Deputy National Chairman (South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja, has ranked the performance of Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration as the highest in the history of administrations that have governed the state.
Pointing to having been within the corridors of power for years, Arapaja said he had been awed by the strides of the Makinde administration in the education, health, infrastructure sectors and attention given to the welfare of workers and pensioners.
He said the Makinde administration had changed the narrative of government, in time past, denying the people of their rights and other dividends of democracy.
Arapaja who stated this, on Thursday at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, Ibadan, where some members of some opposition parties formally defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Oyo state, said Makinde is Godsend to offer good governance to the people of the state.
Arapaja said: “Go to town, Makinde’s good works are there to see. I am happy people of the state are seeing the good works hence we are having people join the PDP today. I have been in the corridors of power for some time and I have never seen any government that has performed up to what we are seeing today.
“Is it in terms of education? Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) is now solely that of Oyo state. Look at improvements in the health sector. What about infrastructure development all over the state? We should thank God for giving us Seyi Makinde.
“There were those who were once in government and we wondered why people would govern the way they did. People were in position and denied us our right but this is a government that has used the opportunity he has to help us.
“There are those who said they represented the state but did virtually nothing. People of the state should be wary of following those who will still collect from the little that people have.”
“We thank God for giving us Oluwaseyi Makinde. I am a testimony of Oluwaseyi Makinde’s kindness. When he became governor, he called me to say that I had not got my pension. He promised that I would get it and in two weeks, I got my pension.”
Among those formally received by governor Seyi Makinde were Senator Monsurat Sunmonu, who led the defecting African Democratic Congress (ADC) members; the likes of Mr Bashir Ajibade, Mr Joseph Tegbe and Honourable Simeon Oyeleke who led the defecting members of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Mr Wole Abisoye, who was former chairman of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) in the state, led the ZLP defectors; while Mr Akin Alamu and Mr Babatunde Oduyoye led the defectors from the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
Others who defected were Mr Taiwo Otegbeye, formerly of the Providence Peoples Congress (APC); former chairman, Oyo State Pilgrims Welfare Board (Muslim Wing), Sheik Taofeek Akewugbagold; Mr Seyi Opatoki of Integrity Foundation; Mr Segun Jenyo; Adamilare Akintola; Muideen Olakewu; Bashir Ajibade, Dayo Popoola and several others.
In her remarks, Sunmonu said, with those that had defected to the PDP, what was left in the Oyo ADC is carcass.
She mocked the announcement of her expulsion from the ADC, noting that several of the defectors left the ADC about a year ago.
Sunmonu said: “We are decampees yet we were suspended. Do you suspend a decampee? We left the ADC about a year ago. When we went to pay the governor a thank-you visit, we all went, including those who stayed back.
“We don’t know why some of them turned back. We have 21 excos in ADC, and 14 of them are here at this PDP gathering. Some of them obtained forms to contest but said they are no longer contesting.
“We know why we left the APC. Since the history of Oyo State, except the last election, has there ever been ADC on the ballot paper for Oyo State?
“No one ever contested on that platform; we were the first; and we lost. It shows that that is not where God wants. We left because we saw the many things that the governor is doing.
“What is left in the ADC is carcass. What is left in a party that does not have people anymore? They do not have a structure anymore.”
