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Osun is moving; Aregbesola is Working

Friday, 7 February 2014

Why Afenifere supports National Confab – Omisore

        Why Afenifere supports National Confab – Omisore

Senator Christopher Iyiola Omisore was the Deputy Governor of Osun State between 1999 and 2001 when he was impeached. He became senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria while in detention over the alleged killing of former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige. He was discharged and acquitted by the court. He is currently a gubernatorial aspirant in the state on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview with journalists in Osogbo, including Correspondent, Gbenga Faturoti, Omisore spoke on his intention to contest the governorship seat, the alternative agenda he has for the people of the state and the link with Bola Ige’s death. Excerpts:       


You are a member of the Afenifere, what exactly is the position of the Yoruba leaders, in particular Yoruba Renewal Group (ARG) on the 2015 elections?

Let me repeat myself that Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) is a fake. Comrade Wale Oshun who is their leader was expelled by Papa Abraham Adesanya before he died; we were all at the meeting when he was expelled. So how can an expelled somebody come and create another fake ARG. I’ve told them there is nothing like Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG). What we have is just Afenifere.  Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) is just a group of fake people who were expelled from Afenifere by our leadership and decided to parade themselves and deceive Nigerians and Yorubas. Afenifere itself, we still have our interest in it. We supported the national confab of the federal government because it has been our wish for the past 50 years that Nigeria must come to talk on the table. If they are not talking to us, we want to talk. By extension, we are supporting what we have for 2015.

There is this impression that you rely on the federal might to win the election in the state, how true is it?
There is nothing like federal might. What is important to us is that we want a free, fair, convincing and acceptable election in Osun State. People are afraid because of Aregbesola’s antecedents of rigging. What he did in Ondo State where people were arrested. The latest is in Anambra where people were also arrested. People are now wondering ‘what will happen to us in the state if he is sending riggers to other states’ or sending rigging ambassadors to other states?. So people are afraid that he wants to rig the election compulsorily by August, and we are going to resist that maximally. Aregbesola’s main rigging strategist is Osun REC, Mr. Akeju, which we have established to court that he was a staff of Tinubu and is an APC card-carrying member. Up till date, Akeju is still forcing himself on Osun State INEC, he wants to come and conduct elections here, but this time around we will not allow him to rig the election anymore, and this is a note of warning to Aregbesola and Akeju to adhere to the court’s ruling.

