Omisore lied on the funding of 2.8km Osogbo road —Lani Baderinwa, Osun Commissioner for Information

Mr Lani Baderinwa is the Osun State Commissioner for Information and in this interview with DAPO FALADE, he speaks on the dust raised over a newly-reconstructed 2.8km road in Osogbo, the state capital. And he also debunks the allegation that the project was financed by UNESCO, just as he explains why Governor Rauf Aregbesola appointed ‘Lagosians’ into his cabinet. Excerpts:

What is the detail of the 2.8km road, recently commissioned by the Governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola?

When Governor Rauf Aregbesola came on board, he said that he wanted to urbanise Osogbo, the state capital and that road, being the link with the old settlement and the New Town, was one of the roads he was determined to do. As he was going about constructing other roads, he knew he had to do that too. Beside the fact that there was the challenge of funding, there were other challenges too.

There was the need to demolish and clear so many buildings and create enough rooms for the road to be done. The governor was determined to make it more beautiful than it was before he came in. At the end of the day, the governor had his way and people agreed with him to allow their buildings to be demolished to make way for the road to be made.

As at that time, the state government was already getting into some financial problems, which was as a result of what was happening at the federal level. When the problem started coming up, Governor Aregbesola had a vision that one could not be spending all his earnings. He got the state House of Assembly to make a law to create what is called Omoluwabi Infrastructural Conservation Fund whereby we put 10 per cent of every earning of government into so that, in future, if there is problem, one could fall back on the money. That law was made and the government was making the savings. Now, when the governor wanted to do the road, he thought the natural place to go was the House Assembly.

He requested that they should give him access to the money to construct the road and, indeed, one or two other roads he wanted to do. The House of Assembly went through the debate on the request and gave him the go ahead and that was how the reconstruction of the road came into being.

Can you put an exact cost as money spent on the road?

Sometimes in 2014, the road was inaugurated and the construction started. It was given to RATCON Nigeria Limited, a construction firm that is well known all over the place and indeed, has been doing some roads for the state government. It was contracted out for above N1 billion, but I cannot give you the exact figure because the features have become different. There were so many additional things that had to be done.

I will rather want to talk to the Commissioner for Works who supervised the project concerning the exact amount that was eventually spent on the road, but I know that it was not anything outrageous and out of place, compared to the extent of work done on that road and the extent of the engineering work.

It is now a dualised road, making it 5.6km in the real sense of it and with street lights and so many beautifications going along with it. Indeed, I can say that basically, the value of that environment has changed; it has become something else and I know that property owners along the road would have been experiencing some things like a rise in the value of their properties.

There was this allegation by Senator Iyiola Omisore that UNESCO was responsible for about 70 per cent of the money spent on the project.

It was solely financed by the state government. I just told you that the funding was from the savings from the Omoluwabi Infrastructural Conservation Fund. Don’t mind the confused serial governorship aspirant that said that. The man is used to that kind of lies; that is what he does every now and then and it is unfortunate that somebody who wants to rule the state will be telling such terrible lies.

Tell me something; with the way I described the road, how does it become the problem of UNESCO to provide money to build township roads in the state capital? I think something is wrong with the man and the earlier he realises the fact that wanting to contest the governorship election is not the same thing as being in government and doing projects that will affect the life of the people, the better for him.

There is also this insinuation that the ‘Workers Drive’ Road project was embarked upon by the governor at the expense of the welfare of the workers in the state…

It became very important to recognise the workers and give them their dues because when the crisis came, there was a mutual agreement between the government and the workforce that rather than going home empty-handed every month or for a long number of months, let us be spending what we have, especially to ensure that everybody goes back home with something.

This was what we called the modulated salary payment, which gives levels 1-7, those vulnerable set of workers in the state, their full salary for the month; those who are on levels 8-13 going home with 75 per cent of their salary, while the most senior ones went home with 50 per cent of their salary. Of course, political office holders of all cadres go home with 50 per cent of their salary.

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I will like to say that, basically, it was on the strength of this agreement that Governor Aregbeola, being a welfarist and a humane person, felt that if the workers could come along with him that much, they deserved to be recognised; they deserved to be acknowledged; they deserved to be taken seriously as part and parcel of the stakeholders in the growth and development of the state. That was why he decided to name the road after the workers in the state.

Relationships are being affected ahead of the governorship election coming up in the state. What is the relationship between the governor and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives?

I think, to a large extent, I can say the relationship between them is cordial. Yes, they had differences sometimes in the past, but I believe that, one, Aregbesola is not that kind of person that will think anything so seriously.

He may be annoyed about certain conducts, but he does not seem to have that kind of heart that would take you on for too long. In any case, if he had been that kind of person, the tendency for him to be able to think out the good things which he has been serving the people of the state would have been impossible. You cannot keep malice and something good will be coming out of you. The man does not keep malice. I can say that about my personal experience with him. Besides that, I am aware that their  mutual friends must have called them sometimes in the past and talked to them and I think that must have put paid to whatever differences they had sometimes in the past.

Why is the administration so enamoured with having appointees from outside the state, especially Lagos?

Well, that is where Governor Aregbesola exhibits his unusualness; the fact that he is different from every other person. Don’t forget that as an Osun indigene, he was made a commissioner in Lagos too. Therefore, as far as he is concerned, there cannot be a difference between Osun and Oyo or Lagos and Ekiti. For as long as you are a Yoruba man, the tendency, according to what I can perceive from his disposition, is the fact that the development of our region is the most important; the development of the Yoruba nation is the most important. If you have something to offer, let us give him a chance and he will do it.

You cannot rule out the governor’s invaluable contributions as Lagos State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure. What he did there was what they are building on and therefore if you had, because he was not born a Lagosian, denied him the opportunity, perhaps there would have been nothing which others are building on. Therefore, my take is that the man is a dispassionate Nigerian, a dispassionate Yoruba man for whom your origin and circumstances of birth do not matter but what you can offer.

Once he is convinced that you are capable and you have the capacity, he will use you. And when you spoke about Lagosians, I thought you were even going to refer to the indigenes of Osun State who had to go and look for the greener pasture in Lagos or elsewhere who are being regarded as Lagosians by some people.

Would this explanation suffice for the reported decision of the governor to hand over to a successor from Lagos in November?

Honestly, I do not know about any Lagos-based aspirant, but I know all the people aspiring are still rumours as of today, because nobody has come out to declare his intention. In fact, the party is yet to give guidelines that would lead to that.

Therefore, nobody has come out to say he or she wants to contest the governorship election. All those people that I know are aspiring are all indigenes of Osun State, from one place to the other and, just like every other person, they have the inalienable right to ask for the votes of the people of the state to rule them.

I recollect that when Aregbesola himself came to the state, it was not an easy task convincing the hardliners who thought he had come to reap from where he did not sow or that he had sown more than what he could ever reap into the state and even before. This is because there are some people who would had been dead persons, but whom he rescued, by the grace of God and I wonder what such people will be saying today, if Aregbesola had not come to Osun to contest election, what would have been their fate if he had not been around for him to allow God to use him to rescue them.