By SEYI BAKARE
Once a two-time governor of Ogun State, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, said an elected governor must not step into office thinking he has an inflexible future of four or eight years to lure him or her into complacence. Osoba told a journalist as he spoke from his own experience that what a governor does in his early days in office determines his success and popular perceptions about his administration. Disturbed while he watched the seeming lethargy of one of those who succeeded him, Osoba said: “As he moves into the office (first or second term) the governor must work as if his tenure expires at midnight of that day.
“He must go for new projects that had been denied those who gave him the mandate to lead them. He must give the people what will be the talk of the town all his tenure (and beyond). There must be the immediate commencement of new modern roads, street rehabilitation, schools upgrade, short, medium and long term urban and rural renewal initiatives etc.“.
I have only paraphrased Osoba. But the sum of his charge is simply that as he kicks off, a governor must work like a hurricane. He must let signature infrastructure dot the landscape; he must cause the state to look like one huge industrial complex. Those visiting after some years would wonder if they had missed their destination. Where they beheld vast expanses of wild vegetation two or three years earlier, schools or hospitals would have sprung up. In the place of desolate and uninhabited land, there would be roads and flyovers in the making. What went for hills and valleys the last time he or she visited, would now be a beehive of activities to transform the scenes into shopping centres or residential zones.
I want to believe that this is what Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has learnt at the feet of the revered Segun Osoba as he sits atop the affairs of Ogun. He has refused to allow himself to compute his days in years, but in hours. That way, you sentence yourself to taking your strides gingerly in minutes and hours and days. You don’t fall into a false sense of calculating in long spans of years. Knowing you have little time (hours and days) to build the hospitals, the flyovers, schools, industries, markets, roads etc., you are never found resting; instead, you’re always found on your feet, toiling day and night, pulling down impediments that come your way the same way hurricanes tear through to assert their elemental force.
For a state contiguous to Lagos which is bursting at its seams and releasing its overflow of demographics and business and social cultures into the Gateway State chiefly via Ota, Mowe and Ibafo, Governor Abiodun would appear to have much to contend with in addition to the basic challenges of his people. But what we see on the ground suggests he isn’t perturbed.
To be sure, the media is still awash with reports of deadly land grabbers’ activities slowing down industrial and property development of Ota, cult violence in Shagamu, stretches of failed roads needing to be overhauled, etc.
But in the same media, there are objective and encouraging narratives of the endeavours of a state helmsman whose motto is: in the midst of dire challenges, operate like a hurricane.
This has made Abiodun, instead of allowing his administration to be drowned by the storm of problems not his making, to adopt the Osoba approach. He is doing a development blitzkrieg, ‘’an … intense campaign aimed at a swift victory’’ over infrastructure deficit, which has plagued the state over the years.
For instance, there are moves to do away with old public school structures and replace them with modern ones that rhyme with the face of the 21st Century. The government is talking of letting this take place simultaneously in all the urban and rural communities across the state. This can’t be otherwise, given the historical and contemporary facts that Ogun has never played the second fiddle in education. We’ve always set the pace. So, constructing the physical schools is not only the issue to celebrate in the sector. The Dapo Abiodun government is also raising the bar in information technology in school curriculum.
The governor is looking beyond today as he has made a solemn vow to ‘’fully maximize the opportunities accruing from digital education and entrepreneurship to adequately equip the next generation of youths’’.
Governor Abiodun says his administration ‘’is redefining the educational system in the state in a total departure from the past through digital education that now berths the Education Management Information System, EMIS, for data gathering, analysis and presentation coupled with the introduction of the Learner Identification Number, LIN, to all schools’’. He said government is making this ‘’huge investment in digital entrepreneurship…(so as) to create jobs, businesses, drive growth and promote innovation among the youths’’.
As we hail this futuristic thrust in Ogun, we must address another intervention that is forward-looking and employment-creating and suggestive of a man administering like a hurricane. I’m talking of the new Gateway Agro-Cargo International Airport, nestled along Iperu-Ilishan Road in Ikenne Local Government Area of Ogun. When the airport recorded its first commercial flight on the four-kilometre long runway some weeks ago, an excited Abiodun declared: ‘’(This) is testament to what is achievable by being focused, deliberate, resolute, committed and audacious. In every way therefore, it is a dream come true.’’
The dream he refers to is his vision to leverage the existence of the airport to give rise to an economic community that in turn will create jobs, create revenue for government and expand internal and international businesses.
My view, as I conclude, aligns with that of Governor Dapo Abiodun. We in Ogun State must look farther than the daunting hurdles of today in order to access the joys and fruits of our labour tomorrow. I believe better things await us in the near future if we cooperate with government and pray for its success over its people-oriented projects. After all, according to the adage, Rome was not built in a day.
*Bakare, a public affairs analyst, wrote via: seyibakare@aol.com
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