Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, who will be inaugurated as the fifth democratically elected governor of Ekiti State on Sunday, October 16, spoke with some journalists, including ‘YOMI AYELESO about his plans for the state, among other issues:
No doubt, there are a lot of challenges in the state and you are coming to the saddle as a governor at a time when there is paucity of fund to confront the challenges. How do you intend to meet the huge expectation of the people and at the same time, address some of the issues?
I agree with you that expectations are very high and rightly so. They should be high because they (people) have this trust in me, knowing full well I am a product of this environment; that I understand where the shoe pinches, and because I grew up here, I know what to do and where to act. I believe strongly that with sincerity of purpose, right policies and communication, we will be able to navigate this curve. I don’t claim monopoly of knowledge or ideas, but one thing I am going to do with them is that, we will sit down together and discuss on how best to go about it; I will share my own vision with them. I will tell them the road I want to travel. I will take input from them and we will now agree on how to proceed with the journey. But, we have to prioritise on what to do. There is no government that does everything but there are things that are more urgent than others. So, once we agree on what to do, I will go ahead with that. But there are times being a leader, you may have your own vision and you want to take your people not to where they want to be but where they ought to be and when we will get to that point, I will tell them and communicate that we may need to go out of our comfort zone because of some reasons. By that time, I believe strongly that with communication, right policies and sincerity of purpose, if we work our talk and they see us doing it, we should be able to get out of this quagmire. I am not so much worried about lack of funds because nature abhors vacuum and at a time like this, this is a period you need a leader that is courageous, compassionate and humble.
God has created me to come in by this time for a purpose and I believe with God on our side, we will be able to do that. But I will tell you communication will be key. I ran on a mantra that together with you, let’s keep Ekiti working. Every step we take, once they buy it and I communicate with them by building consensus around major government policies and don’t forget we have a six-point agenda or manifesto, which is a guide.
You emphasised on getting the priorities right in tackling the challenges of the state and I know you will be selective in your approach to these areas. What are those things that will get your urgent and immediate attention as a governor?
If you wake me up around 1 am and ask me this same question, I have a default answer, which is security, youth development and unemployment. We are going to tackle that. Also, infrastructure with special emphasis on power and I will briefly explain my reasons. My vision is to have a society where everybody will prosper; a society where an average Ekiti indigene will live a decent life. To do that, you have to grow the economy in a way and manner that will be sustainable. To grow the economy, you need investment into the state. If a state is not secured, investors will not come; if a state is secured and the major factor of production, like electricity is absent, they will not come and unfortunately, these two critical areas are not within the powers of the state government to effectively do. We can only support the security apparatus in the state; we can’t command or control them. Except the bill in the National Assembly is tinkered with in terms of power generation and distribution, there is a little a state can do regarding power. The question is what have I done? I can tell you that I have established contacts with the Ministry of Power and I have assurances that by the first quarter of next year (2023), God be on our side and if I do what they asked me to do, in the short term, we will have an increase in the electricity supply in Ekiti State.
The major problem we have now is, even when you have excess power, it can’t be transmitted to Ekiti because we have problem with the transmission line. In the event that they have excess power, I mean the generation and distribution companies, it cannot even come here but they are doing a transmission line from Osogbo to Akure, which they promised that by December this year, it will be completed, then they will now link that with the 132kva at Omisanjana in Ado-Ekiti and when that is done, it will increase what is coming to Ekiti State by more than 200 per cent. In the best of times now, what comes to Ekiti State is not more than 20 kilowatts. You can’t take more than that because our lines cannot take more than that. There are two other substations whose contracts have been awarded – Ilupeju-Ekiti and Ijesa Esu. They have told me what to do and I can tell you that my first assignment on Monday, October 17 is to meet with members of the National Assembly from the state to discuss about power and roads.
If we are able to do that and let me tell you that our National Assembly members are key going forward; we must work together and once they agree to work with Ekiti indigenes and we solve the problem of power and access to the state in terms of road, investors will see the seriousness and they will come.
The other one is youth development; I made a campaign promise that I am going to decouple sports from the ministry of youths and sports. We are going to have a ministry for youth development; sports will stand as a commission.
That ministry will focus on anything that has to do with youth development and this we intend to do through ramping up activities on our knowledge zone, so that people can translate their intellect into wealth through digital skills. We will ensure that we tinker with our curriculum to include courses like coding, like artificial intelligence and robotics, those are the things to prepare them for the industrial revolution because our curriculum most speak to our need and also speak to global needs. So, as an indigene of Ekiti State, you now choose where to play, whether at the sub-national level, there is going to be a curriculum to take care of that and if at the national level, there will be a curriculum that speaks to that and even for international level. As a government, you must prepare space for everybody to play and make a decent living. If we do that, then we will now go to the informal sector of the economy, which is the engine of growth; medium, small and micro enterprises and I have told them that they will need to aggregate themselves into cooperatives societies, if they are able to do that, then we will look for cheaper funds for them. Once there is trade and transaction, there will be value and once there is value, wealth will be created. What we will be deliberate about in Ekiti is to ensure that we strike a balance between growth and development because I have discovered that it is possible for a society to develop and not to grow. You can put fantastic infrastructure but citizens may be poor and that is the problem with our country. If you develop infrastructure at the expense of developing the local economy, there is going to be a mismatch. You will have development but you will not have growth because growth is just improvement in the standard of living, your per capital income. We are going to put together the best brain available in Ekiti State in these areas. There are some areas we will not play politics with; we will look for Ekiti indigenes, anywhere in the world and beg them to come and help us. There are sectors that we can play politics with but anything that has to do with the livelihood of the people, that has to do with creating wealth for our people, we will be deliberate about them.
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