Thank You, Your Excellency!!! – Senator Isiaq Ajimobi

Accept my honest and heartfelt congratulation as you begin to countdown on your second anniversary as the headman of Oyo state, Nigeria. Your commitment to excellence and purpose driven leadership has clearly revealed that productive and progressive governance is the one design to agree with the collective yearnings, hope and aspiration of the people. You have been able to show within the last 450 days of your democratic assignation (as the state governor) that fineness in leadership is about the people, who regrettably are now being constantly presented as victims of our mushrooming democracy. You have also inextricably offer hope and optimism to the people even at this moment of piercing silence. This is the definition of exemplary leadership, a phenomenon that has eluded Oyo state almost from the beginning of the fourth republic. It is also fair to admit that you have now provided the long missing link between the people and the state (democratic governance). It is my sincere belief that this would be the beginning of greater things (days) to come for the pacesetter state.

Your Excellency, I do not intend to write beyond a congratulatory message to you in this note, especially at a time when governance seems right. It is my honest belief that this would encourage you to do more, knowing fully well that the people are not blind nor ungrateful to the good you have brought this land in such a little time. However, I am impelled to go beyond this scope because of the current state of affair in one of the local government in the state that I know have refuse to run a complementary government to balance the checkbook of democratic dividends in this state . I have checked thoroughly and am pressed to think that if things are left the way they are in this particular local government, then your administration would have only succeeded in opening a big lacuna for the enemies of our collective endeavors to explore and push back for relevance. This local government is IBADAN NORTH EAST under the interim (mis)management of one Lukman Abodunrin Alatise (herein after refers to as Abod).

In recent time, Ibadan North East LG (herein after refers to as IBNE) has continue to stake a place in the news for the wrong reason. The current situation in the local government is unavailing and politically horrible and even the immediate prospect looked utterly gloomy and dark. We have been forced to ask whether this was deliberately designed to be or simply for lack of (good) initiatives by this current interim management, even though no answer was given on this yet. One would have thought that immediately these ones accede to power, they would have borrowed an immediate incentive from the government (at the state) that put them in place and consequently do the needful. Rather, what we have is a wicked remittance of public benefits into the care of these privileged jesters. Within the last 16 months of this current leadership, there was no single initiative coming from the council except the ones ordered by the state government and sponsor from the excess crude oil account. A lot of the projects embarked upon are shoddy and unfit for democratic campaign. For instance, this current leadership sought and got approval to dredge a whopping 24 boreholes but unfortunately after 9 months of such approval, only eleven have been dredge so far with about seven of this number working at zero capacity. Sadly, even the road that was patched from the council portion of excess crude oil benefit some months back has deteriorated beyond repair. An interview with one of the contractor shows the deceit in the process of contract negotiation, where individual members (caretakers) were making spurious financial demands before contract was awarded. Leadership at this level has continue to nosedive and even on one occasion, the interim chairman (Abod) once told his party elders in a meeting, the tale of how his children were sent home from school because he could no longer afford to pay their school fees. What a jester he is! Just recently, party activities was stampeded and brought to a standstill for weeks by protesting members across all the 12 wards of the local council. Their grief was that Abod and his members have continued to treat them as an object of peripheral importance despite their massive sacrifice to the growth and stability of the party. These ones arguably found it unfair that at the heat of the party and democratic struggle, Abodunrin Alatise was somewhere in the London frolicking around.
The little respect he (Abod) enjoined so far was nothing different from members’ loyalty and respect to the governor’s choice for the council. Members of the party are as tattered as ever just because the Chairman will not look their side for any assistance or consideration since they have no money to pay as bribe. About few weeks to their protest, the Chairman and his members awarded shopping complex contract (46shops), estimated to be worth around #20 million in Jonku area of Iwo-road to one contractor from Ilesha. The contractor we learnt offers #3m to caretakers members as royalty, but they insisted on an amount double that figure before the final approval will be given. This was blown open to party members and consequently led to the suspension of all party meetings from local government to ward level some weeks back. They felt it was a cruel political decision for the interim chairman (and his members) to impose on them an incompetent contractor for a project of such magnitude, when there are qualified personnel within the Local council. Nothing could have motivated our backward-looking chairman to take such a weird decision other than the temptation of personal gain. Abod in his characteristic manner accused one Femi Ogini (the party vice-chairman) of deliberately inciting party members against his administration. We hold the view that ACN members everywhere are rational and would never disrespect constituted authority on anybody’s influence. However, if truly Femi Ogini enjoys the support and trust of party members as Abod wants us to belief, then it will not be a bad decision to consider Ogini for Abod’s position, since government is about the people and not self-ambition. Today, IBNE local government is littered with unimaginable numbers of ghost workers in all its eight ( major departments. Abod and his members have continued to over bloat the council payroll with names and people, resident only in the morgue. This is a shocking development especially at a time when your Excellency is doing everything possible to rid the state civil service of this malaise.

Of significance however is the cerebral laziness of the young Abod for official thoroughness, particularly in treating government documents. Over time, he has been accused of signing vital documents without carefully or sketchily reading through its contents. We have it on good source that our honorable chairman only looks for figure and the naira symbol (#) when signing important government brochures to emphasize his penchant for making quick and crooked money. While this might necessarily involve some mild exaggeration, we doubt if this will be totally untrue in the context of his personality and academic. Funnily, today in IBNE local council, no commodity has offered the biggest market prospect for Abod’s subordinate as the sales of relief materials to unsuspecting public. Cases of this ignoble act are rampant and demeaning. Victims of flood disaster are left unattended to, while partners of Abod government continue to feed fat on the sales of these commodities. In IBNE local council, relief materials is still at the promise level and has only been seeing on radio and television broadcast. In all honesty, only Abod can solve this riddle!

Hideously, Abod has openly cited her Excellency (first lady) as a reason for his non-performing. He has on several occasions indicted our honorable first lady of running a joint government with him in the council in a way that depicts defamation (of character). Her Excellency joy in this regard is that Ibadan north east is not the only local government in Oyo state and we have seen chairmen of local councils that are even closer to her Excellency surpassing expectation. We only need to remind Abod that excuse is a monument of the nothingness and the pretext of the indolence.

Your Excellency, we do not want to fall under the cheap blackmail that we are out only to distract Abod from governance, this is the sense whereby we implore you to make some silent findings on all the above to verify and ascertain the authenticity of our claim. You have done so well at the centre (state) and it is only thoughtful that the people you appointed at different councils should as a mark of necessity complement your good work, because they are closer to the people. The sad news is that you are not getting this in Ibadan North East and you are not likely to get it under the current administration. Is it not sad that the current administration in IBNE has refused to bring you to commission any major project in the last 16months? Is this the case with the remaining local councils? Could it be true that allocation to IBNE local council is centrally modulated under the ambit of Her Excellency as Abod has generally proclaimed? Or are all these the consequences of a backward-looking and clueless leadership grid of the current administration in IBNE? The experience of the recent past has ordinarily left so much to be desired. The current government in the council is heartlessly too detach from the people it leads. Ibadan North East Local council (IBNE) is gradually loosing the grip of progressive dominance. We can avoid a repeat of this era and we can also sponsor a return depending on what your Excellency helps us do today. We value and appreciate your commitment to purposeful leadership and we sincerely hope you will offer us another of your kind to paddle the affair of IBADAN NORTH EAST LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Thank you for taken the pain to read through this lengthy note.