Date: 2015-02-20

Chief Stephen Wole Oke, a leftist politician in Kwara State for several decades, has always been outspoken against the system, not minding whose ox is gored. The former Leader of Kwara State House of Assembly in the Second Republic, left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with Senator Bukola Saraki, when he joined the All Progressives Congress, APC. He bares his mind to WOLE ADEDEJI as a new rightist politician and his confidence in his principal; Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed to deliver the goods. Excerpts:

As a critic of government and now part of the present government in Kwara State, how would you assess the present administration of Abdulfatah Ahmed?

I’m part of the government and it has been for the past three or close to four years now. But before that time I will say, as you put it also, I was a critic of the government. Well, I think Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has been doing a lot to promote the development of the state and that is the truth. This, he is doing with paucity of fund. This situation has however, not helped the matter and by extension, the people.

Government has been trying specifically, in what areas?

In the area of education, I think the government is trying, particularly, on the provision of classrooms to schools. However, there seem to be inadequacy of teachers, especially for critical subjects in schools. But, I think government is seriously looking into that. Also, in the area of health, everybody will acknowledge the fact that Ahmed has really tried. Look at the regeneration of five general hospitals of late. Then, the newly introduced Health Insurance Scheme, HIS, is highly commendable. It encourages people to go to hospital because you don’t have to pay, whereas formerly, when people are sick they will hardly go to the hospital because they have no money to pay, they preferred to use herbs.

The HIS now encourages people to go to hospitals or health centres nearest to them as the case may be and we have hopes that within a short period from now, the mortality rate in Kwara will go down drastically in the state.

You just need to have a chat with Governor Ahmed for just 30 minutes then you will know that he has good ideas and vision for the people of the state, were it not for the paucity of funds. There is a serious lack of funds and unfortunately, again, you cannot even talk of Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, because Kwara State is a civil service state and to ask people to pay this levy, or that levy, the government will absolutely know that it is an area that it will find it difficult to implement. To increase the IGR may not be as easy as one may think. If it is done in places like Lagos, it will be pretty hard here. But, whatever is available would be spread across the state and not concentrated in one area.

There are complaints here and there that there is a dearth of teachers in the rural areas. What is your view about this?

There is a way out which I think government should consider. There is no area in the state today who cannot boast of indigenes who are teachers. Let them post the indigenes to their areas and see whether they would not stay. Indegenes of an area should be teachers in the area. They should make the community realise that ‘omo yin ni o!’ (he/she is your son/daughter, hold him/ her responsible.

You should be able to monitor his/her performance.) You know some teachers posted to far areas go to school only on Tuesdays until Thursdays. Then, by Friday, they leave their stations, comeback home till Monday then go back on Tuesday’s morning. I am aware that SUBEB has been taking actions to correct this practice.

But even then, the question is if there are some areas where teachers are not adequate and the teachers posted are not even going to the school regularly, that becomes a major problem. What does government do? I think government should in as much as possible use the vehicle of indigeneship to tackle the problem and ensure proper monitoring.

Talk of the continuity agenda of the government in Kwara, it is an opinion in some quarters that this position might be hampering performance of the present government. What is your take?

You know the philosophy behind this government is continuity. It has to complete the projects started by the previous government. Yes, there is this question of loans taken in the past that the present government has to refund and this has brought limit to what is available for the government to operate with.

But, even then, like any other state or country, government is run not entirely on fund vailable within the locality. It is run on assistance here and there in term of loan and assistance from overseas. I wouldn’t say the continuity philosophy has in any way jeopardised development. One beautiful thing about continuity is that we don’t have abandoned projects in Kwara State. This is not the situation in some states. In some state, one government leaves another one takes over and this one forgets about the project left by the previous government, it starts afresh. By the time he completes its own four years he would not have even completed its own projects. That is not the case in Kwara State. That is the beauty of the continuity philosophy of the government; we don’t have abandoned projects here in Kwara State.

But talking seriously, don’t you think low development in the rural areas occasioned by paucity of fund would tell during election?

Incidentally, it is not a matter that Peoples Democratic Party, PDP or any other party can say they want to exploit, because even in the PDP states, are they better in term of rural development? What programme does PDP have that is better than the All Progressives Congress, APC programme. As a matter of fact, when you talk of programmes, APC has a better programme for the people but this could be a trying period because of paucity of fund. So, the coming election is not one that PDP can claim any superiority in term of using programmes to woo voters.

Are you saying APC will gain wider acceptance at the 2015 election than PDP?

Yes, there are so many issues that have to be factored into what would happen in the forthcoming elections. There are so many things that have to be brought in. What does Jonathan want to tell the people that will make people to vote for him and not for the APC presidential candidate? He has been in the saddle for about five years. What impact has the Federal Government made in Kwara State for instance? What impact can people of rural areas in the state say the Federal Government has been able to achieve for them. So, what is going to be the basis for them to now vote for Jonathan.

What is your take on the politicisation of the appointment and installation of traditional rulers by governors?

Once you say traditional, leave it traditional. Let the kingmakers pick the candidate to be crowned the king. Whoever they pick should be acceptable to the people. In a situation that it is the governor that is going to approve, definitely you will not expect the governor to pick somebody who would not toe his party line. So, there is a problem. Whoever the kingmakers pick should be acceptable without the governor having to either reject or approve. This is because there is no way a traditional ruler will not be political when a governor approves his appointment and you know that the person who approves his appointment also has power to even send him on exile. The governor even also has discretion on grading of the traditional rulers. So, to me, bringing in the governor to the appointment of a traditional ruler no longer makes that office traditional. If you want to make it traditional, let the appointment of a king be as it was in the past. If you do that then, the king will enjoy the respect of all his subjects. The people will respect him and he will respect the people as well, because he will know that it is the people that appointed him and not an individual because that individual is a governor.