Dear Governor Seyi Makinde; When Alliances was broken, Performance Speaks, The People Are Waiting For Omituntun 2.0
Your Excellency, I congratulate you on your landmark victory of the March 18th Gubernatorial election, it was a win for the people of Oyo State.
Since the inception of your administration in 2019, if you kindly recall Sir, this will be my fourth pen route addressed to your esteemed office. In previous editions, I addressed students and youth welfare; bursary and scholarship, as well as governance. Today, as Governor and the Governor Re-elect of our beloved pacesetter state, much has been done in the above-stated area of concerns and there is more to be done.
Evidently, there are new milestones laid before you and the milestones may seem more challenging than your first term service to the good people of Oyo State. With the rubicon being scaled, there are more expectations and faith in your governance especially now that the 2027 journey is around the corner.
Your Excellency, I’d like to set forth a significant question that played out in the concluded election, does performance guarantee electoral success if alliances are broken? Your guess is as good as mine, Your Excellency!
The sojourn as the Governor of Oyo state was birthed in 2019 as a result of alliances. I was a student of Obafemi Awolowo University at the time, and in good faith, students supported your aspiration despite our non-partisanship as students. We saw in you a young man with visions to address contemporary issues as far as governance and welfarism is concerned in Oyo State, even when others left, we stood solidly behind you.
Depending on individual perspectives and interest, your first term which is gradually coming to an end has recorded a huge success relative to the purse of our dear state. While landmark success was recorded in Health, Secondary Education, Economy, Agriculture, Inter-city road networks, little has been done on local roads, primary education, and indigenous students bodies.
Your Excellency, Salvation Army School, Odo Alagbafo and Methodist Primary School, NTA are less than 5 minutes drive to the State SUBEB headquarters, and in almost four years the infrastructural facilities in these schools are decaying day by day. The present situation has gotten worse to the extent that the younger ones now wash feces every morning before they could settle down in class for their daily academic study, including sitting on broken chairs for almost four years.
I cited these two schools as examples because of their proximity to Government House, Ibadan North Secretariat and Oyo SUBEB.
The best and kindest gesture from the new dawn of Omituntun 2.0 should wholeheartedly be a reform of the situation in these schools and other schools with similar untold hardships.
Your Excellency, with the recent constitutional amendment bills signed by President Muhammadu Buhari which moved Railways from Exclusive legislative list to the Concurrent list, likewise allowing each of the state in the federation the power to generate, transmit and distribute electricity, has make governance more serious for State and many keen onlookers and patriotic Oyo state citizens are now expecting not short from the new dawn. It is of this hope that I appeal to the kind hearings of Your Excellency to have an intra-city railway system under Omituntun 2.0 dispensation. We also hope for the Oyo State Power Generating Plants, good and motorable access roads and furnished and well-equipped primary schools.
Your Excellency, it’s only an ingrate that won’t acknowledge your effort in Education, most especially the recent employment of 5000 teachers. While this has been appreciated, there’s more to do, especially in the primary school system, which has been bedeviled with shortage of teachers, unavailability of instructional materials and abandoned buildings.
I am aware that you stated during one of your gubernatorial debates that more attention will be given to public primary schools, under Omituntun 2.0, we want to see this materialize, and I pray that you succeed in this endeavor.
Mr Governor, as a former student indigenous leader in the State, the place of the indigenous students and youth groups are not well represented in your first term. We have more of our own, competent and well-read that can be considered for political appointment as far as this aforesaid area is concerned. We have always been with you, and we hope that your kind turn of favor in governance will be extended to the aforesaid groups.
The Circular Road is the giant of all the Infrastructure work that your administration is known for. The project was conceived by Governor Rasheed Ladoja and abandoned for over 15 years.
We appreciate your concerted effort for breathing life back to this project , this being done without erasing the bearer of the vision.
My Governor, our Governor, the state workers are happy, the pensioners are happy, the people are happy, if being a populist governor is what makes the people happy, please, continue, we pray for your success.
I’d like to drop my pen for now with the trending accolades ascribed to Who’s your guy? Seyi Makinde is my guy.
Till I write again, I’m ‘Kayode Ajani.
Kayode Ajani can be reached via 08104260476
ajanikayode2@gmail.com
