Ondo governance: Concerned citizens ring bell for generational shift Tuesday, 28 January 2014 00:00 Written by Niyi Bello, Akure A NEW wave of awareness among the youths of Ondo State is currently sweeping the political landscape as agitation for young and vibrant politicians to take over from the present crop of leadership is gaining momentum by the day. High on the point of demand is that the new set of leadership must emerge from the vast pool of vibrant young professionals who would see politics as service to the people, not as instruments of oppression, opportunism and a platform to engender hatred to the detriment of the masses. Proponents of this new understanding argue that the state, compared to others being controlled by youthful leadership, lacks the necessary impetus for growth and that modern governance has gone beyond the analogue age that many of the leaders in the state belong to. Many are quick to point to the continuation of the politics of vengeance for which the old breed politicians particularly in the South-West geo-political zone are known which simply means that political opponents must do everything to rubbish each other even while the welfare and general interest of the masses are suffering. The abandonment of all the developmental projects embarked upon by the administration of the late former Ondo State governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, even after colossal amounts of money had been committed to such projects, is seen as pointer to the existence of such politics of hatred. These projects include the N14 billion Owena Multipurpose Dam reticulation project which was to provide potable water to more than half of the state population, the N5 billion Akure Stadium to raise the level of sporting facilities in the state and the N4 billion Irele-Okitipupa link road which would have reduced travel time between the two Ikale towns by 80 percent. For these projects which were awarded at the twilight of the Agagu administration and for which a whopping N36 billion that was later inherited by the new administration, has been reserved for their completion and others, the state had committed 50 percent mobilization fees to the contractors which conservatively runs into about N15 billion. Also on the list of projects abandoned for no reason other than the difference in political party colours and the obvious supremacy contest between incumbent Dr. Olusegun Mimiko and his predecessor, are the construction of six-classroom blocks in all the state-owned primary schools of which the former administration had delivered two-third of the about 1,250 schools and the massive developments of the state’s oil-rich coastal stretch for which the sorry state of the neglected N27 billion Igbokoda-Ayetoro and the Aboto-Olokola roads are now examples of how the people can suffer when leaders embark on ego trip. Those who called for a new order in the management of the politics and administration of the state argue that such sheer wastages of the people’s commonwealth because of political differences could not happen if the two contenders were in their youthful ages and can imbibe the new paradigm shift in the management of the people’s resources. They pointed to neigbouring Ekiti State where incumbent governor Kayode Fayemi took it upon himself to continue all the projects awarded by his predecessor, Segun Oni and in many cases even retaining the original contractors handling the projects. Even though the two states suffered the same poll trauma that resulted in long-drawn legal processes and in the case of Ekiti, a re-run exercise after the April 2007 governorship election, the level of development in terms of continuation of on-going projects, is far higher in Ekiti than Ondo even while Ondo is an oil-producing state and Ekiti is at the bottom of the ladder in revenue allocation and generation. Now, a traveller to Ekiti from Ondo passing through any part of their mutual boundaries would know immediately that he is in Ekiti by the smoothness of the roads compared to the ones at the Ondo end. This is attributed to the completion of all the boundary road projects awarded by Oni which Fayemi, who put the interest of the people far above the political rivalry between the duo, delivered. Last month, some concerned Ondo youths under the aegis of The Change Agents in a statement made available to The Guardian, gave some of the reasons above as the motive for calling for what they called “generational shift” in Ondo State political leadership. According to them in the statement titled “Clarion Call on Ondo Youths” and signed by its coordinator, Sola Adepoju, “the time has come for the young people of this state to take up the gauntlet and wrestle power from our present crops of greedy and insensitive leaders who put their political interest above the needs of the common man.” The group said the state did not record any appreciable growth when late Adebayo Adefarati, a septuagenarian was the governor of the state between 1999 and 2003 during which his age-mates in the likes of late Chiefs Akerele Adu and Wunmi Adegbomire were the Commissioners for Agriculture and the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) respectively. A