That Oyo State may prosper

WHEN the 80-year-old mother of Ramdulari Devi first heard that her son had been elected the Prime Minister of India, her reaction was: “I expect LalBahadur to ensure that the country prospers even if he has to sacrifice his life for it” (J. Maurus, 2004).  Similarly, the governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has said repeatedly that when he was contesting for the governorship of the state, he told God to make his election to the post possible only if he would do well by the people of the state. By May 2017, Governor Ajimobi would have spent two years out of his four-year second term mandate, and a total of six years as the Governor of Oyo State. In all these years, his covenant with God to do well by the state has remained his guiding principle.

During Ajimobi’s first coming, his focus was security and infrastructure. The first task as he saw it was to restore peace and security to the state, particularly to Ibadan, the state capital, which had acquired the notoriety of a garrison town where life was not only unsafe, but short and brutish with the daily deadly battles between the various factions of the transport unions for supremacy.In less than six months after taking office, Governor Ajimobi was able to restore peace by sending strong signals to trouble makers that they would no longer find a safe haven in the state, and this enabled government to proceed with its infrastructure development plan which included the construction of roads along Eleyele-Magazine Road-Dugbe axis, Jericho-Aleshinloye,Eleyele-Sabo etc. But the road infrastructural development was not confined only to Ibadan Metropolis, for the first time in the history of the state, simultaneous construction and expansion of some roads to four and six lanes commenced in Iseyin, Oyo and Ogbomoso townships.

One of the challenges faced by the Ajimobi-led administration when it came on board in 2011 was the issue of flooding, especially within Ibadan metropolis. The torrential rains of that year flooded many neighbourhoods and swept away many roads and bridges cutting off many communities. The government promptly went into action by reconstructing the bridges and building alternative roads. A clear case in point was the Apete bridge in Ido Local Government of the state capital which was washed away by the flood, thus cutting off a large swathe of communities up to Akufo. Because the government was bent on building not only a better bridge in Apete, but also upgrading the road leading to Apete from Ijokodo, it constructed another road from Ajibode to Apete within months to alleviate the problems of the people of the area, a road which serves them well even after the completion of the Apete main bridge and road.

The 2011 experience of flooding in Ibadan led the government to devise an early warning system and flood control methods that have minimised floods to the barest minimum in the state. Thus, during the last rainy season when floods swept through other cities in the country, Ibadan was spared because at the approach of the rains, all the water ways were dredged and solid bridges provided for communities prone to floods. Construction of roads and bridges is still going on in flood prone areas. Since the beginning of this year, the Oyo State government has embarked yet again on the massive construction of roads across the state which when combined with past efforts will truly change the face of Ibadan to the status of a mega city and modernise other cities in the state.

Some of these roads reconstruction for which contracts have been awarded since January and for which the contractors have mobilized to site are Idi-Ape-Iwo Road Interchange which would be expanded from the present four lanes to six lanes, Bus Stop-Old Ife Road-Alakia Road, Eleyele-Ologuneru Road up to Ido junction,Beere-OritaMerin, Agbeni-Ogunpa and The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic-Ibaruba Road in Saki. All these roads are to be expanded into four lanes to enhance not only the aesthetics of the towns and ease transportation, but to also enhance commercial viability of the areas.

Perhaps the most far reaching reform of the Ajimobi government is in the education sector where he has taken on the herculean task improving the standards of education in the state. In the last few years, the state, which was renowned for its academic excellence, hosting the very first university in Nigeria and the largest concentration of research institutes in Africa, has been lagging behind in the Senior School Certificate and the Nation Examination Council examinations sometimes taking the 34th position out of 36 states. This situation, the Governor found unacceptable, and in his words had said: “We must improve education in the state”.

Lack of proper supervision has been identified as one the banes of education in the state, and to enhance close monitoring of each school, the government has introduced a Governing Board for each school made up members from the communities where the schools are situated. The rationale for this is that each community is to take ownership of the schools in their area. The government would still continue to pay teachers salaries, provide infrastructure and other teaching aids, but members of the community and old boys whose children attend these schools must supervise the running of these schools for effectiveness. We are already seeing results as the state came second in the last NECO exams whose results were released earlier this year.

In the State Executive Council meetings, Governor Ajimobi charged members to come up with iconic projects that would improve things in the state for the better and return the state to the leadership position for which the state has been destined. One of such iconic projects is the Polaris-Pacesetter Free Trade Zone. Polaris is a multi-billion dollar Chinese conglomerate which wants to set up manufacturing companies in conjunction with Oyo State in the free trade zone. More than 100 companies are expected to be set up on the 1000 hectares of land for the project to provide employment and business opportunities to our teeming population not only in the state, but all over the country as people migrate to places where there are jobs.

Governor Ajimobi has often been dubbed by critics as tyrannical, unbending, dictatorial and undiplomatic. Some even said he is not a listening governor. The critics may have a point, but as John Emerich Edward Dalberg, the 1st Baron of Acton said: “Great men are almost always bad men… There is no worse heresy than that the office sacrifices the holder of it” (Geddes and Grosset, 1994) Why did the Baron say great men were almost always bad men? Because in the pursuit of great deeds like Ajimobi is doing, a lot of changes would have to be wrought as it could no longer be business as usual.

• Ganiyu is the Oyo State Commissioner for Special Duties