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Firstly, I want you to know that I don’t even think about it, and that is the interesting part of it. I set about this being conscious of democratic norm. In the statement I made after the Ekiti election, I reflected that a genuine democrat must be willing and ready to embrace defeat as he or she will embrace victory, provided the election is transparent, credible, free and fair. The real issue is not about you as a candidate but the quality of the electoral process. Once the quality is good and high, whatever the people say – because they are the ultimate decider of who represents or governs them. Democratic choices are expected to be correct, good and right but it is not always that the choice is good, correct and right. To answer your question: long before I assumed this office, I prepared so well for the office in a way that, going by the normal run, I should not be working as hard as am working now for re-election. A commentator said something to that effect, that I am one of the politicians that from day one began my campaign. From the day I entered this office, I started my campaign. How many governors walk the streets with their citizens? I have been doing that since the first month in office. How many governors create interactive forum in Nigeria before me? There is none. I was the first governor that devote close to ten hours of continuous engagement on a quarterly basis with the citizens. The people ask any question in a no-hold-barred atmosphere. The Ogbeni-till-day-break is a worldwide engagement, because we take feedbacks from social media. The gbangba dekun is a monthly community interactive forum where the governor sits with all stakeholders in the community to ask or make inquiries on any issue. This is the picture of direct engagements that we are doing with the people that no government in Nigeria has ever attempted to do. We also have a carnival like procession in walk to live where we just walk round the communities and it is too engaging and popular because everybody wants to be with the governor. Hardly is there any community in this state that I have not touched personally. In terms of physical and social services, this is the first government that will say that there is no household, be it PDP, be it APC and others, that our programmes have not reached. There is none. I feed 300,000 pupils every school day at the cost of N3.6 billion a year, I have been doing it since 2012 and I have spent N7.2 billion on that. You can go to the school by yourself and access what the children are eating to be sure whether it is worth what we are saying or not. I can tell you that nobody touches the money except those in charge. Long before we commenced the feeding arrangement, we empowered poultry farmers to produce poultry products so that the chicken and eggs the children consume are all sourced from them. The students consume 15,000 whole chicken every week and it is served twice. They consume 300,000 eggs every week, one egg a week. They consume 400 tons of fish every week. They consume 35 herds of cattle every week. We gave close to N600 million to the poultry farmers and also the fish farmers. The only people we buy from now are the cattle rearers. We had challenges with eggs supply because the totality of the eggs produced in Osun cannot cope with our demands, so we go to Kwara and Oyo states to make it up and we pick the real foods in the markets. The women, 3007 of them who cook the meals to serve the students, take money from the bank. We gave the women a seed capital to set up themselves and start. The bank pays them for the number of pupils they feed and the bank comes to us for settlement. With that we have been getting value, to a large extent, for the money we spend. They are fed that way every school day. Also, 1000 new farmers who we raised to produce cocoyam are in this, close to 500 O’YES exited cadets are equally empowered to outtake the cocoyam and give to the vendors. Also, tens of thousands are equally engaged providing different items. From this alone, close to 1 million people are directly impacted from just one program, O’meal. We have the second batch of O’YES cadets, the first batch of 20,000 had gone, the 2nd batch of 20,000 is on and they are from homes. They work two or three days a week and they have the entire days of the week left for them to see what they can do with their hands and earn a living because they are taught entrepreneurial training but they earn N10,000 monthly as cadets. On this scheme alone, this administration has spent N9 billion. I tell people what this type of scheme means for national government. You can’t say I don’t have 18 friends who I can give half a billion naira contract to, whether they do it or not, I would have still given it. But the maximum amount of that investment that will stay here will be less than 50 per cent. Yes, you will have the project here but there would still be capital flight, because we are talking about direct impact on the economy. O’Yes have changed the paradigm; 100 per cent of that N9 billion is in this economy. The programme has huge economic benefit to the state. You have in that scheme a directly injected N9 billion to the economy that has no means of going out because a man earning N10,000, unless you promised to double his investment, he has no business travelling to Ibadan with that N10,000. If it’s not going to yield anything more, he won’t go to Ibadan. Every bit of the money is better spent here. Every O ‘Yes cadet has a smart card and the issue of anyone handling or tampering with their money does not arise.
Is your administration in good terms with four critical sectors, namely, Teachers, Civil Servants, Okada Riders and Students who can vote?
I will answer in this form. Most people don’t even know how to assess relationships. They assess it from the complaints they get from dissatisfied sessions of a critical lot, it cannot be. It’s impossible for humans to exist without conflict. The Yoruba has an idiomatic way of expressing it, they say teeth and tongue fight but they are always still together. A sociologist in human scientist would not, therefore, base his assessment of any sector on when there is disagreement. Let us look at what we have done and then situate our relationship within it, though some people, for whatever reasons, do not just like you. I was telling someone that what should concern you is not those who are opposed to you, especially as it gets to the run-up to the election. When you are still far from it, you may be bothered so that you can make it up. But when no matter what you do that is their attitude, you just stay put. From the newspapers, there are not less than 20 parties seeking power, democratically. If you have 60 per cent, that does not mean you don’t have opposition. The 40 per cent who doesn’t want to see you and may cut your head if you are careless, not only vote against you. If you have 60 per cent, you are home and dry. In a struggle with other stakeholders, six is a good number. What we are doing is to ensure that each of these critical sectors don’t have any basis at all to be opposed to us.
