PDP has no important strategy for governance in Osun

Mr Remi Omowaiye served as the Commissioner for Works and Transportation in the administration of former Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola. In this interview with BOLA BAMIGBOLA, the All Progressives Congress chieftain says Governor Ademola Adeleke’s one year in office was uneventful

What have you been doing after your tenure as commissioner?

I am an Executive Director in the company and I went back to my business after leaving the government.

I am not a full-time politician. I studied Electrical Engineering and I underwent training in more than 10 foreign countries. So, I simply went back to my job. I am a professional. I practice politics by the side.

What is the situation in Osun APC currently regarding plans to re-organize the party?

You will recall that the leader of the party, Adegboyega Oyetola, and other leaders set up Prof Isaac Adewole-led committee to look into how to restructure the party.

The committee has submitted its report and another committee has also been inaugurated to come up with a white paper. That committee is headed by former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Timothy Owoeye.

So, we are at the point of rejigging the party. We have come up with different strategies to bring more people into the party and carry out reconciliation at various levels. We are prepared to take back the state come 2026. We are making all efforts to make sure we are in a good position to take up the leadership of the state in 2026.

Has Governor Ademola Adeleke-led Peoples Democratic Party administration met your expectations so far?

It’s one year now since he has been in office and it is quite unfortunate we found ourselves in this situation. This is the worst governor we have ever had since the creation of the state.

Is this position of yours not based on political differences?

Without being political, people can see he is the worst governor. He has failed in all his promises. He has been lucky to have access to more resources and what has he done with those resources?

So, the question is, what has he done? One year in office has been a year of waste, mismanagement backwardness, and unfortunate situation, insecurity.

Osun used to be among the most peaceful states in the country, before but since he assumed office, the reverse is the case. There may be issues of insecurity across the country, but when Oyetola was there, he managed the issue of insecurity reasonably.

Apart from Amotekun, we had a strong synergy with the hunters and the conventional security operatives and we were getting results but today, the reverse is the case.

If you look at the allocation coming to Osun, the Sure-P fund, and other resources, what has accrued to Osun in one year is over N100 bn. What has been done with the money?

He promised to pay the arrears of salaries within his first six months in office. During the governorship debate, Oyetola told him not to deceive the people because he wanted power. One year down the lane, what has he done?

The pensioners are crying. The President of the country removed the fuel subsidy. State governments were to come up with palliative for their citizens. Osun is the only state in the South West that is not giving workers palliative.

To make matters worse, he took the buses purchased by the APC administration in 2013, repainted them, and said, ‘This is your palliative’ when states like Ogun came up with CNG buses, Lagos and Oyo came up with buses and they also ensured that they gave their workers additional money.

Instead, in three months he spent N2bn naira on entertainment at the governor’s office, while neighbouring Kwara State has used N88m for nine months. This is a man who claims to be from a rich family. So, if you are from a rich family, why are you mismanaging our resources? Look at the health indices, when Oyetola came in, Osun used to have the highest maternal death rate.

But when we were leaving, Osun had become one of the best states in terms of health care indices in Nigeria. This is because we painstakingly built and revitalised 332 health centres in the state.

Not only that, we renovated and also provided basic equipment needed for those primary health care centres according to World Health Organisation standards. We also ensured that those primary health care centres were funded through basic provisions fund and the people who delivered at the primary health care centres increased annually from over 20,000 to over 50,000.

In terms of infrastructure, we did a lot of roads and what we did was to conduct a citizen needs assessment. We didn’t just wake up and say we wanted to do something.

So, we picked projects based on the needs of the citizens. For example, we are having cases of incessant accidents in Olaiya junction because that was the busiest area in Osun and we realised that what we needed was a flyover. Immediately after the project, the Road Safety Corps wrote us and said the flyover had reduced accidents in the area.

But Adeleke came and said he wanted to do flyovers without doing the necessary analysis. The government is not run like that. It is about checking if the things are needed and carrying out proper steps. For them, they do not even understand governance. It is quite unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation. It is our state and we really want a state to be proud of but at the moment, we are not proud of our state.

Compare Oyetola’s achievements during his first year in office with those accomplished by Adeleke within the same period.?

Oyetola achieved more than Adeleke in his first year. Don’t forget that when Oyetola came in, Business Day reported that Osun was insolvent. Osun was using about 95 per cent of our revenue to pay back debt when Oyetola came in. Yet, we were able to put in place a lot of things.

We were able to do a lot of infrastructure without borrowing a Kobo. As of the day Oyetola was leaving, he paid back N97bn, and don’t forget that when Oyetola came in, the state owed the civil servants and for his four years, he did not owe them a Kobo.