 Gbenga Omole is an aid in the office of Youth and Union matters under late Chief Adebayo Adefarati. He is a sport analyst, a football proprietor and a sport consultant. Omole, a chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria in Ondo state spoke with Tope Adebayo and Ibrahim Badmus on the state of development in Akoko and A C N.
Since the death of Chief Adebayo Adefarati, how will you describe Akoko politics and the development of the area?
With the name you have mentioned, you remind me of the last time development stopped in Akoko and other regions in the state. Adefarati regime marks the last time development stopped in Ondo state. When I say development, it is development that commensurate with the yearnings and the aspirations of the people of Ondo state. Development in the sense that the government is feeling the pause of the people and they are responding to it despite the fact that we had meager resources at the disposal of the government. Responding to your second question, I will say development stopped at Akoko in 2003 and in terms of human and infrastructural development Akoko has been cut away from Ondo state.
The incumbent administration under Dr. Mimiko claimed to have invested over N570M into Arigidi tomato factory and the factory has started production. Don’t you see this as development?
I will talk like Obasanjo I dey laugh ooooo. Arigidi tomato factory is not in the sky, Jupiter or other planet. It is a physical thing that we can see. A lot of people have talked about this if not that you ask I don’t like talking about it. I am from Akoko and every week I always go home. You are a journalist you can do your investigating journalism if the company is producing anything you will see it in the market. There is nothing happening in the company I know its history very well it is just a way for the governor and his cronies to siphon our money it is a private company owned by cooperative in Arigidi and the farther of present commissioner for youth and sport Alhaji Olanipekun of blessed memory. It was a misplaced priority then because if you want to start an industry in any area, you have to find out the proximity of your final product to the raw material. There is no tomato farm in Arigidi or its environs then how can you sight a tomato producing factory there? It is nothing but fraud just like any of the projects that Dr. Rahman Mimiko claimed to be doing. It is unfortunate that the people of Ondo state are passing through this kind of administration at this material time. The company is nothing but fraud and they keep pumping money into it.
So, in totality, are you pleased with the level of developments that have taken place in Akoko as a whole?
Like I have said, it pains us that this is happening to us in Akoko, I mean every right thinking person of Akoko extraction. The Labour Party government under the leadership of Dr. Rahman Mimiko is a product of Akoko agenda he may deny or accept it but the fact remains that it was the Akoko leaders led by Dr. Olaiya Oni that spearheaded the process that brought him to power and it is very unfortunate that he has been doing everything possible to punish the Akokos and undermine our interest and the reasons for this nobody knows. In my local government Akoko southwest, there is a primary school which every administration ensures that they add six to ten classrooms to. You know what happened? This administration just came one night to demolish all the structures in the school and they said they want to put in place a mini-mega primary school. There were thirty-six classrooms in the school before and now been replaced with less than thirty classrooms of min-mega school, this does not make sense and if in the whole of Akoko you are building two primary schools one in Oka and one in Ikare, with over N600M a school with population of about three hundred how will the school benefit people from Isua or the one at ikare benefit people from Oba Akoko? The UNESCO standard is against subjecting primary school pupils to a tortuous walk of wide distance before getting to school. All the projects embarked upon by the present administration are done in other to get better returns to fill the pockets of some few cronnies working for the governor. In terms of road, the Akoko do not have good road and the governor is not doing anything about it. Though, I learnt that the governor said that if the Akokos do not vote for him, the Owo and Akure people will vote for him and the people from the South will equally vote for him. As we are crying in Akoko here, I learnt that the people in Ilaje and Ese-odo are also crying likewise the Ikales. I understand the OSOPADEC did not have a budget for 2011 and I doubt if the budget allocation to OSOPADEC will not go down the purse of a few cronies of the governor.
As a sport analyst and a football club owner, how will you rate the performance of the governor in the area of sport?
This government is not getting it right in the aspect of sport. Sport is a big business all over the world; it can provide numerous jobs for over fifty percent of the youths in Ondo state. This government is not getting it right because they are only interested in putting money into their pocket. As a sport specialist that owns an amateur club, when you look at the establishment of OSFA, Ondo State Football Agency, it was primarily put in place to engage the youths in meaningful activities in the area of sport and basically, Sunshine Star Football Club. The rising star football club was meant to be a feeder team to Sunshine Football Club and the academy was put in place to hunt for talents and turn them to stars and put them into Sunshine Stars. Now Rising Star is in the premier league with the Sunshine Stars and this is not right. Ondo state cannot have two football clubs in the premier league and the reason they want it like that is that there is a crisis on ground. As you know from on set Sunshine Star is based in Akure and on paper, rising star football club is based in Ondo and by common sense if Sunshine Star is in Akure ,the rising star should be taken to another senatorial district but with the kind of politics the governor plays, he has turned the Rising Star football issue to Ondo affairs anyway, leaving that for now, there is a lot of fraud in OSFA this is because a lot of people that do not know anything are holding positions there. As am talking to you now, all the players that Sunshine Stars paraded last season have not been paid fifty percent of their sign on fees. Can you imagine that less than forty percent of the money meant for the sunshine star is spent on the club and the remaining fund embezzled. As am talking to you now, Sunshine Stars may be relegated because of match fixing allegation hanging on the club because a Sunshine Star official was caught with a referee that was supposed to officiate a match between Sunshine Star football club and Lobi Star. About three clubs last year alleged that Sunshine Football Club was inducing referee but they were not able to produce evidence but this time around the referee was caught inside a Toyota corolla car belonging to the state government. Another sad thing about these two clubs of ours is that they are playing their matches at ijebu-ode
But the governor said that the synthetic pitch at Akure stadium has been completed?
My brother all these were said for over ten times last season and nothing realistic yet. If you give the job of a plumber to a tailor you can’t get result. since the governor at all cost gives the jobs to his friends, he cannot tell them to deliver at appropriate time and it is in the public knowledge that the renovation of the stadium has been awarded for over N900M and the new stadium under construction has been abandoned for no reason. In Ogun state now they have four international stadia that were built by Otunba Gbenga Daniel administration. But every weekend, Ondo state carries money that should develop the state to Ijebu-Ode which ought not to be so because by now we ought to have completed the new stadium.
What is your view about the loan of N5OB that the governor is to take in the security exchange commission?
What I learnt was that the security exchange commission was conned to grant this approval of loan. When a governor starts taking loan towards the tail end of his administration, it gives us a lot of concern. Our problem with him even goes beyond taking a loan but the fact that the money he had received from federation account how has he spent it? In the last administration, when allocation comes from the federation account there is a committee that meet to discuss the appropriation of the allocation but now, some cabinet members in this administration do not know what comes to the state. The loan is not proper because its payment is tied to the allocation coming into the state why should a governor that inherited N38 billion cash should go ahead to take N5 billion naira loan from a local bank and N10 billion from another bank and now planning to take N50 billion from security and exchange commission. With the case in court, I am very optimistic that the loan will not see the light of the day.
What is your advice to the people of Ondo State?
This is the election year and I want the people of ondo state to vote en- mass for A CN because we are committed to good governance that will guarantee corporate development in Ondo state.
|
