Seyi Makinde's N63.5 billion Government House Renovation by Tunde Akande
Governor Seyi Makinde has never been my type of governor. He has choristers that praise him to high heavens, but not me because I can see beyond his wrong thinking and selfishness.
Governor Seyi Makinde has never been my type of governor. He has choristers that praise him to high heavens, but not me because I can see beyond his wrong thinking and selfishness. Since I came back to Ibadan, my home town in the last five years, I have never seen anything good in him.
I don't hate him for sure but I see him as one of the Yoruba political leaders that are destroying the great work that Chief Obafemi Awolowo did among the Yoruba. If they have not changed the chair and table Chief Awolowo sat on while he was premier of Western Region in the first republic, Seyi Makinde will today be sitting on that seat. That will be unfortunate because an unworthy ruler will be seating on the chair of a very worthy son of the Yoruba. Seyi Makinde and his ilk in the Southwest are what makes me to laugh and to sorrow at the same time when some Yoruba groups say they want to opt out of Nigeria to have their own separate nation. I wonder if these groups still remember what great work Awolowo did and whether they think these charlatans that rule in the region now can be trusted to lead well.
Seyi Makinde is ruining Oyo state and the reason is very simple; he has no heart for the suffering people of the state. His interest from what anybody can glean from his activities is no more than what is in governance for him. What else can anybody deduce when a governor of a state like Oyo, ravaged by grinding poverty want to renovate a government house with more than N63.5 billion. What would warrant that? We will say it as simply and truthfully as it is that the only thing that can warrant that kind of careless spending is the opportunity for bribe. And that is the evil President Bola Tinubu who in the last few weeks have been gallivanting all over the place saying the worst is behind Nigeria did. But he has just dipped Nigeria more and more into the abyss. When he removed subsidy for oil, he removed money from the poor in Nigeria because subsidies are the only thing poor Nigerians enjoy from their government. But when Tinubu removed it, he passed the money to the governors who now have more than they can ever desire. What do they do with it? They conceive all kinds of worthless projects which will help them siphon away as much as they want away. They invite their Arab, Lebanese and Chinese friends to do these projects that have no impact whatsoever on the people. The Chinese, the Arabs and the Lebanese give them ten or twenty percent of the money or whatever amount they name and transfer whatever remains to their countries. In other words, whatever Tinubu thinks he is saving in his thoughtless reforms goes abroad, our money find its way abroad. Our local engineers are not given the opportunity to perfect their craft because that may leak the bribe secrets. The Arabs, the Lebanese and the Chinese will help to launder the bribe abroad.
In Oyo state, schools are dilapidated. You won't imagine students learn under the shade of trees. The last time I saw that was when I was in Jos Plateau State at a school in Jos North, but now they are in Oyo North, in an area where Awolowo did a tremendous work of educating the people and setting the Western Region ahead of all regions in the nation. In the past five years I have been in Ibadan, the children of the poor who attend public schools have been failing the West African School Certificate examination enmasse year on year. The children are no longer interested in education again because they are not encouraged. The females only think about immediate marriage as soon as they leave school. The males don't think about progressing to the university or the polytechnic but to join the gangs at street junctions where they smoke marijuana and beg motorists and commercial motorcycle riders for money. Some of these boys I'm told have wives and children. They hold parties on the road for reasons that have no justification other than avenue for pleasure. They drink locally made alcoholic drink in satchet that endagers their kidney over time. NAFDAC is aware of this danger and it banned them but the Minister of Health, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate stopped the ban after the association of those who brew these killer-drinks complained to him. Who knows? Maybe the Nigerian factor of "grease my palm and I give you what you want is responsible." In well-disciplined countries some ages are restricted from drinking at all and even for adults the time of purchase is regulated. In Nigeria it is not and these jobless adults usually start drinking as early as 7 am and stay drinking till late in the night. Doctors are complaining of an alarming rise in the number of youths with kidney problems. Governor Seyi Makinde is not spending money to upgrade and equip hospitals. He wants to renovate the government house. Big shame!
