A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, Engineer Oyedele Hakeem Alao, has come hard on Governor Seyi Makinde, lamenting that his administration has made life difficult for the people thereby defeating the essence of good governance.
Alao in a statement issued by his Media Office to assess the administration of Makinde in 2021, said the governor was fond of inflating cost of projects to siphon the resources of the state while also initiating policies that are ridiculing the image of the pace setter state.
He said the recent award of the construction of 76.7 kilometres Iseyin-Fapote-Ogbomoso road for the sum of N43.1billion, showed the profligate spending of the state government, stating that with a kilometre costing over N560 million it speaks volume about the competence of the governor as an engineer.
According to him, the governor is out to milk the state dry through most of the projects embarked upon in 2021, challenging him to tell the people while a kilometre of road in the state would be the highest in the country.
He said, “It is ridiculous that the governor who has always claimed to be meticulous in managing the resources of the state is awarding a road contract whose cost is out of this world. As an engineer, I think Governor Makinde has an explanation to make while a kilometre of a road in Oyo State should cost higher than that of Kwara State where Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, awarded the construction of 34.5Km Kishi-Kaiama road at a cost of N3.7b.
“What this means is that the governor is using the road project like others that include dualization of 6.2km Ibadan –Oyo-Iseyin/Okeho junction road at a cost of N6.1b and dualization of the 10.82 kilometres Ibadan Airport Road at a cost of N4.9b, to divert resources of the state into private pockets.”
On education, the gubernatorial candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the 2019 general elections, said the free education of the administration which he described as a ruse has taken the state two steps backward no thanks to policy somersault, noting that the failure of the policy has forced the government to go back to the School Governing Board (SGB) of late former governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, which the governor jettisoned when he came into office.
He maintained that with no subvention to schools in this current academic session, teachers who were grumbling in silence wrote last examination for students on school board, lamenting that virtually all the public primary and secondary schools in the state have poor infrastructural facilities that include classrooms with leaking roofs and no windows while the students carry their chair and table to school.
Alao who lauded Makinde for increasing the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state, said the governor has failed to deliver in the agricultural sector despite the N7.6b loan facility obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) spent on farm settlements, stating that taking youths from the state to Nassarawa State for agricultural training is a disservice to a state blessed with so many research institutes.
“The glory of Oyo State is dwindling under the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde, or how do one explain a state that has research institutes such as International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T), sending its youth to a state like Nassarawa for training on agriculture. It is nothing but a fact that those at the helm of affairs in Oyo State are bereft of ideas to make the state self-sufficient in food production and move the state forward”, he submitted.
Alao who is the Asiwaju of Iroko, is suffocating under huge debts obtained by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of Makinde which were squandered on projects of poor quality such as the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, renovated at N5 billion, berating the idea of using generating set to power N28 billion “Light Up Oyo Project.
While remarking that the government of Governor Makinde has not wake up to the reality of its duty to protect lives and property of the people, he said despite the establishment of Amotekun, the administration has turned the state to a theatre of violence with killings, kidnapping and all sorts of crimes occurring daily within Ibadan metropolis and other parts of the state.
Alao maintained that the Igangan mayhem, Iwo road killing of Rahman in June, hooligans wreaking havoc in ibadan and proliferation of gangs fomenting trouble in virtually every part of the state coupled with the daily security challenges have exposed the unpreparedness of the government to value the lives of its citizens.
