*We’re rebuilding —Government

BY OLA AJAYI

IBADAN – AIDES of the immediate past Governor of Oyo State, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala have scored the incumbent Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi low on his performance in the last 100 days of his assumption of office.

The aides including Prince Dotun Oyelade, a former commissioner, Dr. Kola Balogun, Chief Gbade Ishola, Alhaji Muslim Oyedemi, Alh. Majekodunmi Aborode, former Commissioner for Environment and the Commissioner for Education, Dr. Nureni Adeniran, said taking a cursory look at the past 100 days in the administration of Ajimbi, they alleged that it appeared he failed to be a messiah that he claimed to be.

In a statement that x-rayed the 100 days of the Ajimobi’s administration, they alleged that the governor remained a pollutant rather than a purist.

They said: “Apart from the daily lamentation over the obstacles placed on his way by his predecessor, the new governor has not given yet any clear signal that he is ready to offer Oyo State anything to justify his election.  No one could predict the direction of his administration after a 100 days on the saddle.”

According to them, the governor, from his first day in office, repeatedly plunged into political misadventure which had led to the confusion that had trailed his administration.
The apparent lack of consultation and questionable decisions, they claimed, triggered wide-spread discontent and frustration among party members as well as godfathers.

Appointment of Principal officers
On the appointment of the principal officers of government mainly from the private sector, the aides of the ex-governor argued had not helped matters.

“The inclusion of non-party members on the list of interim committees to run the Local Governments as well as members of the Executive Council was another contentious issue.  The chain of administrative blunders is a reflection of the deficiency in the skill of the captain and his lieutenants in public administration,” said the loyalists of the former governor.

Justifying that the administration of Akala performed excellently well, the six aides listed LAUTECH Teaching Hospital Complex and the College of Medicine at Ogbomoso as achievments that should not be rubbished.

These projects, according to them, were unique in nature and only few medical institutions in the country could boast of equal state-of-the-art structures and medical equipment that Akala left behind.

“If Akala’s Administration had a windfall of just N27 billion in three years for which there was deafening noise, we wait to see the reaction of the detractors to a N16 billion booty in just 60 days” they stated.
In order to fully appreciate the doldrum that has allegedly befallen the state, they said, all public works going on in the state 100 days after Senator Ajimobi assumed office, were all projects already being executed by the Akala Administration or for which money had already been committed.

They faulted the on-going beautification of the Parliament Junction, UCH Gate dual carriage construction, Government House/Secretariat, and others sayignt they were inititated by Akala.

“As a result of lack of original ideas, Oyo State is heading towards being a surrogate State to its neighbours.  Osun State has its youth Employment Scheme tagged OYES.  Unashamedly, Ajimobi named his own YES-O which is a reflection of poverty of ideas. Do you know that Osun State does not have a budget for LAUTECH in the on-going financial year because she knew that the Institution does not belong to her”, the aides asked.

We are rebuilding —Government
In apparent response, Governor Ajimobi’s spokesman, Dr Festus Adedayo, said among other things that; “For us in Oyo State, the last 100 days have been spent mainly rebuilding institutions that had been turned into total ruins, and providing lasting foundation to inherited dilapidated structures that had been terribly affected by a regime of bad, clueless paddy-paddy government.

“Indeed, the most fitting analogy that could describe the Senator Abiola Ajimobi government’s preoccupation in the last 100 days is the constructionist and interventionist role of a builder confronted with a cracked edifice which would need to be literally brought down and a proper and enduring foundation re-erected for the construction of a lasting edifice. A virgin land is better to construct upon than a defective structure.

“Even though the world, including members of this government, had a fair idea of the ruins that was Oyo State Government prior to taking over government, not in anyone’s faintest imagination could we have imagined the level of dilapidation we eventually inherited.

“Government had literally been run aground; culture of impunity and fiscal indiscipline reigned in place of probity and good governance. What obtained was a perception of government as Red Cross or Salvation Army.

“Perhaps nothing depicted the ruin in the state more than the Governor’s Office that Ajimobi inherited. When the governor first stepped into the office with his team of aides, they were welcomed by cockroaches, rats and snails.”