How I will create new thinking as Ogun governor —Adebutu

Honourable Oladipupo Adebutu, twice a member of the House of Representatives, is the leading governorship aspirant in Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview with DARE ADEKANMBI, he is upbeat about clinching the party’s ticket, speaks on his vision and how he hopes to run the state as its governor.

You are one of those aspiring to govern Ogun State on the platform of PDP and I am sure that you have gone through all the 20 local governments and the wards, and you have been speaking to delegates and consulting. What has the feedback been like?

So far, so good, the 20 local governments responded very well and we look forward to the delegates, three per ward, making 708 delegates for the full Electoral College. I think we will be home and dry. We are looking forward to a free and fair contest come and from the feedback we are getting, we don’t foresee any surprises and we pray God, Ogun State will respond to us positively, given the fact that we have been at this for seven years. We have dedicated our time. We have dedicated our acumen and our compassion to this effort.

So, you are confident of emerging victorious at the primary?

I wouldn’t take anything for granted. We will continue to do our best and continue to put ourselves forward. Service is our heritage and we will continue to make ourselves available to serve the people of Ogun State.

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Should you emerge the candidate of the party and go ahead to win the election in next year, what are you going to do differently as Ogun state governor?

First and foremost, we must create an environment of hope. There is a feeling of hopelessness parading the communities in the state as it is for now. We must create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. We must create a secure environment for businesses to thrive. There must be security for life and property. We must create a new thinking in the expansion of infrastructure. We must move away from spending huge amounts on infrastructure whereas we could do so by private sector participation. It is more prudent to get the private sector to build ports, bridges, airports, seaports and so on, rather than expend huge amounts of government resources to do these things. You don’t spend government money building railways anymore. You bring the private sector to do these things. Therefore, you are able to free resources to spend on the social aspect such as hospitals and of course education. We have a serious deficit in education. I have gone round. It is very shameful. 1,000 student schools with three teachers and general hospitals are manned by two corps members. Those are the shameful things I have seen in Ogun State in the last few weeks, simply because resources are just not available to man these things. Instead, they are spending money, re-making roads that have been made two times over and spending money funding streetlights that are powered by diesel generators in the year 2022. We have to move away from this archaic way of doing things.

We have to invest in agriculture. Agriculture has a multi-faceted way of improving society. First is that agriculture obviously provides food security. But agriculture has the tendency to create a lot of jobs as well, meaningful jobs. Agriculture also has a way of changing the mindset of society. It changes the mindset of people who work in agriculture. They start to understand investing time; you plant a seed today, and it takes time to germinate, a period to harvest. This culture of overnight money has to go. We have to imbibe this culture. These ideologies have to be re-grown into society. And these ideologies will have to get our religious societies, our churches and mosques to be part of the system, whereby we have a work culture, a decency culture, moral culture and gradually pull back from the precipice, such that we have a decent society again. All these things are work to be done. If we are able to recreate a new Ogun State, other states will copy, hopefully, we will have a better nation. These are the things we have in mind.

If there is one thing that some people will say scares them in wanting to become a governor, is the fact that general complaint that resources are lean and people feel this should be enough to discourage anybody from aspiring to that office. What should Ogun people expect from you in terms of growing the IGR, without necessarily having to put an additional burden on people?

I mentioned earlier that the private sector is key to doing what we are hoping to succeed at that. The private sector must be a key participant in the success we are going to achieve. We must work with the private sector. We must leave the building of roads, and infrastructure to the private sector. Build, operate and transfer is a veritable way of succeeding. Once we do this, first and foremost, we get these infrastructures built at virtually no cost to us and then it even expands the ways from which we can get revenue, because obviously at least we get some revenue inputs in that arrangement. These are the ways to do things. These are the ways to go forward.

Happily, in this post-Covid era, there is a lot of money flying all over the place that are looking for parking space. The essential thing is to create a trusted system and a trusted government that people are willing to rely on, to keep their word that this is an integrity arrangement. These are trustworthy people that will put their money into the system that will join in that process and will put our own money as well. So, it will be easy to attract people once they believe that you have integrity. We will invite people and I believe once they see integrity, they will bring their money and many people will join in this process. A lot of monies are everywhere, but those who have the money are afraid.

You were officially the candidate of PDP in the last election, but due to the in-fighting in your party, your name was not on the ballot. Now, this is 2023, is everything settled now? Is PDP now one family in Ogun State?

Well, all parties have their issues like PDP and APC. Where there is contention for power, there will always be ups and downs. Gradually, any contention is being resolved even in court. We thank God, at the Appeal Court recently, one of the few remaining cases was resolved and struck out and I am sure realisation is coming to set in. Interestingly and happily, all contending factions bought their forms from the national body of the party. Happily, all contending factions have been screened by the national body of the party. So, this suggests that at least this time, we are not having issues of parallel competitions or parallel congresses or primaries. So, at least, we will have one winner. Happily, we can say today that we have one party under the leadership of Dr Iyorchia Ayu.

Would it be a big addition to PDP if you have Gbenga Daniel in your fold? Are you talking to him? Are people talking to him to come to the PDP?

Speculations are speculations. Many people have speculated that Otunba Gbenga Daniel is on his way back to PDP. It is speculation. They speculated that for some time GFF has been his logo rather than APC logo, but that is speculation. Numerous speculations like that. At the moment, he is not aspiring in PDP. However, it is not compulsory if he wants to be a senator or a senatorial candidate of PDP, he can choose to come back to PDP at any other time and I am sure, everybody will have his value, 9 plus 1 is 10. So, if he does come back to PDP, it will be an interesting addition. I am sure he will be welcome. Why not? It will be good to have him back and I am sure he will be happy that the house that he left has prospered.

Where do you think Ogun PDP needs to strengthen its hand among the three senatorial districts? Talk about APC being the house of gladiators in the politics of the state. You have the current governor, former governor Gbenga Daniel, another former governor Olusegun Osoba also in APC, former governor, immediate past governor of the state, Ibikunle Amosun, also in APC. And when they look at PDP, they say you are probably the only prominent figure there and that PDP does not stand a chance in next year’s elections. What do you make of this?

Often, I am asked this question and my response is this: we were in the government house if you remember, and His Excellecncy, Senator Ibikunle Amosun would match from Kuto to Oke Igbehin, he would match up and down the road alone in his party and we would always wonder, what is the problem with this man? He was the only man in his party, nobody. We would laugh and say it was a huge joke. We forgot that, while we were laughing and assuming there was nobody with Amosun, the electorate was with Amosun. So, while we were complacent in the government house and were very comfortable, under this illusion, we had the federal government, we had everything, yet Amosun kicked us out. Mark my words, a repeat of that scenario is about to happen. You see a collection, a conglomerate of various dignitaries, but the truth of the matter is that the electorate has long left them and that is what matters.

Can you rate the chances of PDP, your party in the Osun and Ekiti governorship elections coming up shortly?

Well, I can tell you for a fact that, that is the harbinger of good news for the whole nation because gradually that will be the foretaste of what the people are saying, that it is time for the APC to please leave Nigeria in peace. The suffering is too much. The nation as a whole is traumatised. The insecurity is unbearable and the inflation is unbearable. Poverty has been weaponised to the extent that hunger is now automatic. Hunger is now the norm. Nobody lives in comfort anymore. Even the rich weep. Diesel is 700 naira per litre. Even the rich cannot put on their generators anymore. Where are we going? All businesses have failed. The exchange rate today is 600 naira to the dollar. What kind of nation is this? In another four years, this will turn into a banana republic. We need an emergency rescue government. That is the situation now.

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