Until he joined politics, Omooba Dotun Babayemi, one of the gubernatorial aspirants under the banner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State, was a technocrat who had the opportunity of running a multi-million dollar organisation in the United States of America, where he was the vice president. He has visited over 234 wards out of 332 wards in the state to sell the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and to assess the needs of the people at the grassroots. He had earlier undertaken a month-long visit to 30 local government areas and the Ife East Area office, Modakeke. In this interview with Gbenga Aderanti, he talks about his plans to change the fortunes of Osun, why he is visiting wards, the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President, among other issues. Excerpts…
You have continued with your visits to the wards in Osun. Tell us what you found out, and what you are likely to do if you eventually become the governor of the state?
There were a few reasons why we decided to go to wards; the most important of them was that after visiting the 30 local government areas, we came back to the party, we realised that there had been a lot of disinformation and misinformation to our people in Osun about the Renewed Hope Agenda. So we decided to go to the grassroots to get an understanding of their thoughts and what they believed the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was all about. We found out that a lot of our people at the grassroots did not have a good understanding. So we translated the information into something they could relate to, and what meant to them. And what had been done in terms of stabilising the economy, in terms of ensuring that the benefits of democracy got to them. There were things they were seeing that they didn’t understand, and why they should be happening. For example, when we got to one of the wards in Ikire, and we were relaying the message of the President, one of the farmers got up and said, ‘I’m a cocoa farmer, now we understand why we are seeing what we are seeing. Tell President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that God has picked our phone call, on Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s network.’ This was very profound.
The other reason we went there was to be able to do SWOT assessments- What are the strengths we have in our rural areas? What are the weaknesses? What are the opportunities for the people? What are the challenges they are facing? To see where they live, to hear from them. Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. Without experiencing what they are experiencing, it is going to be difficult to put together or for a government to say I want to govern when I don’t know what they have been through. The goal of that was to get as much information from the needs assessment to be able to put a manifesto that is people-focused, that leverages the Renewed Hope Agenda, and be able to drive the economy of our state.
70 per cent of our state is rural, and the current administration has focused on urban renewal. If you look at what they have done, it has been in urban areas, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But as a government, it is important to be able to balance. There is zero development in our rural areas. We have visited 234 wards as of today; our goal is to finish it in the very near future.
What we are doing with the Renewed Hope Agenda is to transfer the vision of the President to the average Nigerian in Osun; the person at the grassroots gets an understanding of it and owns it, with the view of a better tomorrow for them and the people around them.
In visiting those 234 wards, we experienced the deplorable condition of the rural roads in Osun State. The rains over the last three years have had a significant impact. The people are not looking for those roads to be tarred; they want to be able to get their produce from the farm to the market. 65 per cent of the produce of farmers in Osun is destroyed on the farms because there are no motorable roads.
Again, we wanted to ensure that where there were any issues in the party at the grassroots, they were resolved because we went there to listen to them. After delivering the president’s message, our party talked about unification, and then we delivered the message of the aspirant.
One of the things that is different this time around is that there is unity among the aspirants.
I did not visit the wards in my name or as a person, but I visited on behalf of the president, on behalf of our party, most importantly on behalf of the 13 aspirants who are vying for governorship under the banner of APC in Osun State.
This visit was the first time it was being done in Southern Nigeria, where an aspirant or a governor chooses to reach out to his people and understand their needs.
Talking about visits to wards, you still have about 117 wards more in the state. Are you still going to pay visits to these places, too?
Absolutely, we made a commitment to the Almighty God. We made a commitment to our party; it is a commitment to the spirit of Osun. Osun is the cultural and spiritual nerve centre of the Yoruba people. We are a very proud people, always ahead of civilisation. We are committed that we are going to do this irrespective of anything else, because it has to drive the manifesto, which is the contract with the people when we get into government. This government will simulate, to a large extent, what the government at the centre is doing with the Renewed Hope Agenda.
This visit, the first time, was being done in Southern Nigeria when an aspirant or a governor chooses to reach out to his people, and understand their needs. This is why we must complete it.
One of the things you would have seen is that on July 24, Asiwaju announced that the governors should go back to the grassroots because people were not feeling the effects. He doesn’t just talk; he follows it up with action. On the 29th of October, he instituted the Renewed Hope World Development Agenda that targeted 8,809 wards in this country, to ensure that the development there focuses on the economy, and that is going to be the driver to take Nigeria to become a one trillion dollar economy. It is going to come from the wards.
We have been blessed in this country, especially in our state, with a lot of natural resources. Osun has excellent human resources, some of the best in the world. In my town, Gbongan, there are 97 professors in 20 universities in Osun State. The government is not taking human resources, leveraging the natural resources and not being able to put the best out for the benefit of the people; rather than do that, we see a high rate of unemployment. Osun has one of the highest in the country, a 33 per cent unemployment rate, and governance is a serious business. Today, Osun is recognised for one thing, and that is entertainment that does not bring profit. So every weekend, citizens in Nigeria turn on their TVs, looking for how we are going to be amused. We need to go back to the vision of our forefathers. Osun is a place where any child should be able to dream, any youth should be able to achieve, and every family should prosper, and that is what ward visit is about. It is to reinvigorate our people to say, tomorrow can be better for you, and for your community.
Aspirants always have ‘ wonderful ‘ programmes, but after getting to power, the majority of them fail to perform. How are you going to confront such a demon?
