An African Democratic Congress (ADC) gubernatorial aspirant in Oyo state, Barrister Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli has declared that past governors who have ruled the state failed because they had no knowledge of the problems the people of the state had been facing.
The ex-Chairman, Odu’a Investment Company Limited who said that, “The best mode of governance in modern times is the integration of community development system”, adding that most of the governors who governed the state in recent times performed woefully because they were not part of the community, so they would not know what the people need.
The former Secretary to the State Government while speaking during a meeting with some community leaders led by Elder Samuel Agboola in Ibadan, the state capital on Sunday, said that the major reason governance fails is, “because those who have been leading us in recent times have never been part of us”.
Alli said, “In the full spirit of participatory democracy, communities should be the center of attraction, they know where the shoe pinches, they understand the roads that are bad, they know the state of the health centers, their children are in the badly managed schools, and it is not just that they know, they have the appropriate solutions.
“I know all these because I have, for years, been a part of community development programmes.
“And, I have come to terms to the reason why governance fails, it is because those who have been leading us in recent times have never been part of us.
Alli while speaking on the type of people the electorate in the state should vote for during the 2019 general elections, warned the people against voting people who don’t know what they are lacking.
He said, “Imagine someone who studied abroad, worked abroad and coming from the blues to determine our fate, what does he know about the feelings of people living in the countryside?
“This is why it is in our agenda to fashion out a ministry that will adequately address community development in our state.
Alli told the gathering that “communities too have an important role to play in the emergence of candidates that will recognize” their importance in the scheme of things in the state.
