How well are you combining all the various infrastructure development projects embarked upon by your administration with what is now known in the South-west geo- political zone as politics of stomach infrastructure? I will continue to maintain my position that it will be an insult on our people to reduce governance to the distribution of kerosene and rice. It is an insult that will undermine the memory of the great leaders that our state has produced. While I agree that governance is about the people, it cannot be reduced to that level. The problem is that over the years, governments have failed and poverty has escalated. Successive governments have not applied any holistic approach to providing succour to the people. Certain solutions that are needed to address the issue of unemployment have been neglected or ignored. One of such solutions is provision of electricity. The issue of unemployment is widespread and that makes poverty to escalate in the land. The unemployed in Ogun State will be close to 500,000 because of the presence of many higher institutions in the state and that is very bad for us. We have to go back to the basics and address those issues that brought us to this sorry pass. We should start creating wealth for the people. It is not about giving them fish but teaching them how to fish and create the enabling environment for them to be productive. The poverty level is too high and it won’t be tackled by distributing rice. I give rice too. Yes, I give rice to people during festive periods and I have been doing that long before I started playing partisan politics. It is not to be giving rice to secure votes during elections. That is bad. That is fraudulent. That is an insult to our people. But the fact remains that the unemployment rate is too high. That is what we need to address as government. Unfortunately, many of these issues rest with the Federal Government. When we came in, we said we wanted to employ 10,000 people for civil service jobs but close to 70,000 people applied. In fact, at a point we had to stop allowing people to apply because it was simply overwhelming. Recently, we announced that we would recruit 2000 environmental marshals and over 50,000 people including doctorate degree holders applied. That is dangerous for us as a nation. We are giving too much stress to our youths. The government must put in place a holistic approach to addressing the issue of poverty. - Senator Ibikunle Amosun fca, Executive Governor of Ogun State
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 11:53:48 +0000
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