You mentioned that you are on a rescue mission, now what are the alternative agenda and your manifesto for the people of the state?
Part of the rescue mission includes the issue of debt, because the finances of every state matters in governance. As at today the 2013 budget of Aregbesola has a deficit of 72.97 percent. That means that you have budgeted N100, out of which you don’t have N70 to spend. In 2014, he has a deficit of 67.40percent in the budget. The multilateral debts and the bonds we have in Osun state is N51.08 billion. The total debt is N413 billion, with the multilateral and bond issues, exclusive of other things. It means Osun state owes 150 percent of Ondo state debt and 300 percent of Ogun state debt and these two states have about 60 percent more revenue than Osun state. With our multilateral, bilateral and bond issues alone, apart from the local debts, Osun state is owing more than Ondo state which is an oil producing and has more revenue than our state, so we are in total crisis. And the standard of PDP when I was the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, is that my deficit must not be more than three percent every year. I ensure that maximum deficit was three percent. But in Osun state now, it is now 72.97 percent so you can see that we are in serious problem. With my experience in budgeting, I know that the entire product of any factory depends on what you have on ground, and if as at today, you have almost everything as deficit, I wonder where you want to go from there. And of course, the regular things you see like in education; recently, the cultists in one school clashed in Ejigbo; about a month ago, students attacked a principal at Ejigbo and these are issues emanating from merging Paul with Solomon and Solomon with Hammed. You know we pride ourselves as leading in education and we attach importance to our identities. Before now, St. Charles’ uniform was black and white; Aderogba High School was green and blue. Those were the identity you see on the streets. The identity gives pride and confidence to the people learning and gives behaviour too. Because all these students will not want to misbehave knowing that the bad behaviour will be attached and traced to their school. Now that the uniform is the same they behave anyhow knowing full well that it will not be traced to them, so its’ already a problem to us. If we return school back to their uniforms, everybody will bear their identity and maintain order. We all co-exist in this state before now. There is no need to cause confusion among these students in the name of making them feel like one and all the noise about merger schools; we are yet to see any difference. An average class today is about 80 students and more in some places. UNESCO says it should not be more than 45 students per class. It is just like taking studies under the trees or under the sun. Of course, the students must have already trekked about two or three kilometers to school.  We have a lot of drop outs, thugs, motor-park boys and the people become recalcitrant. And of course the economy of the place cannot carry parents giving their children N100 every day to go to school. UNESCO also says that the children must not trek more than one kilometer to go to school in this country. So we are in a serious problem as far as education is concerned in this state. When you go to health sector, there is no additional institution to health facilities as we speak today, either tertiary, primary or secondary.  Proper diagnosis is not even done. Whether it is prostrate cancer or pelvic cancer, they don’t even know. The economy of this state is in comatose. Every penny spent here is from Lagos because the artisans and everybody is working in Lagos. So the wealth creation and the economy are already in bad shape. At the end of the day, we have a problem in our hand. When you say employment, every parent wants their children to go to school up to tertiary level so that they can get gainful employment and dignified jobs, not the kind of OYES we have on the streets today where they are degrading and dehumanizing our youths. What kind of future do they want to give to these youths? Assuming Aregbesola started his career as OYES, he won’t be governor today. That is it and he is busy ruining these people’s future and career. If you can employ them, employ them in their right qualification and capacity? If you cannot, empower them to go or leave them to go and get better ones elsewhere. All these are political deceptions. The idea is propaganda, deceiving our people everywhere. I’ve said it before; the Ede water head works through which water is supply in the state supplies 18 local governments. The last investment there was the one that yielded three billion naira to do the water pump, electricity and everything. Since that time, there has not been additional thing done to water supply in this state. All you see is road construction of federal government roads highly inflated for financial and deceptive reasons. Take Osogbo to Kwara road for instance, this contract was awarded to the federal ministry of works in 2011 at N8.9 billion, but Aregbesola gave it at N19.7 billion and stole N10 billion. When you go to Gbongan junction, all these are federal government roads and the money will be refunded back to Aregbesola. He is not spending any money. Let him go to do Iwo – Osogbo, it is a major problem in this state. There are many other inter-city roads in this state. The road originally designed from Sekona to Gbongan junction was cost at N13 billion. I approved that one in my budget in 2010 and I have the documents, I called it section 1, section 2 and section 3. The title of the project is section 1Gbongan junction to Sekona, Section 2, Sekona to Osogbo, and section 3, Osogbo to Kwara boundary. So he is doing nothing and he knows. All the schools they are building now, as at today, they have just built 11 schools, after destroying more than 1000 schools built before. Now they cannot catch up, they are trying to repair the old schools by force. The communities were insisting that they should not destroy their schools. So in fact, they are been driven by the money they can get into their pockets. The costing of the whole thing shows that even the uniform project was just a way to make money. If they start doing small uniforms, he will not make much money. That is why they have to change the uniforms to one which cost N2,400 per student. Multiply N200 gain by 200,000 students in Osun state, you will see how many billions. Look at the computer tablet “Opon-Imo”, he promised to give the students, as at today we only have 900 Opon-Imo throughout the whole state. I’m sure all of you have children, have you seen Opon-Imo all over? He launched it with N8 billion and gave it to his son Kabiru to do the design. So these are the problems we’re having. Now talking about manifestoes, for me, I will restructure the education, provide gainful and genuine employment for the youths, there will be agriculture, health sector reforms, genuine wealth creation, and human-faced infrastructure development in the state, environmental sanitation, and security including water and food; All these are the cardinal programmes of the government that is coming in 2014, to take care of everybody and make everybody look like human beings.

How were you linked with the death of former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige?
I left Alliance for Democracy in December 2002 for PDP and the likes of Chief Adebisi Akande and other leaders were looking for a way to create partition. Also, in a bid to secure second term, he needed to use a décor to convince the people that the crisis in Osun State then led to the death of chief Bola Ige, which eventually led to our being arrested and we were detained. And to the glory of God today, we went through trial and we were discharged and acquitted. The judge even went further to say that we have no business at all that evidences brought before the court were not enough to even keep us detained. That means we were just taken there to suffer. That is why I?m in court against them now for damages and compensation. Some of them are even begging now because they have to go and explain to the court what led to those lies. So there was not a single link in the evidences between me and my group and the death of Bola Ige. It was just a ploy to find a way to win 2003 elections which he eventually lost. So those are the things that result from desperation.

Do you have any regret serving under Chief Adebisi Akande as Deputy Governor?
In fairness, I don’t have any regret at all because if I was not that kind, there won’t be yesterday, there won’t be today and there won’t be tomorrow. I think it is an act of God. There is no crown without fight, and no victory without struggle, so there must be struggle before you achieve victory. What happened then has put me in so many places that ascribe me more respect today, to say the truth. I went through the arrest, trial and I was acquitted and I came out stronger, like a gold that went through the fire. It made me stronger and better exposed.

What is your take on the defection of some PDP members into the APC?

There is nothing like progressives, they are just claiming what they are not. APC is PDP 2. If not how can someone like Rotimi Amaechi claim to move from PDP to APC because it is more progressive? Some people will move to PDP today, APC tomorrow and next they move to UPN, it does not portray us as serious minded people at all.  In America, you cannot see Democrats becoming Republicans just like that, but in Nigeria if it suits your interest, you just defect. Some people have changed parties three times in the last three years. All these are just ways to do deception, propaganda, armed-robbery and the rest. You will be surprised to find someone that has defected to APC coming back before a year. It makes me unhappy that people who are so educated and enlightened would be doing things like this. It is just a matter of office seeking, money seeking, employment seeking and others.

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