We need accelerated development in Ondo State — IfeOluwa Oyedele

WHY do you want to be governor of Ondo State?

I don’t have any ambition to be governor or anything but I think life and God have prepared me to take responsibility wherever I find myself whether as a member of residents’ association, my club, old boys’ association, or as a family man. The journey of life has also taught me to be ready to take responsibilities. I think that I started at the time I was a Boy Scout in those days and the motto of the Boy Scout is ‘Be Prepared.’

I don’t believe that a man needs to be a governor, president or a senator before he can take on responsibilities or even that you should be on the big stage before you can affect and impact life. Whether you are in your bedroom, in your sitting room or outside, a man must take responsibilities. Leadership is not being the president, it is not being a governor but it is about taking responsibility at every level.

But you want to be governor of Ondo State?

I will take that decision when the time comes but I know that in Ondo State, we need to rebuild our party and to unite the people. We need accelerated economic development towards sustainable livelihood for the people. No longer should any man in Ondo State beg for bread. No longer should party members be without a shepherd. That is what is important to all of us. Anybody who wants to lead us in Ondo State must be able to identify the problems, proffer solutions to the problems and carry everybody along.

We need to abolish the north, the central, or the south for even, easy development and for progress of the people. We have abundant resources, human capital resources and I am not talking about oil or mineral resources. I am talking about the people of Ondo State who are the best trained people in terms of morals, responsibility, behaviour, and character. Those are the qualities we need to harness to ensure that we get to the place where we desire to be. I am ready to work at every level under any platform and in association with other people of Ondo State to get that man and I hope that the man will be me because the visioner must be the one to implement the vision.

What are the problems that Ondo State currently faces?

They are multidimensional. First, there is general disillusionment among the people. Secondly, the people are disunited because some of our leaders have entrenched uneven development. When a man becomes the governor, he develops only his area and therefore, people don’t feel committed to the state. There is gross unemployment and nobody is planning for these people. There is no future. There is no plan.

I don’t want to talk about the physical things that we see like lack of physical infrastructure, lack of public utilities, dwindling resources, educational system that has been bastardised with no amenities in the schools. The healthcare facilities are nothing to write home about and lack of potable water supply. Sports is not an avenue for creating wealth and for choosing role models anymore and so many other things are the problems that we are confronted with in Ondo State.

Every four years, politicians list these problems and promise that they are going to solve them. What are you going to do differently?

Let me start by telling you that before you can choose a person as a leader, you must look at his character. People will be able to describe him as a primary school pupil. In the secondary school, what did his friends think about him? How does he conduct his business? How responsible is he within his family? What does his driver think about him? How does he treat his housemaid? How competent is he? What kind of capacity does he have to handle whatever you are putting in his care? These are the things that you need to look out for in a man before you can give him a position of responsibility.

I tell people with all sense of modesty and responsibility that if you come to my house, you will not know the difference between my housemaid and my children. Even when my children want to buy clothes for my housemaid, they buy what they themselves wear. I don’t have a special cup in my house, I don’t have special cutlery in my house. Every member of that family has a right to use everything that is in that house.

So, you can enter the bedroom of my housemaid and find out that the air conditioner is on and she is watching television or in the sitting room or she is eating on the dining table. That is very rare in Nigeria. Sometimes, some of my housemaids come from non-Yoruba speaking areas and that is the only way you may know that they are not my children. I buy my garri from the same woman for 32 years. My housemaid has been with me and I am investing in her life. There is no driver, no housemaid, no domestic servant who leaves my house and will ever say anything bad about me or my family.

What happens is that we pick people because they wear good clothes, ride big cars, have access to big money, or to big party people. This is the message that I am preaching: that the people we choose to be our leaders must be people who have all of these qualities, who have capacity, on whose behalf people can testify who they are. They must be people who are not intimidated by the wisdom, the skill, capacity and knowledge of other people around them because the work of the leader is to harness all of these qualities in other people and use them for the greater good of majority of the people.

You spoke about people who have access but you also have access. You have access to big money and to big men. You are known to be very close to President Muhammadu Buhari. Is that part of what is propelling you?

President Buhari is a man who is very deep. Yes, as president, a lot of people have access to him and some even take advantage of the access to be seen in newspapers, television and others, but he is a man who is very circumspect in the kind of relationship that he keeps. He doesn’t like you just because you wear good Agbada. He looks at you to see how deep you are, the kind of things you do and how you conduct yourself, the words that come out of your mouth, how you behave, your character.

That is why, he is my leader. That is why I respect him and he is a man who respects other people irrespective of their positions in life. President Buhari is the only president I know who doesn’t sit down to greet anybody. If you meet him in his sitting room, he gets up, tall as he, is to greet you. That is something special and worthy of emulation. People talk about my relationship with him but they should find out why that relationship has endured for so long. And I have this kind of relationship with everybody too.

Nigerians voted for President Buhari in 2015 based on some aspirations. Are you satisfied that they have had a good deal?

I am more than satisfied. If not for President Buhari, the Boko Haram crisis and so many other crises would have consumed this nation. Just before he became president, it was inconceivable that members of your family will allow you to sit down in Abuja.

I remember when I used to come for the merger committee meetings, my mother was always very apprehensive for my safety because bombs were going off everywhere. Now people are talking about kidnapping and all of the vices that come with it but you forget that armed robbery is almost a thing of the past. So, what is happening is that criminals have moved from one form of criminality to another.

Since kidnapping is new, it would take some time for government to be able to devise means of curbing this new trend that we have. I guess that the reason for this escalation in kidnapping cases is because of the measures that this government has introduced, especially the cashless policy. These people know that people no longer keep cash at home, so what they do now is to kidnap people and demand for ransom. However, there is now a reduction in these incidents and I can assure you that government will do everything that is possible to put an end to it.

