Ogun: Between performance and politics

I know a couple of people who hail from Abeokuta but have not visited the capital city in more than a decade. There are even indigenes of Ogun that have only read developments at home on the pages of newspapers but have been unable to see those monuments that have created new sights, sounds and taste across the state in the last six years. You probably need a tour guide if you are coming to Abeokuta after a long time; indeed all the city centres across the state! Professor Is-aq Oloyede, former Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin and currently the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), was one of the first citizens that appraised the current administration in 2013: “From what I have seen in our state, it is very clear that we have a politician with a difference at the helm of affairs. With the on-going infrastructural revolution, many of us who are indigenes even find it difficult to locate our houses and some prominent places each time we come visiting.”

I must confess that I was jolted to the marrow when, upon the inauguration of the current government in 2011, I had the first-hand experience of crisscrossing Abeokuta. Why should a state capital look so ancient? The roads were so narrow that they could hardly accommodate pedestrians let alone automobiles, and the houses built so close to the roads such that people rising early morning in their bedrooms could through their windows exchange handshakes with passengers on so-called motorways! It was, therefore, not surprising when at the inauguration of the first flyover constructed by any state government since the creation of Ogun in 1976, Dr Adedotun Gbadebo, the Alake of Egbaland, declared:  “Today can be likened to the day electricity, pipe borne water and railway first came to Abeokuta. Amosun has changed the city from the status of 19th century to the 21st century.” And just before the end of that same year 2013, the highly revered monarch, Dr Sikiru Kayode Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebu-Ode, observed: “Your performance has been beyond the imagination of each and every one of us. You have been able to go round the entire Ogun State (with your infrastructural development) without just concentrating on Abeokuta and leaving the rest of us in the wilderness. You have been able to go round Abeokuta,  Ijebu, Remo, Yewa. This is a great thing that has never happened in the state.”

Abeokuta is the capital of Ogun State and the first port of call for investors and those who need to transact business with government.  Welcoming you to the metropolis on Saturday is the sprawling flyover under construction. It confirms that development is work-in-progress. So many bridges and roads have been completed by the Amosun administration, yet so many need to be done. Some roads are currently receiving the final layer of asphalt. Ogun State is still a huge construction site.  On January 16, 2015, former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, commented on the sterling performance of Governor Amosun:

“In 2011, we were not together. We were together before and I did campaign against him. See what he has been able to do in the last three and a half years in the state. I cannot sacrifice performance for party. I never dreamt of having a bridge on a dry land in Ogun State in my life time. Yes, we have Ogun River, where there is a bridge. Go to Ijebu, Sagamu, Ota, what am I seeing? Bridges, not even one, two, three. So, my people, I am not talking about other elections. I have come to tell you that in order to appreciate what this personality has been able to do in the last three and a half years, let us give him our votes. What happened in 2011 was politics, and we can all see the difference between politics and personality.”

Eminent historian and elder statesman, Prof. Anthony Asiwaju, has equally not been silent: “The Yewa people and by extension, Ogun State have never had it so good since the creation of the state. So we are thanking Senator Ibikunle Amosun for coming to our aid through the construction of a road over 107 kilometres, which cuts across four Local Government Areas in the senatorial district.” At the grand reception in Abeokuta on February 2nd, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari, summed up his impression: “I express my gratitude to the governor of Ogun State for inviting me and identifying with me on his success. He managed to disorientate me. On my commissioning in January 1963 – I was posted to Abeokuta, where Second Inventory Battalion of the Nigerian Army used to be. I said he managed to disorientate me because if you drop me anywhere in Abeokuta and ask me to find where the barracks is, I assure you I will get missing. I am pleased and happy about your success because I think that whatever I knew about Abeokuta, I have lost it. Your programmes are certainly people-oriented.”

Apart from constructing the first overhead bridges, first ten-lane roads, first world-class model schools, first gated housing estates, the Amosun government was the first to bring into Nigeria the very latest technology of Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and made the “maximum donation” of security equipment that the then Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, confessed he had never witnessed since he had been serving as a police officer. The Amosun administration was also the first to distribute 500 brand new transformers at one fell swoop across the state, first to introduce modern luxury buses and brand new taxis on Ogun highways and first to purchase, in one iconic gesture, such quantum of multi-million naira farm machinery – bulldozers, tractors, ploughs, harrows, slashers and planters. The current government moved Ogun State from F9 to A1 in terms of Ease of Doing Business, as reported by the World Bank  2014 Doing Business Report. So far, about 120 multi-billion naira industries have been established in Ogun in the last six years, creating thousands of direct and indirect employment for the teeming youths of the state.

In spite of the meagre amount Ogun gets from the Federation Account, the Amosun government has paid above the minimum wage, and implemented it across board, thus making it the only government to achieve such a milestone in Nigeria. It is also the first to introduce a social health insurance scheme in the state, where poor pregnant women and their Under-5 children go to any of the four designated Health Care Providers (private and public) in their respective local councils with their Araya Access Cards (like ATMs) and access free health services anytime, any day, 24/7! On Saturday, this governor of many firsts gave his first daughter out in marriage. Although he had announced to everyone that the wedding is a private affair, it was not possible to dissuade residents from celebrating with the first family that has accomplished so much in the state in the last six years.

• Soyombo, a media professional, sent this piece via [email protected]