Like I said, what we are doing with the wards is the need assessment that when we come back, will feed into the manifesto of the party. While you mentioned an individual who did a few things that needed to be done at that time, the governor had a great idea, fantastic ideas; some of them benefited the state. The scheme that employed 20,000 youths, he took them from the streets. Crime went down significantly in the state, but one of the challenges was funding. It is a different case today because the federal government has provided the funds. However, having funds is one thing, having the right ideas is another thing, and being able to execute is another thing.
What are we going to do differently? After the needs assessment that we are doing, we are going to put some things in place. One, Osun has some of the best civil servants in this country. We will move from an effort-driven environment to a performance- and result-based environment, where the best comes out of our civil servants. We will upskill them, give them the right training. Everything we are going to do in this government will be based on the priorities of the people, and we will leverage the project management technology methodology to execute everything we want to do. So, there is constant monitoring of the scope of what we want to do, which will constantly be evaluated, the budget to determine the right priorities we give the funding to, and that will be in the best interest of the people. We will use it. We will manage our timeline by monitoring this and by managing this; our expectation is that we will constantly be able to deliver in the best interest of the people. We will not do it by ourselves; we will ensure that we have a community consultative assembly that is representative of our people, who will agree at upfront and will agree and ensure that the things we deliver in our government are in alignment with what the people see as being delivered.
A fantastic idea, but have you considered the debt profile of the state? How do you intend to tackle this?
It is not an issue. The administration that did well in managing our debt was the administration of Governor Isiaka Oyetola. We are going to target the same. We will ensure that there is a significant reduction in our debt profile that will give us an AA rating. It is an issue of management. I’m not saying we are going to be debt-free. But we will manage that in such a way that we will not be spending today and putting our future generation of Osun in perpetual debt. So the debt profile is not an issue; it is something that can be managed with the revenue that is coming right now. If well managed, the debt profile will potentially be reduced by 50 per cent within the next 48 months.
You have hammered so much on developing grassroots, should I assume that this will be your focus when you eventually become the governor of the state?
It will be one of them. Our approach is going to be multidimensional. We have a lot of graduates, but a lot of our youths don’t have the skill to transition from being a dependent as students, to having a skill that can either support them in becoming a potential entrepreneur or working in a place where they can add value. One of the things we have determined is that we are going to adopt a one-youth policy- one skill. Our youths must be able to be skilled in one skill, whether in agriculture or IT. We intend to build three IT hubs, one in each Senatorial District, where we can upskill our youths.
There are several things that have potential in Osun; almost 20 per cent of our GDP service comes from the mining sector. Osun, after Zamfara, has the largest gold deposits in Nigeria. We are not putting that to use; artisanal mining is rife in Osun State, but what you see is that youths from other areas in Nigeria come to our state to leverage on this and capitalise on it, make money and take it out. We will formalise that sector. We will train our youths on how they too can become entrepreneurs in that field.
Osun, being the cultural heartbeat and spiritual heartbeat of the Yoruba race, is blessed with a significant God given heritage that we are not tapping into, tourism. Osun Osogbo is a cultural festival where people come from all over the world. We have not built a government around that. Osun Osogbo Festival can be as big as the Sango Festival in Rio; it can be as big as Notting Hill Festival in the UK, where you celebrate culture. But the government needs to step up and take ownership of that and leverage our youth to maximise our tourism potential. We have Erin Ijesha waterfall. If you look at it within a one-kilometre radius of that waterfall, it is full of garbage; there is no way you can bring anybody there. Why don’t you put infrastructure there, so that people can come and see another wonder of the world? It is right there in Osun State. If you go to Ife, that is the cradle of the Yoruba. Yoruba are everywhere across the world; people come all over to trace their ancestry to Oduduwa, which is sitting right in our state. What have we done with that? There are several sectors that we would look at. ICT, culture and tourism, agriculture business, and efficiency across the civil service.
Another person from your state joined the governorship race… do you feel threatened?
You asked whether I feel threatened. I don’t. The reason is that the 13 of us who are competing under the banner of the APC are all competent to govern Osun and deliver governance in a way that is better than those who are sitting in the seat today by 100 per cent. Let’s establish that first.
What am I bringing differently? I’m bringing a lot of things into the state in terms of governance. What I’m bringing is a global perspective. I had the opportunity of running a multi-million dollar organisation in the US. I was the vice president of a Fortune 100 company with three trillion in assets management for a period of 10 years. Coming to Nigeria, I have set up a business, built from the ground. We have now built efficient businesses that in the last 10 years have employed over 22,000 Nigerians–a group of companies built from the ground in various sectors.
Most importantly, since 2007, I have built a relationship with the people of Osun that has led to trust. Between 2009 to about 2018, I visited 110 wards in Osun West Senatorial District more than once, either as medical outreach or just reaching out to people for scholarships or organising sporting activities. I know the people. I understand their needs, not just in Osun West, but across the state. We have built trust, which is a valuable thing in governance with the grassroots of Osun. Doing all these things has put me in a unique position to provide the best in governance in Osun State
You said all the aspirants in the APC are qualified to rule the state, but if tomorrow, the party decides to adopt a person, what will be your reaction?
My reaction will be a word of appreciation. APC is a progressive party; Osun people are progressive people by nature. APC always brings out the best in the field. I’m confident that our party, in the interest of the people, would throw up the best candidate, and we have all agreed that whatever comes out of our primaries, we will live with it; nobody is going to leave the party. I’m sure I’m confident that the best candidate will emerge, and all the aspirants have agreed that whosoever emerges, we will all support.
