If elected, NRM’ll do greater things never done in Oyo State —Deputy gov candidate, Omoniyi

YOUR party, the National Rescue Movement (NRM), is in the race for the Oyo State governorship seat alongside four or five major parties, with a lot of people holding the belief that the contest is closed against small parties like yours. Yet, your party is still campaigning. What is your view on this belief?

Let me tell you that it is not over until it is over. Some people may be making noise and causing stirs around town, parading themselves as major contenders, we are not bothered. As the Yoruba say, eegun to ba ko jo, iran ni o wo kehin [the masquerade that dances first at a show may have to sit out the remainder of the show when it is others’ turn]. Those parties that are making noise, you will see that when the time comes, they will be disappointed. This is because noise will not bring in votes on Election Day.

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As for those you said hold the belief that the contest is closed against small parties; let me clear that impression that NRM is a small party. First, there is no small party in the context of elections; all parties’ names will be on the ballot paper and if God helps the electoral commission, it misses a party’s name, that election is null and void. So, do not refer to any party as small. Second, NRM is a national party and in Oyo State, we fielded candidates for Senate, House of Representatives in yesterday’s election. We also have our governorship candidate, Asiwaju Yinusa Kazeem Ayandoye, who I will like to describe as a well-experienced politician. His name is not one that people won’t easily connect with.

Now, to the issue of people holding belief; they don’t understand what is called the termite approach. There is a way that you do things without calling attention to yourself and it will bring out success. What we are doing in NRM is to disarm all the supposed major contenders, because we have seen their weaknesses and failures. You will see that by March 10, NRM will be declared as the winner of the election.

But what exactly are you prepared to do differently in Oyo State? Why should people trust you with their votes?

As the saying goes that you don’t do the same thing the same way and expect a different result; it won’t be possible. Oyo State can’t continue to be governed the way it is and we will expect development or prosperity. This is where our party comes in and the electorate must rally behind us to bring about a new Oyo State. What we are bringing on board is what we like to call innovative thinking. We have realised that we cannot continue to run government with allocations from Abuja and a paltry sum being generated as Internally Generated Revenue; no one can get anything done with that. Everyone says ‘I want to fix road, I want to fix education, I want to fix this and that,’ ask them where they will get the funds. Will the sources be different from what the government is getting now? That is where we are different; we are saying that we need to think innovatively, think outside the box. People should look inwards and vote for NRM, because we are bringing innovative ideas. We will raise Oyo State’s IGR in a way that the money generated in Oyo State will be enough to fund all our programmes and there will still be surplus. We will show the people that there are new ways of governing, new ways of doing things and also new ways of generating funds, which enable us to do greater things that have never been done in Oyo State.

What greater things?

If we are elected on March 9, Oyo State will be the first state in Nigeria that will have a mega biofuel system and that will not only generate employment, it will also make life easier for people. That mega biofuel project will generate up to 50,000 or 100,000 jobs. Not only that, the money we will generate from it will also raise our IGR. You know that wherever a state becomes an oil-producing state in Nigeria, their IGR is automatically raised. This means that our monthly allocation from Abuja will even increase. So, tell me, when that happens, why won’t we get money to do greater things?

One of the greater things we will do is to introduce innovative ways of doing agriculture; we will make the factories that will process agricultural produces establish closer to the farmers cultivating the produce. Farmers that cultivate cassava will have companies that produce ethanol established close to them and when you make ethanol in large quantity, trust me, China and the United States of America will be following you all over. Do you know that Nigeria’s cassava is one of the best in the world? Same thing for corn. So, our government will make sure that we introduce innovations to farming and processing such that our farmers will have the confidence that whatever they grow, no matter the quantity, will be sold. Foreign investors will begin to troop into the state.

Our programmes are interwoven; our agricultural programme, with our expansion and urbanization of the rural areas are all interwoven. When you bring companies closer to farmers in rural areas, there will be better electricity supply, better road networks and all that. Of course, we will make them better than they have ever been and these are the reasons people should vote for Kazeem Yinusa Ayandoye of NRM as the next governor of Oyo State.