As a result, many of the youngsters are having mental breakdown and roaming the streets. Government thinks nothing of harnessing them. Seyi Makinde's children school abroad, the children of the state he claim to be serving stay on the road junction drinking alcohol from as early as 7 am and staying late till the night drinking themselves to stupor. A few days ago in the area of inner city where I live in Ibadan, I heard a commotion from somewhere near my window. When I looked out of the window to see what may be happening, I saw a group of young adults gathered round another young adult. They were pouring water on his head. The one they were pouring water on his head suddenly got up and began to say, pointing to a grave "this is rice now, if we had prepared fire to cook this rice we would have eaten since. By this time of the morning we should have taken our breakfast." He spoke Yoruba. I concluded he was getting insane, there was no rice on the grave he pointed to. He was already hallucinating. There are many cases like that. They roam the road insane, they fight in the night, they shoot dane guns, they rape younger girls in the night and so you see young teenagers who should be in school strapping babies to their backs. And you wonder what will be the future of the Yoruba, you wonder what would be the future of Oyo state, you wonder what deterioration has come to Ibadan. Going to school today is not to educate the youngsters but to deceive their lazy parents by the ill-executed free education programme and produce them for the street. Each year thousands join the street. They provide an army of thugs for Seyi Makinde and his political colleagues. I confronted a group at the Iyana Court junction recently. I asked them why they refuse to join the Army whereas the Army was complaining that Yoruba are not taking their quota in the Army. One of them told me they had tattoos on their bodies. The Army, perhaps, decline to enlist them because it knows the tatoo may be a sign that they are into cult gangs.
Yet a governor in such a state will find N60 billion and think the next thing to do is to renovate a government house. The first question to ask is, will Awolowo do that? How necessary is government house to governance? Will that contribute to the welfare of the people? Will it solve hunger problem in the state? Will it change the course of these rudderless youths? Not just the renovation of the government house, Seyi Makinde has also embarked on road construction that leaves much doubt as to the real intention of the governor. Of all the roads resurfaced in Ibadan, for example, only one justify whatever was spent on it, the Ile-Tuntun/ Academy road. Others have no justification other than intention to waste money or to make some cheap gain from the unwarranted road resurfacing. For example, the Oke Ado- Molete road could do with patches here and there, and not the scrubbing of the entire length of the road and resurfacing it. That road didn't deserve that. The Olunloyo-Eleta road is another example of waste. The road before the resurfacing wasn't as bad. Few patches here and there could have been reasonable enabling money saved to be spent on other real needs. The Idi-Arere/ Popo Yemoja road is another waste. The road was resurfaced up to the Popo Yemoja junction and stopped. Work was left on the rest stretch of the road that terminates at Agbeni. I'm convinced that if the project was prudently managed, the money spent on the Idi-Arere/ Popo Yemoja junction would have resurfaced the entire stretch to Agbeni. What is the essence of stopping the resurfacing midway. The Amuloko road was similarly abandoned midway. What informs that? Out of the N63.5 billion Seyi Makinde is about to squander, at least part of it could have completed that road. A government contractor told me that road construction is where the governors and civil servants make their loot most. He told me once the road is resurfaced the only way they can know if the other layers beneath the tar was not done was to dig up everything again. And nobody wants to do that.
Human capital development is the future of any people. Late political icon, Chief Obafemi Awolowo knew this very well and he invested in free education for the entire Western Region. He knew the weakness of the Yoruba is pleasure and he began to harness the people away from that vice. But current governors in Yoruba land are feeding that vice and by it education which propelled the Yoruba to the forefront is taking a back seat. Seyi Makinde, especially, care nothing about this malaise that leaves the youth partying almost every night. Seyi Makinde must turn them away from that which is distracting them from serious engagement. I will recommend a statement of a late former governor of Oyo state, Lam Adesina who said while he was setting up a special science school to train students of the state in science subjects: "If we don't do that now, in years to come we will not have doctors, engineers, pharmacists, nurses etc again when the current ones retire." That is futuristic thinking. Makinde should not think for his personal gain but for the future of the people.
First Published in METRO
***********************
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
Comments