Ekiti State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Prof. Kolapo Olusola has unfolded his six-point agenda to reporters in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA was there.
What is your six-point agenda all about?
The SHIELD Agenda is continuity agenda. I am part of the Fayose administration and I have inputs into some of the policies. By the grace of God, the coming one (government) we are looking forward to, we will improve on the existing one and do better by the grace of God.
The SHIELD Agenda, the first letter “S” stands for Security, Sustainable Human Development and Social Welfare. The goal is to have a secured environment, we will ensure adequate security of our people and their property. You cannot have a good environment or an enabling environment without putting in place adequate security measures. You cannot develop agriculture without putting in place security measures that are meant to protect the farmers, investors and tourists from dangers arising from activities of evil men. So, putting in place adequate security measures and deploying ICT is one major area of focus in my agenda, which by the grace of God, I believe will successful. We also have sustainable human development. The word sustainable simply refers to what you can do presently that will not jeopardize the future generation. Presently, serious effort is being put in place when you talk of human capital development. We are talking about giving opportunity to workers, giving opportunity to Ekiti people to get properly trained and also to enable them acquire skills that will make them productive in whatever they are doing. The focus, this time around, will be on civil service, teachers and workers in different sectors. We are in the era of ICT. There is a need for continual capacity building development of the workforce in such a way that it will improve their productivity and effectiveness on their jobs and to give them opportunities to improve academically and professionally. Social welfare, we will put in place measures that will take care of the needs of the vulnerable segment of the population. Stomach infrastructure goes beyond giving out mere rice or food materials, we are talking about programmes that will empower the less privileged, empower the poor. We are talking about people living with disability; there is going to be a special commission that will definitely focus on the needs of the people living with disabilities.
What about other programmes?
Then we talk about healthcare; presently, we have identified the gaps. Most of our health centres are not in very good condition especially in the very remote areas. Yes, Ado, Ikere, Ikole and other local government headquarters, comprehensive health centres there are in good condition but if you go to remote areas, you discover that most of those health centres are in dilapidated condition. So upgrading these health centres and giving them the needed facilities is going to be a major concern that is being addressed in our agenda. And also the establishment of cottage hospitals, some of the health centres can be upgraded to cottage hospitals. We want a situation in which some of our consultants in the teaching and specialist hospitals can be drafted to these health centres in the rural areas to consult once or twice in a week on specific days. There is need for upgrading of some facilities in our teaching hospital, for instance the MRI machine. We should also not overlook the welfare of workers in the health sector if given the opportunity in the next administration. Talking about infrastructural development and industrial development; we have a vision of dualising some roads in each of the local government headquarters. Presently this administration has been able to do eleven and the basis of this continuity agenda is that being part of this administration, we will carry these projects forward and complete them and do more of inter township roads by the grace of God. But importantly, we are going to focus on rural roads construction because this has to do with our efforts in developing agriculture and tourism.
If our farm settlements are not accessible, it will be very difficult for farmers to bring their produce out of the farms to the markets. We are going to deploy resources to construction of rural roads if elected, we have done a lot in the present administration on intra and inter township roads but we are going to work more on rural roads in the next administration. Still on infrastructure, we are going to build on what the present administration has done on urban renewal because if you are going to attract investors, there is need to change the face of the state capital and local government headquarters. On rice mills, we will encourage investors to establish them because you cannot talk of investment without regukar power supply, power supply system is not encourarging. That is why we are going to encourage organisations dealing with independent power projects, to come in and establish industrial hubs and centres. You talk of “E”, education; education is our pride and heritage in Ekiti State and that is why we describe ourselves as Fountain of Knowledge. Unfortunately, when this administration came into office, education was at the lowest ebb, our performance was at the lowest ebb and thank God, we are able to turn things round and we are now doing well. But then there is still a gap and the major gap is lack of ICT being deployed in our schools. Apart from sustaining what we have on ground, we will apply ICT to turn things around. Digital training will be given to teachers and students. “L” stands for learning and governance. We are going to provide qualitative and development-oriented leadership. Our government will involve workers in decision making process and we will make core civil service more functional. The last letter “D” stands for Development of Tourism and Agriculture. Most of our youths are unemployed and one of the ways we can get them off the streets is to involve them in agriculture, mechanized farming and assist them with inputs. Ekiti has signed an Memorandum of Understanding with Lagos State for rice cultivation. About 10,000 hectares of land that will engage about 9,000 youths. Talking about Tourism, the previous approach was wrong, we are goint to partner the private sector that can turn around our tourism belt. It’s not out of place to have Tourist Bus Stops around the state.
How do you hope to fund your projects and policies in the face of low Internally Generated Revenue?
If we have more industries here, some of those industries will employ people, they will pay tax, with the establishment of more industries, it will have direct effect in terms of improving the IGR of the state. If you have good infrastructure in place, it will help improve the IGR of the state. I am aware there are organisations providing funds for some of these projects you are talking about.
Looking at technical education, currently, there is a World Bank grant. We may not be able to complete all the technical colleges but when we complete that, we will apply for more grants from the World Bank to complete others. On funding of projects, the state government may not have capacity to do everything but we may work on partnership with some of these agencies. We have Rural Access Mobility Programme of the World Bank, all we need to do is to showcase what we have done and key into what they have for us and through that we are going to get some funds to implement these projects.
How do you hope to address the problem of inadequate number of teachers in public schools to make your education agenda succeed?
We have identified the problem and that is why out of the new workers we are employing, a good number of them will be teachers, especially primary school teachers. So many teachers have retired, we have shortage of teachers in primary schools. SUBEB has made an appraisal of what is going on which they have submitted to us. This time around, the teachers we are going to recruit will be teachers that are ICT compliant. The issue of competence should be addressed from the recruitment stage and then you give them environment they will continue to improve themselves. So, we are addressing the problem of inadequate number of teachers.
What plan do you have in your agenda for women and widows?
Women will be part of governance and decision making in the state, we will give women their right of place in the coming government.
Presently, we are doing a lot to encourage women in this administration and the SHIELD Agenda is a continuity agenda. There are so many policies we are implementing which are carried into the agenda. About women, we will empower women economically and to be self reliant. The issue of upgrading our health centres, the focus there is women because maternity centres will be improved to deliver better services because the women are mostly attended to there. Talk about girl child education, mentoring scheme and of course and establishing of guidance and counseling and referral centres are being constructed by this administration and we will put them into full use in the next administration. Some key officials of this government are women like Secretary to the State Government, Commissioner for Works, so there is continuity.
Ikogosi Warm Spring was up and running when this administration came in, but it is no longer running. What went wrong and how would you revive it?
May I correct one impression, there is a difference between Ikogosi Hotels and Ikogosi Warm Spring. The last administration spent over N1 billion to renovate Ikogosi Hotel there bur as an expert in building construction, if you go there now, you will discover that a cosmetic approach was adopted in construction of those buildings. Go there now, you see termites affecting the roof. This is because right from the beginning, if you have done proper site investigation and proper soil test, a termite infested soil, if you don’t start in a right way you will not get anything good out of it. So, the construction of the hotel was not properly done. The warm spring and Gossy Water is being run by UAC and they discovered they are not making profit. It was not the state government that shut the place down, the company running the place was not making profit there. But I keep saying this, that holistic approach was not adopted in developing that place. If you want to develop Ikogosi Warm Spring them develop Arinta Water Falls, the whole of that place forms a tourist belt. Another problem that affected Ikogosi was the issue of power, running on generators is not easy and it affected the Ire Burnt Bricks in which O’dua Investment has the substantial share there. It was the issue of power, when we address the issue of power, so many problems will be addressed as well.