Osun 2018: APC Does Not want Anybody to Hit Up the Polity Yet-Prince Famodun

Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State, Prince Gboyega Famodun discussed sundry issues about the party, the 2018 governorship election and the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in an interview with CityMirrorNews. Excerpts:

You sometimes ago cautioned the governorship aspirants against open declaration of intension. When would the party allow the aspirants to come out open?

In the first place, there are rules in this country, and it is unfortunate that majority of our people are lawless. You must not propagate governorship election without the Independent National Electoral Commission given you the go ahead. You must not do any campaign; you must not do any postal for any election unless the umpire gives you the authority to do so. We are in 2017; our election will come up by August 2018, about a year and six months. The INEC is the supervisory body, if you do anything towards the governorship ambition now, INEC will sanction us. That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that: we made a major developmental stride some few months ago by creating new local government in the state, we need to consolidate and make sure these new local governments have their own feet on the ground. The opposition party took us to court, so we couldn’t conduct local government election. We need to fight it and conduct the election into these local governments and Local Government Development Authority. That one will precede governorship campaign and election. So you don’t jump any gun. There is another to life, there is another to politicking, there is another to success of our enterprise. I know my onions; if you allow governorship people to come up now, they will surprise every other thing. They will not allow LCDAs to work; they will hit up the polity. After we pronounced the creation of our new local governments, many other states have done so too. If we conduct local government election now, then we will know we are preparing for governorship election. We still have over a year to prepare.

Prince Gboye Famodun, APC Chairman, Osun State

Are you assuring the people of the state that the local government election would be conducted before 2018 governorship election?

Famodun: O yes! I am giving the people of Osun state the assurance that the election will still hold before the governorship election.

There are insinuations that the governor has pocketed the party and you as the chairman always do his bidding. How would you react to this?

Famodun: I don’t know the governor’s bid, I only that the governor and I always discuss almost on daily basis on issues concerning the development of the state. Must I be fighting the governor on all issues? The governor does take me into confidence in most of the things he wants to do. If they accused me of been on the same page with governor on good things, on the development of Osun, I welcome it. If it is an offence for working with the governor in the right direction of Osun state is a crime, then I plead guilty.

 How fare is Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the management of affairs of Osun State?

Famodun: We thank God for what we have been able to do for Osun state and the people in the past six years. Before our advent in the state, we had programmes centred basically on youth empowerment, banish poverty, banish hunger, and making life abundant for the people of the state. By all standard of judgment, I think we have performed excellently well. Apparently, am not judging myself or our government, but we have performed well in every aspect of governance. Apart from our campaign programmes, we have perform excellently well in these aspect of the basic responsibilities of governance, that is, security of life and properties of citizens of the state and their wellbeing, which are the most important thing any government should do. People in Osun State are living in peace in the past six years and the properties of the citizens are also secured.

We had had skirmishes in the state years back: banks were not secured in some places, banking activities were suspended in some part of the state because of security threat. But we have overcome that now due to the proactive nature of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. We have been able to secure all our banks in the cities and the entire suburb by making sure we have Amoured Personnel Carriers in strategic places in the state. One of the significant testimonies of the security measures of the state is the attack on some banks in Ikirun few months ago. The armed robbers that raided the banks were engaged by security operatives with the aid of the APC provided by the state government. Some of the armed robbers were killed and some were apprehended. This shows that this is a government that cares for lives and properties of the people.

Apart from that, there are some programmes of the government that worth enumerating and it is important that I mention some of it. One of the major problems that is facing the country today is unemployment; we have volumes of our youths, graduates both professionals and non professionals that were roaming the streets. However, the introduction of the Osun Youths Empowerment Scheme (OYES) gave our youths an opportunity of engagement, reorientation and training. The youths have known that jobs are not served automatically after graduation. You have to be ready to think properly and engage yourself as much as possible without relying on government or anybody for employment The OYES scheme has been largely successful not only in Osun State but in Nigeria generally. We are still engaging the youths for the OYES, we have engaged over 60, 000 youths and we have re-orientated them and they are serving good purpose for the people of the state. Apart from this OYES scheme that is responsible for cleaning and making sure our environments are clean, we have O’Clean programme that has also engaged another set of people. These people are making sure refuses are carried everyday along the major roads. All our markets are now hygienic and the goods that are being sold in the markets are things that are good for healthy living. Apart from this, our ambulances service programme across the state is too perfect. About 10,000 lives have been rescued. All these essential services are ingredients of government and good services that we are rendering to the people of Osun. We make sure the government is of service to everybody; weather you belong to opposition or to our side, we are of service to the people of the state.

