. Thank God for somebody like late Chief Adedibu who propped me up in the year 2003 and helped me to clinch the Senate seat. I was in my 30s then. Tell me, which of the political parties have you ever seen sending somebody between the age of 30 and 40 to Senate? For me now to come out and contest for governorship seat, it is commendable. Check all the other contestants, they are all above 60 years old. I have been telling people that it is not possible to solve the problems of ipad with typewriter. I am like an ipad, while other contestants are like typewriters and if you go to some offices today, you will see the typewriters are packed under their tables. So, I believe the Oyo State youths, men and women who believe in us will park all these old cargo under the table and elect me, because my age makes me a link between the old and young.
What will you do differently, if you win?
Well, they may have good intentions, but their policies are not impacting positively in the lives of the people. Like I used to say, my government will involve the people of the state and we are going to embark on projects with human face. We are going to consider the interest of our people first before we take any policy.
If you read through our manifesto, all we have for the four years is people-centred and youths are taking the front seat. A lot of things are going to be done differently. When you talk about youth empowerment, we are not going to do the kind of scheme they called ‘yes oo’ which the present administration is using to enslave our youth. This is wickedness because their children cannot do such job they are giving out to the masses. We have a better scheme which will help the youth to be independent on their own and make huge money on their own. We will not be giving them fish. Rather, we will teach them how to fish. The present administration cannot understand this because his cabinet is full of old cargoes that we need to offload.
How can you assess the performance of the present administration?
It is total failure. Now, let’s take it one after the other. In Ibadan, for instance, projects are executed based on sentiments; people should beware. He was saying all the time that major cities have been dualised and so on and so forth. In Ibadan, the major entrance to Ibadan from Lagos, ask them how many killometres of road have they been able to dualise and at what cost? That is the question we should ask them. From toll gate to challenge is not up to two kilomitres; they should be bold enough to tell us the cost. They have also dualised Iyaganku-Aleshinloye-Jerikho-Eleyele, the whole of that dualization is not up to 10 kilometres. All these areas we mentioned, including Challenge, are not up to 15 kilometres. So, Ibadan does not deserve 20 kilometres of road from the Ajimobi administration in four years?
