I will use my governorship to fire Osun into growth, development —SDP candidate, Omigbodun

A former deputy chairman of the Social Democratic party (SDP) in Osun State, Mr Oyegoke Omigbodun, is the governorship candidate of the party in the state. In this interview by YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE, he speaks on his ambition, vote selling, the future of the state, among other issues.

You are the governorship candidate of the SDP in Osun State, what prompted you to throw your hat into the ring?

I threw my hat into the ring because I observed that there are many things that could be done better in Osun State and in the country. I went into this race to redeem Osun State and to become a very strong voice for the restructuring of Nigeria so that there can be devolution of power to the states and local governments, and so that there can be resource control in order to allow state and local governments to have enough resources to run their affairs.

By the grace of God, from November this year, I will be talking as Governor Goke Omigbodun. I will be among the 36 governors and be a stronger voice than a social commentator, social worker and politician that I have been all along.

A lot of money is being wasted by the present government of Osun. How is the money being wasted? All members of their political party (APC) holding offices at the ward level earn salary. The APC has become so lucrative at all levels of governance now that people are even resigning as senators to hold  party offices and that is what is happening in Osun State as well. Ward chairmen, ward vice chairmen, ward secretary and ward PROs are getting salaries. A lot of resources that should go into the payment of pensioners in Osun State, a lot of resources that should go into paying the workers of Osun Statewho are being owed backlogs of entitlements. Funds that should be deployed in health, education, security, agriculture and pave the way for development are now being paid to party men without any meaningful contributions  to Osun State other than being singers who chorus whatever they believe the government is doing at the moment. So, that is the first thing that I am going to make sure that the resources of Osun State are used for the development of Osun State.

There are a number of issues I have addressed in my manifesto. There are those areas I call the fundamentals and those fundamental things are typical things you find in manifestoes. The people of Osun State want free education and, to some extent, they are enjoying that and they are going to continue enjoying it in a better way. I am one of those people that will not criticise everything about past governments without appreciating that there is no governor that has come into the state without having his own quota of contribution to the development of the state. My only argument a lot of times is that it can be done better. I believe that free education can be made better.

Why do you think the people of Osun State will choose you over other candidates?

I think the question should be why should the people of Osun vote for me? The people of Osun should vote for me because I am going to deliver better governance than what they are experiencing now. The people of Osun should vote for me because rather than give tem fish, I am going to teach them to fish.

I am also going to target my campaign at intellectuals and that is why I am going to rely on the media; social media, newspapers, etc. The people that read newspapers, the people that will listen to the radio, the people that watch trends on social media but will ordinarily sit down on the day of election and not go out to vote, I need to reach out to those people. Why? I found out that these people were mostly those living in the GRA, staff quarters of higher institutions; they are people who perhaps felt they were too decent to go out to vote. They were probably just watching television and reading newspapers when people were voting. When I spoke with some of them, two things they said was that they stayed away because there were attempts to buy their votes and they were not even sure their votes would count. Now, I am already making them understand that INEC has a new law. That those who vote would have the result announced right from the polling unit. So, it is going to be difficult for anyone to change eight votes at the polling unit to 800 at the local government and 8,000 at the state level. All those shenanigans will no more be easily practicable. So, they should come out and vote on the basis of intellectual content, track record and the capacity of the candidate, not necessarily on the basis of political party.

I am ready to face any of the other candidates at a proper governorship debate. I know some of them will run away from this because they don’t have the intellectual capacity to convince the people and others may be ashamed of their records and they wouldn’t want to risk being exposed to the world. If we were in a place like the United States of America where debates actually take place, I can boast that I am going to win the election. But for now, I will say these are the reasons why Ousn people should vote for me. I believe that a lot of people that did not vote the other time will come out to vote now. If a lot of people that sold their votes the other time will choose to be responsible by not selling their votes, I am going to gather all the votes and win the election.

What kind of government should the Osun people expect from you?

We should have a government that will be independent of any godfather, whether the godfather is in Lagos or within the state and running the business of the state. The people of Osun should elect a governor who would be a man after their own heart. There is something I proudly declare: I was born in Osun, I was groomed in Osun, I have lived all my life in Osun. You must be aware as a journalist that some time ago, a governor served out his tenure and as soon as the tenure ended, the next day, he was going to step on a plane and jet out to the United States when he was arrested. That would ordinarily not happen if such people lived in the areas where they served. Look at the people I am contesting with, they are people from either Lagos or from Atlanta in the United States. All I have is Osun. All I have been is in Osun. I have been among my people. I have grown among them. They should trust me and know that I understand their challenges. The kind of governor the people of Osun deserve is the one who keenly understands everything to be able to deliver. The kind of governor the people of Osun should have is one who has a track record of performance in areas where he has operated before.

What are your plans on tackling insecurity?

There is something fundamental about my manifesto that is going to take care of many things, including security. I call it ‘Agbadaoye’. I always boast that the English borrowed a lot from Yoruba language. In English language, there is what they call the melting pot. The melting pot is a forum for bringing ideas together and processing them into practicable solution to address life problems. That is a melting pot and that is what my ‘Agbadaoye’ will be because ‘Agbadaoye’ is actually fundamental to Yoruba operation. The ‘Agbadaoye’ is going to be an ICT (Information and Communications Technology) innovative hub for job creation. My dream, in short, is to have replicas of Silicon Valley or Bangalore, where a lot of innovations take place. A lot of the Amotekun people now just go around looking for criminals. But what will be coming out of ‘Agbadaoye’ will be things like drones that can actually track criminals and give feedback to security bases and the police, the DSS, the civil defense, Amotekun will get all the information from some of these things. By the time ‘Agbadaoye’ is fully operational, a lot of technology-driven innovations will be taking place.

So, why am I thinking of ‘Agbadaoye’? I need to let you know a few things about Osun. The state has a very high youth population relative to other age groups. Osun has one of the highest numbers of higher institutions in Nigeria. I strongly believe that Ogun and Lagos are our biggest competitors and Osun has perhaps the best electricity supply in the whole of Nigeria as poor as it is right now. One more thing Osun probably has is the highest number of Yahoo boys and for you to be a Yahoo boy, it means you have some measure of intelligence but you are only not channeling that intelligence in the right direction. So, my ‘Agbadaoye’ will be able to gather the Yahoo boys and rather than criminalising them, let them begin to use their brains and come up with innovations like Google, Facebook and all those things that come out of Silicon Valley; some others are coming out of Bangalore now.

I always tell people that when you compare the economies of states of the world, it is an insult that just one state in the United States of America, California, on the account of the Silicon Valley, essentially is competing with the rest of the world and is able to take the fifth or sixth position when you are discussing other sovereign states like Japan and Germany, forget about Nigeria, we don’t even have any position there at all. One state in the United States of America was able to do that. Go and check what is happening in state where the city of Bangalore is, Karnataka, it is the fastest growing state today. So, I have no doubt that by the time I am able to have a replica of Silicon Valley in Osun, the state is going to become one of the fastest growing states in Nigeria.