Oyo State Governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, in this interview with OLALEKAN ADETAYO, speaks on his second term ambition and the various controversies over his re-election bid among other issues. Excerpts:



How has it been governing a state like Oyo with all its peculiarities in the last four years?



It has been good. I have been enjoying it. You know that I am not unfamiliar with governance. I am familiar with the terrain. I had prepared for it before going into government; I know what to do, when to do and how to do it. Things have been working to plan to the glory of God. I have delivered substantially most of the campaign promises I made in 2007 and the people are happy with me. I am also very happy that the people are happy with me.



Does that mean you have not encountered any challenge so far?



In this type of terrain, there is no way there will not be some challenges but the important thing is for you to look for how to overcome the challenges.



What are the major challenges you can easily point to that came your way in the last four years?



I cannot really say there are major challenges that came my way that are not expected. Majorly, the challenges are not in governance. Maybe they are political. I don’t think I have challenges that are insurmountable and we thank God for that.



Why do you think you deserve to be re-elected as the governor of Oyo State?



I deserve to be re-elected because during my first term, I got it right. For us to continue to get it right, there must be continuity so that we will lay a good foundation for whoever will come after us. Once we lay this foundation, if the fellow that is coming after us is not doing well, it will clearly show that something is wrong somewhere. We have laid a good foundation. For instance, it was when I came on board that I fixed the School of Science, Pade that was started by former governor Kolapo Ishola.



Since you made your decision to run for second term public, it has been one rumour and controversy after the other. Sometimes it was a rumour that you were feeding pupils with fetish food; at another time, it was a video clip exposing your alleged ritual activities. What do you think is responsible for these and how do you receive them?



When your opponents are far behind you and you give them a mileage that they cannot cover, the only thing they can do is to resort to cheap blackmail. Unfortunately many of our people are gullible. They will fall into the trap of believing such stories. If you look at it very well, all these stories are concentrated in Ibadanland alone, not throughout the state. It was when they discovered that they cannot discredit my government in terms of performance and good governance that they decided that the only thing they can do is to embark on character assassination. That will not work because truth is constant and it will surely come out. What they are doing is just to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Nobody can say I have not performed because I can say it with all sense of responsibility that no government has performed the way I performed. Ibadan is no longer what it used to be. We have improved on all the infrastructure we met on the ground. We have touched the lives of all the people of the state positively. It is all falsehood and cannot stand the test of time.



One major issue that has been attracting negative publicity to your administration is your alleged partisanship in the leadership crisis rocking the state council of the National Union of Road Transport Workers. How will you react to this?



I am not a member of the NURTW. When they are disturbing public peace, I am expected as the Chief Security Officer of the state to take a stand on the issue. I am not interested in who becomes the leader of the NURTW, what I want is that there must be peace. Initially, their fights were limited to their members. What made me to take a drastic position against them is that at a time, they started disturbing the peace of innocent persons who are not members of the NURTW. I have the responsibility to maintain peace and that was why I told them that I would acquire their secretariat; build a school there and relocate them to a place where they will not be able to disturb the peace of innocent people. I am not taking sides with anybody. When their national leaders came here, I told them that I was ready to unban the activities of the union in the state once they are able to resolve their issues but they have not been able to do that. Why will I allow them to continue to disturb the peace of the state? You will see that since they were banned, there has been relative peace in the city.



If you are not in support of the late Eleweomo’s faction, why did you wait till the National Industrial Court reinstated Tokyo before you decided to ban the activities of the union?