This government is also attacking the socioeconomic factors that make criminalities thrive. For instance, lack of jobs. When people graduate and they cannot find jobs and if they don’t have deep character, they become disillusioned after a while and take to such vices. With government’s multifaceted attacks on all of these socioeconomic problems, these criminalities will soon become a thing of the past.For instance, as soon as Nigeria begins to have regular power supply, there will be more industries springing up and more jobs will be created and that will reduce some of these vices to a large extent.

I must also mention the fact that that this is the first government we have had in Nigeria that has made it a policy to continue with good projects that were started by previous administrations. Some of the projects that were abandoned many years ago like the railway, refurbishment of the airports, roads, Second Niger Bridge, power projects, all of them are being revived now but other governments will come in and begin new projects entirely.

Ondo State has been prone to insecurity in recent times with kidnappings, farmers/herdsmen clash and others. How would you tackle insecurity when you become governor?

I wouldn’t want to disclose all of my plans because electioneering has not started but look at what is happening in Anambra State, for instance. I’m sure you saw what that governor did. I’m sure you know what happened in Lagos State. I have said it that the week I become governor of Ondo State, I’m going to make sure that policemen compete to be posted to Ondo State because they will enjoy certain benefits. For example, if any policeman dies in the line of duty, within a specified period of time, his family will get its own accommodation donated by the government depending on the size of that family, and the children to a maximum of four will have automatic scholarship up to university level depending on their ability.

I will also make sure that policemen posted to guard duties, especially on the roads in the night, will have access to bulletproof vests. I know it is not possible to provide bulletproof vests for every policeman in Ondo state at the same time but I can assure you that I will start with the number that we can afford depending on available resources. We will provide communication gadgets in selective areas such that the whole of the state would be ring fenced and will make it almost impossible for robbers to escape.

I will also use technology to make sure that wherever you are, you can be traced. We will make sure that at last, in specific places, policemen assigned to specific duties will be mobile. We will also make sure that our police stations are citizens friendly. We have seen all of these designs in Lagos and some parts of the country so that citizens of Ondo State will feel comfortable to approach policemen and give information. I will also make sure that I communicate these to the ordinary citizens that they will be willing to divulge information. I will create a department in the office of the governor where if you don’t have confidence that if you go to the police you will be protected you can safely give information.

These are some of the things that are possible to do even if I don’t command troops and do not have direct control over the police. And of course, you know that the South West governments have looked at the issue of security and have established what they call the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed Operation Amotekun. Within the ambits of the law, I will see how to improve on the delivery of such organisations.

So you believe in Amotekun?  

I have said to you that any man who is a governor will do everything that is humanly possible to ensure the security of lives and properties of his people. That is the ultimate objective because it is only those alive that can praise God.

People feel that Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has not really done much in the last few years in terms of adding to our electricity infrastructure. Why is this so?

You know there is a song that says ariwo ko ni music (music is different from noise). Because we do not make noise doesn’t mean that we haven’t done much. I can say boldly that NDPHC is perhaps Nigeria’s most successful corporation.

NDPHC has built more power stations in 15 years than what Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) built in over 100 years because electricity power came to Nigeria in 1896. And all of the power stations we had in Nigeria were not up to 10. We have built 10 power stations with eight and a half of them delivering power to the national grid.

We have built more transmission sub-stations at 330kva and 132kva than any other organisation in Africa. We have built more injection substations than any other power company in Africa. We have also increased the capacity at those levels by as much as 50 per cent. This means that in 15 years, we were able to increase the capacity of transmission and distribution networks by over 50 per cent. I think NDPHC deserves the applause of Nigerians.

Some people have insinuated that it is the president that is pushing you to contest for the position of Ondo State governor because of your closeness to him. Will that be a correct position?

That is not correct. Have you been to Ondo State recently? You need to go to Ondo State, interview the citizens and you will find out why we want a change. I won’t say more than that.

The Resident is a gentleman to the core. How many places has he sent people to go and be governor? Even in his home state of Katsina, have you seen the President forcing a governor on the people? So what would be his interest in Ondo State? But it would not be out of place and I hope he does that. If the President finds a man who is worthy, he will support him and endorse him at the appropriate time like so many organisations and so many individuals are endorsing me and I am waiting for the time when I would come out and then you begin to officially see even newspapers endorsing me.

People know my track record. I am a politician of substance even if I don’t make noise. How many people can boast that they were the ones who designed their party logos? How many people have the kind of credentials that I have as a member of the merger committee of APC? Go and find out from those who are members of the merger committee what my contribution was to even the method that we used to share positions among the five legacy parties that came together to form APC without any rancour. Go and find out how many times people like me intervened to ensure that the merger talks went on smoothly. Go and find out what I did about the campaign without collecting money, without any scandal, without receiving money from anybody.

I can go on and on and I have not been colourless in politics. I was a students’ union politician, I was acting speaker of the University of Lagos Engineering Society, I was secretary general of the University of Lagos engineering society, I was speaker of the Students’ Representative Council, I was president of the University of Lagos engineering society, I was governor of a hall in the University of Lagos, I was class captain, I was school prefect. I can go on and on.

Some people say I am a professional and not a politician but I was the one who, under the guidance of the late Justice Adewale Thompson, wrote all of the books that is the compendium of the Yoruba Council of Elders. I was a part of the Gateway Front Foundation that eventually brought Governor Gbenga Daniel to power. You can ask Governor Olusegun Mimiko what I did before the Alliance for Democracy days with him and we can go on and on. Go to Ikoyi Club, my records are there. And in all of these years, nobody has been able to point any accusing finger at me. There must be something about this man called IfeOluwa Oyedele.