About students –
Let us start with the students. We met a condition when we came in, that students were given a bursary of N3,000 and they didn’t even get the bursary on time and it was full of scam. They brought it to me to sign and I said, ‘why do I have to sign N3,000 for anybody?’ It’s best if we don’t give this bursary or we give it meaningfully. We raised the bursary to N10, 000 flat. For medical and law students N20,000 while our indigenes in Law school get N100,000. The school authorities give the money to students in their system. I don’t see how such students will hate us in the majority, I can’t see it. Whoever now hates us, has something else against us, not for the fact that we have not done the needful. The increase wasn’t solicited; we did it out of our own understanding of the reality of what the students are going through. There was clamour for reduction of fees; we reduced the fees from a huge amount to something that is comparably affordable. Also, we have been investing in developing the institutions much more than any administration has done in the history of this state. Yes, we are having some challenges with the lecturers but it’s not peculiar to us.
Civil Servants –
Before our advent, the civil servants never knew that salary could be paid before the end of the month. For seven and half year, salaries were never paid here before the end of the month. But from when I assumed office, we changed that. Before the year ended when I assumed office, I paid 10 per cent of their basic as 13th month salary and paid December salary before the end of the year; the civil servants were dazed. Since that day up until December 2013, I paid salary on or before the 25th of every month. But as from January 2014, we ran into trouble which we explained to everybody six months before then. In July 2013, the Federal Government began a squeeze for reasons which they themselves know that nobody believed. They said 400,000 barrel of crude oil is being stolen everyday. We didn’t know problem was coming. Instead of collecting N4.6 billion, they gave this government N2.6 billion, 40 per cent slashed. We thought it would be temporary because after that month, they said the stolen crude has reduced to 200,000 barrel per day. When the oil being lost reduced, would you still expect a 40 per cent cut? From that July to now, the maximum allocation this state has ever received is N3.2 billion which was in November 2013. I am not making up anything, simply saying the truth. Now ask me how was I able to pay up until December 2013? My people are called osomalo – they are very deft in the management of money, and I took this from them. I had been saving through the Omoluwabi Conservation Fund in which 10 per cent of all allocations must just go and rest. So, I had money in reserve, which was a build-up for my refusal to form cabinet for 10 months, I had the money. Whereas my income fell to N2.6billion at the lowest and N3.4billion at the highest for a month, my statutory expenditures which are expenditures that I have no control on once we have agreed on it, for instance, salary, pension, and they are N3.6 billion every month, I have no power over it. I can’t say no, ‘am not paying. Between July and December, I augmented my income with N5.4billion. All in the hope that this thing will go, it didn’t go. It has not gone as we speak; it is even worse. Before, when you get your allocation, you would cash it by the 15th of every month, that is why they were paying salaries on the 15th of the month before we came in. That used to be the practice. But now, because you want to squeeze the opposition government, they even squeeze themselves. Nobody gets the reduced allocation earlier than the 26th of the following month. But before now, I wasn’t waiting for their money, I just pay on or before the 25th. If, for whatever reason – because when we wanted to introduce the digital automation, it was difficult to do crossover, it will get to the 1st or 2nd of the following month; not that the money is not there, we have arranged, banks just pay, we have money with them. To make up the deficit in what I received and what I must pay, I spent extra N5.4 billion. However, I told you earlier that I gave 10 per cent of basic salary for the 13th month salary; the second year I gave 25 per cent; the third year I gave 50 per cent; the fourth year, I gave 100 per cent. So, December of 2013, I gave every worker in the employment of Osun State 100 per cent of their basic salary as extra income which I paid before the end of the year. ordinarily, why should any worker say I am not friendly with them. Before, workers here were given their leave allowances en bloc, at the end of the year. I told them this is unreasonable because we don’t go to leave at the same time; so choose when you want your leave allowance to be paid. Is it at your birthday or the anniversary of your employment into the service? So, whenever you summit your birthday, your leave allowance will be credited to you. I don’t know if any other government in Nigeria does that. Two, go and visit the secretariat and see what we have made of their work environment. So, if these are things that should motivate workers, I stand tall and proud because I have done my best. No matter what anybody tells me, majority of them will appreciate these things. However, since January, because I have exhausted my reserve, it is when we get money that we now go to look for money to add to it and pay. That began in January. The difference between me and others is that I don’t hide anything; I tell whosoever cares to listen. I went to the retreat of lawmakers and I said what is happening in Nigeria today is equivalent to the declaration of economic war on the states. If it is just mere shortage and it comes early, of course we will pay, it doesn’t come early. As we speak, we have not collected June allocation. What we are saying is that, it is either people don’t even care or they think you can just conjure money, or they know what you are going through. I said at a rally recently that from what I have heard from the grapevine, because they had a meeting where they said ‘squeeze them, if they can’t pay salary, you will create problem for them’. Mark my words; they might not give us June allocation until the end of August, but we will pay our workers; already we have paid June. I am happy to tell you that majority of our civil servants see and appreciate what we are doing.
