Behold An Uninformed ‘Die Hard’ Critic By Kola Ajibola

“Criticisms and commendations are like twins. For any meaningful progress to be made, both must exist side by side.” – Seyi Makinde
When I saw the interview by self-proclaimed ‘die-hard critic’ of the Seyi Makinde administration, one Sola Abegunde, I read it in the hopes that there would be some meaningful takeaways that would make the Makinde administration sit up and do better. It is a well-known fact that Makinde has always stated that he is open to listening to constructive criticism and adjust policies and projects based on feedback.

Alas, I was disappointed! It seems critics like Abegunde intend to rewrite recent history about governance in Oyo State. To create some fictional universe where lies and deceit are allowed to fly without being shut down. Not this day and not this place.

Abegunde started by talking about the sincerity of purpose of Makinde’s predecessors. According to him, you could tie them to their campaign promises. It appears that Abegunde is unaware that Makinde has been implementing roadmaps which are the manifestoes he campaigned with in 2019 (Oyo State Roadmap for Accelerated Development 2019-2023) and in 2023 (Oyo State Roadmap for Sustainable Development 2023-2027). Not only that, Makinde tracks the promises in these roadmaps on an annual basis and publishes the results on his website so people can see what has been achieved and what is still pending. Can Abegunde point to any of Makinde’s predecessors who has been this detailed and transparent about their campaign promises?

In lauding Makinde’s predecessors, Abegunde said they excelled in the Education sector with free education, providing text books, exercise books and building infrastructure. He also applauded the 30 people per class policy and payment of WAEC and NECO exam fees. These general statements ignore the fact that the Seyi Makinde-led administration also has a free education policy and provide free text books and exercise books. Additionally, Makinde’s administration has completed 60 model schools and constructed and renovated over 700 classrooms in all 33 local government areas of Oyo State. To address the personnel shortage in the education sector, Makinde’s administration recruited 5,000 secondary school teachers between 2019 and 2023 while an additional 7,500 secondary school, 3,000 non-teaching staff and 7,000 primary school teachers are being recruited this year. These numbers are unprecedented in Oyo State history.

Still on the education sector, Abegunde stated that the Abiola Ajimobi administration ‘devised a system that committed stakeholders to education’. He failed to disclose that the Ajimobi administration left an education system with dilapidated infrastructure and over 400,000 out-of-school children, the highest in the South West due to his fee policy for senior secondary school students. Out of this number, over 80,000 have been returned to the classroom by Makinde’s administration and the Oyo State Government is currently implementing the World Bank-assisted Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) programme to return more students to the classroom.

According to Abegunde, Seyi Makinde’s predecessors allowed local governments to function while Makinde has killed the local government system in Oyo State. Abegunde is unaware that Makinde’s predecessors from Lam Adesina to Abiola Ajimobi left a backlog of unpaid gratuities and pensions of local government retirees that the Oyo State Government has been working to pay off. In fact, when Makinde assumed office in 2019, local government pensioners had a case in court against the government because of the backlog of unpaid gratuities and pensions. Makinde negotiated with them to pay N250,000 monthly towards the backlog so that they could withdraw the case against the government. This payment has been made monthly since then.

Abegunde also alleged without any evidence that Makinde’s administration had taken loans using the accounts of the 33 LGAs as collateral. Such beer parlour talk has no place in fact-based conversations. Oyo State’s debt profile is not a secret. As of 31 March 2024, the latest available data on the Debt Management Office website, Oyo State’s domestic debt was N98.7 billion. Perhaps, Abegunde should familiarise himself with facts and figures about Oyo State so that he can give constructive criticism that can be useful to moving the state forward.

In Abegunde’s opinion, projects like the bus terminals and ‘Light up Oyo’ project are white elephant which the Makinde should not have embarked upon. Referring to projects which are yielding returns as white elephant indicates that Abegunde does not know the meaning of the term. The Oyo State Government has repeatedly explained that the use of generators to run the streetlights under the ‘Light up Oyo’ project was a stop-gap measure to get the benefits of the project which in the long-term is meant to be powered by the 11MW Independent Power Project with gas generators as backup. Just about three months ago, Makinde announced that he had signed a $100 million gas project with Shell Gas Nigeria to supply gas in Oyo State.

On the Agbowo Shopping Complex, the criticism from Abegunde seems to be a bit late. Things have moved on from the concession agreement that failed. While Makinde’s predecessors that he holds in higher regards did nothing about the shopping complex, Makinde’s plan to revive the moribund structure is back on course after a failed initial attempt. Perhaps, Abegunde can pay a visit to the complex to see the progress being made on its upgrade.

Finally, it is laughable that Abegunde believes Makinde’s predecessors fared better than him on road projects. He referred to the 57 km road from Eleyele through Ido to New Eruwa by Lam Adesina’s administration and the dualisation of some major roads by Ajimobi’s administration though the latter completed less than 40 km of major road projects in eight years. He failed to acknowledge that Seyi Makinde’s administration has completed over 330 km of major road projects in five years including the 65 km Moniya-Iseyin Road and the 34.85 km Oyo-Iseyin Road, both federal roads.

Abegunde only mentioned the 76.67 km Iseyin-Ogbomoso Road, a new road built from scratch by the Makinde administration as worthy of note. Meanwhile, Makinde’s administration is also constructing the 110 km Circular Road which encircles Ibadan, and reconstructing the 45.3 km Saki-Ogbooro-Igboho Road and the 21 km Airport-Ajia-New Ife Expressway among numerous other road projects totalling 273 km. This does not include road projects executed by local government councils.

In conclusion, the people of Oyo State would be better served if self-acclaimed die-hard critics of the Makinde administration like Abegunde would familiarise themselves with what is actually happening in Oyo State before offering criticisms of the government.

No doubt, the government needs to be held to account but this should be done with facts not fiction and revisionism.

Ajibola, a public affairs analyst, lives in Ibadan.