As good as the programmes you enumerated are, the governor seems not to have good image when it comes to payment of salary, pension. Why do we have these controversies on the payment of salary and pension?

Famodun: Payment of salaries to workers is a very important aspect of governance because workers working for government are very significant to the success of every administration. They are more or less the engine room of government. However, nobody remembers any government for paying salary; people will always remember you for useful thing and how you have impacted on the citizens of the state.

You mean there should be concentration on capital project at the expense of the civil servants?

Famodun: No, I do not mean that, and the word useful things I used is not limited to capital project alone, though, capital projects are essential because they are physical things that people will continue to see for years; unborn generations will see what you were able to put on ground for people of the state when you were ruling. But impact on the knowledge and psyche of the people of the state, making sure they are thinking in the right direction that will be helpful to governance is also very important. People are working in tune and in tandem with global norms and expectation. And we must ensure that the thinking of the citizens and the working class of the state is in conformity with what is require for growth of the society. We have been able to let our youths, especially the graduates, know through orientation that that graduates can still clean our roads, graduate can still clean the market, graduate can still make use of their training in school to go to farm and practicalise it. Reorientation of our thinking is the most important thing, and this is back up with most of the time factor and infrastructure development and facilities provided in our schools of in the state. We have fantastic buildings in our elementary, middle and High schools to effect this change on the daily basis. Our schools have field and other facilities for conducive learning. There are good teachers to teach the pupils and students. All this are factors and input we have put in place to improve the psyche of our young generation in Osun.

In spite of the infrastructural development in the education sector, it remains the most controversial sector where the Governor is facing serious crises and challenges. Where do you think the governor got it wrong?

Famodun: The governor or the government did not get it wrong anywhere. It has to do with the nature of change in the society. You can’t change people overnight. We inherited terrible system: we inherited schools without laboratory, schools without recreational or sport facilities. We inherited cultism in most schools, we inherited teachers not ready to work. When you see cultism somewhere, you don’t expect it to go down immediately. Cultism grows in the schools because they are youths, that why we merge many schools so that the bad eggs in those schools will be known. We having expelling the bad eggs among the schools children and cultism and other social v ices are going down in our schools if you measure it. Laboratories are functioning in our schools. The schools are fenced for security. Before we came in, public schools were hideouts for hoodlums because they don’t have door, window or fence. Sometimes if you go to any school, you will find human faeces in the classrooms. It was a terrible and horrible situation we inherited, and it takes time to change the situation. Things are improving: The percentage of Osun in the last WAEC may be 40 or 43 showed that we are improving. It is not what we used to have in the past. It is only that people by nature; their attitude towards change is very slow. People complaint of ‘we are not been paid on time’ because there of economic recession and low purse of the state government. But, sincerely, we thank God because we have been able to pay up till December last year, that means we are on top of the situation, no matter what anybody sees, no matter what they says, at least I give kudos to us.

Your Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been alleged of taking huge loans that is affecting the state. There was a time the state got negative allocation from the federal government. What is the financial status of Osun state and how have you been surviving?

Let me tell you the truth of the situation in Nigeria today, thank God for APC government coming on at this point in time. Almost all the states are in this crisis. The only states that are free of the crisis are not more than three or four. But when President Buhari became the president, he decided to give bailout, to use the coinage of the media, but I call it a life line; soft loan to the states. The CBN asked us to package all the loans of the state, the one we inherited and the one we obtained by ourselves into a bound, and that one goes to the federation account where it will be deducted on monthly basis from the account of the state. Unfortunately, some states in the federation did not do so, they did not package their loans as CBN directed. Those are the states that receive fairly bouyant allocation, but when it got to their states, the commercial banks they are having issues with on loans will make deductions and at the end of the day, they also have nothing on ground to disburse. Those state are just like us who packaged all our loans portfolio into the CBN and when they make necessary deduction, at times when the general allocation is low, our account goes into minus. We have been operating like this for some time, but due to the proactive nature of the governor, we have been able to take care of the civil servants. We sat down with the labour unions, we explained to them what the situation is and we agreed on modulated payment of salary. Whatever we receive from the federal government, we add our IGR to it and we share it. For some months in 2016, we were paying as low as 50 per cent to some cadres in civil service, some get full salary depending on the level you falls to. But with understanding and good financial engineering, we have been able to maintain the situation, we are on top of it now and we hope to get out of it as soon as possible.

