Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde on Tuesday encouraged the members of the cabinet not to refrain from challenging some of his views presented before them.
The governor gave the urge in his opening remarks at the maiden meeting of the State Executive Council members ongoing at the Executive Chamber of the Governors office, Agodi, Secretariat.
According to a report by the Nation, he also said that he too will not fail from doing same in a bid to arrive at a robust decision in the interest of the people of the state.
The meeting has in attendance the Deputy Governor, Mr Rauf Olaniyan, the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs Olubamiwo Adeosun, the Head of Service, Mrs Amidat Agboola, all the newly sworn-in 17 commissioners in the state among others.
Makinde urged the cabinet members to be passionate about their contributions reminding them that they are only privileged to serve the people of the state in their various capacities.
He said “I, first of all, want to congratulate the commissioners and I also want to say that for all of us seated here, it’s a privilege that we have to serve the people of Oyo state and I want to say welcome on board.
“This is the first exco meeting for this administration and I want to say to everybody that be passionate about your contributions, nobody is going to hold anybody to ransom for your contributions here. You should be dispassionate and you shouldn’t hold anything back because the more robust the discussion the more robust the arguments, the better the decisions that will come out of this executive chamber.
“So, I use this opportunity to welcome you and I’ll look forward to decisions that will impact the lives of our people and will bring accelerated development to Oyo state, decisions that will make us the true pacesetter state.
“I personally like to say up front that even within my own family, I’m not the brightest and not the smartest, so also here, I won’t think my opinion should be taken all the time, please challenge it.
“So also whatever any one of you is bringing to the table we will challenge, but at the end of the day, we want to align for the interest of our people, so we shouldn’t allow our personal interest to weigh in so much on our official conduct, we should hold ourselves accountable, so thank you and welcome to this first executive meeting of this administration.”