No, I was not in support of Eleweomo. Eleweomo was recognised by the national headquarters of the union. Anybody that is recognised by the national headquarters will be recognised by me because I cannot know their association more than they do. If the national headquarters in Abuja says today that Mr. A is the chairman of the Oyo State council, so be it. I will abide by it. But there was a leadership crisis among them. The national headquarters has expelled Tokyo from the union, so how can he become the chairman? For instance, if the Nigeria Union of Journalists says you are no longer a member of the union, how can you say you want to be the chairman of the same union? If tomorrow they write me that they have resolved the crisis and send Tokyo’s name to me as the chairman, so be it; I don’t have a special interest in the matter. When both of them were claiming to be the chairman, the best thing to do was what I did: ban all of them. I don’t have reasons to take sides. I don’t have a fleet of commercial vehicles that ply the roads.



The Ladoke Akintola University of Technology issue is another major issue. You were quoted as saying that Oyo State government is now the sole owner of the school hitherto jointly owned with the Osun State Government. That statement has drawn the ire of your brother governor in Osun,



I don’t always like to discuss LAUTECH. I don’t know why people are making issue out of nothing. We are not the first state to jointly own a school and we are also not the first to say we should go our own way. It has happened in many states like that. Must you force a union? There can only be a union if the two of you agree to move; if you don’t agree, you go your separate ways.



But the position of Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, is that the law that established LAUTECH has not been abrogated,



Which law? The only law that established LAUTECH belongs to the Oyo State Government. Can two states jointly enact a law? When they talk sometimes, I just look at them. Do they think they are talking to fools? The only law that established LAUTECH is in Oyo state’s law book, not in any other place. If they know any other law, let them quote it. Can Osun State Government enact a law on how a university in Oyo State would be run? Can they enact a law for us from Osun? Is there any sense in it? It is true that they don’t want to go and it is also true that we want to go. Whatever is not movable in our property in Osun State, they should take them; likewise, whatever property they have here in Oyo State that are not movable, we take them We are the only two states in Nigeria that jointly own a university. What is the noise about? They said they are going to court; can a court force a union? It is not done anywhere.



The National Universities Commission intervened in this matter at a time. What has become of that intervention?



What they were able to do was to tell us what to do and we signed a Memorandum of Understanding. I still abide by that MoU we signed. You need to note that the NUC is just a regulatory body, it is not expected to poke its nose into who owns what. It is not their business. This university is on our soil, we are not fighting for something that is on the soil of Osun State. I don’t know what the hullaballoo is about.



What are you doing to reconcile with the chieftains of the PDP in the state who are not in your camp ahead of the general elections?



Who are the PDP chieftains you are referring to?



Senator Lekan Balogun is not in your camp. Senator Teslim Folarin and Hazeem Gbolarumi among others are also not in your camp.



Which camp do they belong to?



I wouldn’t know but they have made it public that they are against your second term bid.



Okay. They are not God. They are playing God, they are not God. If you are a good party man, immediately there is a primary and a candidate has been elected, you fall in line and work to ensure that the party wins. At that point, you will not look at the messenger; you look at the message. The message now is PDP and not Alao-Akala. I am not aware that they are doing anything contrary. If they are working against the party and they are in the party, they will be disciplined when the time comes. I don’t think we have a major problem in Oyo State PDP compared with other states. We are forging ahead; I am not alone, I have other people with me. If they change, it is good. As the candidate, I can go and plead with anybody that I think can be of help to me to win the election. Since they have not gone to another party, that means that there is still hope.



Do you see your former boss, Senator Rashidi Ladoja and Senator Abiola Ajimobi as threats to your ambition?



Not at all. I know them and their strengths. They know me too. Because they know I am not just a cheap politician, that is why they have been looking for ways to blackmail me. I heard that because they discovered that they won’t be able to remove me, they are planning a coalition. By the grace of God, I will bulldoze my way and I will bulldoze them along. A lot of things are in my advantage to succeed in the coming elections.


http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110321233790

Hrm. Only question I have. . . what is the best way to resolve this LAUTECH issue?

Perhaps it should be split into two new universities. Or one state should buy the university from the other.

words are cheap!

The guy does not even have any right words to use "Bulldoze"

Odekala !!!!

bulldoze = rigging.

But you've been cought!