Q: Some people suggested that the governor should drop the provision of free school uniform, free school feeding, commercialize Opon Imo, etc. What would you suggest to the governor to stop doing to save the state finances?

Famodun: All these suggestion that tends to attack feeding in school, OYES and other social programme of the government are not welcome. If you observe, we are one of the few governments or the only government that retain the free school feeding programme because it is germane to us. We are able to survive because the governor made some political sacrifices. All the wasteful habit of government has been shield long time ago. A lot of people accused us and the governor specifically of being a sole administrator. We don’t have local government elected officers nor caretaker; we don’t have commissioners and special advisers. Politicians are not engaged in government, we don’t have boards in government parastatals and agencies. All the expenses that are supposed to go to the political heads of MDAs have been cut off. We have been able to manage what we have and people that are working for on certain things are doing it for free without taking remuneration. That is why we have been operating with no cabinet. This is how we have been able to survive. There is no area that needed to be controlled that we have not controlled.

Aregbesola is seen as a controversial person who does thing as it pleases him.

Famodun: Anybody who is an agent and epitome of change will be controversial. Change is not an easy thing; facing the reality of the situation is what everybody run away from in the society of Nigeria. Nobody is ready to take the bull by the horn. Aregbesola is doing what is required to sustain Osun and it is far away from traditional knowledge of governance. That is what is required, that is the medicine to the ailment of Osun. We need a workaholic governor who works for most hours of the day and who faces the reality of the time. We borrow money to pay salaries, do you expect us to borrow money to pay political appointees since the policy of our party is of service? Anybody called upon by the party to work for government knows that he or she is there to serve and it is for free. It is very difficult for anybody in this country to preach this type of sermon to political party; this is what Aregbesola has been able to do and preach to us. And because we love him and his programs, and we all know for this state to grow we need such sacrifice, we persevere. China is what it is today because they were able to make sacrifice. China shot her doors against everything and everybody for years. There was no free flow of visitors for 10 years in China. The country is what it is today because if the 10 years sacrifice. There should be radical approach of solving problems, that is why Aregbesola is controversial.

Q: 2018 is around the corner, the APC members and supporters believe the party would still win the election in spite of the controversies surrounding the Aregbesola’s administration. What feasible is this?

Famodun: Going by what we have done, anybody in his or right thinking and right judgment of assessment knows that Aregbesola will win 2018 election. People know that the best thing that has ever happened in Osun is Aregbesola and his government. So, anybody who has a thinking in that direction will know that we should continue in government because the people of this state are getting to know what we are doing. Unlike in the past when they were misinformed by very few influential section of the society that government must be business as usual, the people are getting to know better; when they see the improvement on the roads, modern schools, taking care of accident victims with O Ambulance, OYES,O Clean, etc. People are seeing positive changes and sanity is now coming up into the senses of the majority of our citizens and they are now appreciating us. So, there is no way before 2018, this good news most have moved round and I know the people of this state will give us their supports as they always do.

Some of the APC members are not happy on the non appointment of commissioners, SAs, boards, after two years of Aregbesola’s second term. Do you feel the pulse of these set of people?

I want to thank the APC members generally for bearing with us, especially those that are bearing with us with understanding. It is not an easy thing for us as political party, at least you need full party members to be on board to work for government and have some patronages from the government. But we made several political appointments when things were okay, but when there is economic downturn, we have to pay the sacrifice and do it with understanding. That this is what is required for us to survive as a party now and we have to survive as party members and as a family. So we have been able to understand the government by making sure that we make this sacrifice, we are now on top of the situation and very soon we will be calling people into government, we will have elected people at the local government level, we have board members to manage our parastatal. If you understand what is happening with us, you will appreciate our government. The Federal Government is close to two years but it cannot even constitute board. It is not easy. We are begging civil servants to bear with us because we have not been paying their salary in full for sometimes now, we cannot add to it by giving salary to politicians when the money is not there. There is nothing you can do when you are insolvent.