disadvantage of putting the state in the hands of the aged, according to them, was that the state, compared to Cross River State which was then under youthful Donald Duke, recorded great leaps in its cocoa production which was boosted by the provision of incentives for young farmers to engage in cocoa farming. By the end of 2003, Cross River was almost taking over from Ondo in terms of cocoa production and back then, operators of the cocoa industry at the national level used to joke that cocoa trees in both states were as old as their governors. While Duke was embarking on the cocoa renewal programme and attracting external funding to its tourism sector, for the Adefarati regime, stories were told of fraudsters who were always coming to Akure in company of white men with proposals to bring foreign investments to the state and how many of these “foreign investors” went away with millions of naira in consultancy fees. In fact, not only Cross River but the entire South-South geo-political zone has enjoyed the leadership of young and upwardly mobile politicians, many of who impacted positively on their states. The current infrastructure revolution in Akwa-Ibom State, where the governor, Godswill Akpabio is said to be performing marvelously and the feats recorded by Duke in the tourism sector as evidenced by the Tinapa Resort and the annual Calabar Carnival, are said to be made possible because of the young ages and exposures of the governor. Proponents also alluded to the loss that Ondo State has recorded in the handling of a multi-billion naira project to construct a modern event centre in Akure that would be the ultimate destination for event planners across the country. Tagged “The Dome Project”, the contract was initially awarded for the sum of N2 billion and was meant to be completed within a period of six months in 2010. Four years after the elaborate flag-off by the governor, the event centre, now termed “The Doomed Project” by the opposition, is yet to be delivered even after many changes to the original design and contract fees variations. Inside sources said the concept of the project was faulty from the beginning as the idea was muted by somebody who copied the design from the internet and sold the proposal to the governor as a standing edifice in one of the Scandinavian countries, a deception that they argued would not have been approved by a leader who is conversant with the internet and its manipulation. One of those who spoke to The Guardian on the issue, Rotimi Ogunleye, a young Chartered Accountant who also belongs to the People’s Democratic Party said there is a world of difference between the way most of the leaders in country are doing things and the way it should be done in this modern age. According to him, “it always amazes me to see our leaders jetting abroad in search of elusive investors when all what they need is to make necessary contacts through the internet. Nowadays you can do a billion naira business through your computer instead of wasting tax-payers money on unnecessary trips abroad.” He said “that there are a lot of opportunities at the global level that could be harnessed by our leaders but they are blind to them. And instead of them getting young people with great ideas and dreams to help in driving development, nepotism and crude politics won’t allow them. We need a change.” When asked how this change could be effected, Ogunleye said the state has one of the largest pools of young professionals in the country and that “what is needed is to sensitize them to be interested in the task of state-building and mobilizing the masses towards that end. We will surely win.” Another young politician, Olalekan Odere of the All Peoples Congress (APC) said “we the young people of this state constitute a major force within the framework of socio-economic and political life. We must register to vote in the 2015 elections and seek positions of authorities.” Among the top contenders in the race for a younger leadership in the state is Dr. Pius Olakunle Osunyikanmi, former Commissioner for Education in the State who later became the Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Foreign Affairs and now the Director-General of the Directorate of Technical Aids Corps (TAC), an agency that recruits and deploy Nigerian professional to countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions to beef up their manpower shortfall. Osunyikanmi, a former banker and academician still teaches “pro bono”. On the list is also Gbenga Elegbeleye, the Director-General of the National Sports Commission (NSC) who once represented Akoko North East/Akoko North West at the House of Representatives and a fellow former Federal legislator, Abayomi Sheba, who is now a member of the Federal Character Commission board. If any of these emerges as the face of the new leadership in the state, it would confirm the saying of the elders that “only the dogs of today know how to hunt the hares of today”, and Ondo can then join the league of states with youthful governors.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 06:00:11 +0000
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