SDP will make Oyo LGs service centres — Gov candidate, Agboola

In this interview with GABRIEL OSHOKHA, the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party in Oyo State, Mogaji Agboola, says his administration, if elected in 2027, will make the state’s 33 local governments the primary centres of development and service delivery. He also outlines the party’s seven-point agenda, shares his thought on the current administration and promises to revive the state’s sports and extracurricular programmes

As the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party in Oyo State for the 2027 election, how ready are you to contend with the more established opponents in the All Progressives Congress, Allied Peoples Movement, African Demoratic Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party?

Well, I think, without attempting to analyse all the parties you have mentioned, we know the collateral damage that APM has. They used to be in the PDP, and APM is, as they call it, PDP-APM. So, they are also a new party trying to establish themselves, even though they were formed by the current governor of the state, who will be completing his two terms in 2027 and is seeking a third term through another proxy. We know that this is not something Oyo State people look kindly upon. The coalition that brought him to power in 2019 was also formed to end the potential third term of an incumbent at the time, which was Governor Ajimobi’s tenure, when he endorsed a candidate for his party, the APC. The other party you mentioned is the APC, which seems to be the ruling party at the federal level and is trying to bring in its own candidate. It will be their attempt to return to power after the Governor Ajimobi-led administration had gone away. But we all know the internal fractures within the party. These fractures are along many lines, involving the big players within the party who feel disenfranchised.

The ADC you mentioned is also a very new party, just like APM. But SDP is the oldest political party in Nigeria, as we speak. It is not new and is well known to everybody. In fact, it is so old that almost all the current political actors had their political teeth cut in the SDP. The current President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was a senator as an SDP member. The current Olubadan of Ibadanland, whom I respectfully refer to as Kabiyesi Rashidi Ladoja, was also an SDP senator. Our current incumbent, who has now formed APM, also contested under the SDP when he tried to start in the PDP and was not given a chance. One of our most successful governors in Oyo State, Kolapo Ishola, also came from the SDP. So, we all know the SDP very well, and we know how its previous actors have performed.

You said that APM is a new party, but it’s an old wine in a new bottle. Its governor, Seyi Makinde, has been in the saddle for the last seven and a half years. Will incumbency not count for the party?

Well, there’s a potential to think like that. But the incumbency is actually more of an albatross than something that counts for them. Oyo State people are very intelligent and dynamic. They are also very progressive in the sense that they do not want someone to perpetuate themselves and continue in perpetuity to lead them, especially when the leadership seems fraught with a lot of ill-advised decisions and directions that the state should not be taking. There are many projects that we can begin to analyse to show that the people are already disenfranchised and dissatisfied. So, the incumbency is more of an albatross because I struggle to see how APM can successfully defend the last seven or eight years of the current governor’s administration.

Some have said the governor has built roads and provided infrastructure…

(Cuts in) Well, the roads may count for something. I don’t know whether we would call them achievements because when we start to inspect them one after another, we have to ask: achievements at what cost and in what direction? Are those priorities properly placed or misplaced? Now, if we start to look at the things they point to as achievements, we may begin to ask further probing questions: at what cost? Oyo State’s debt profile right now is one of the highest in the entire South-West. So, what have the funds been spent on? You mentioned the Circular Road. I don’t know how many people ply it today, despite all the money that has been put into it. We are talking about the airport. Yes, the airport has gulped several hundred billion, if they will be truthful. They’ve revised the budget upwards multiple times. They said N52bn initially, but it is in excess of N100bn now.

We all know that airports do not add any commercial or economic value to a state without a plan. Is it meant to be a cargo airport or a transit airport for passengers? They’re not clear on that, yet they’ve ploughed all this money into it. We also know that the airport is owned by the Federal Government, not the state. Will the state recoup its money? How will that happen? I am not certain that the state government has currently enabled businesses to the point where we need either a cargo airport or a passenger transit airport, yet they’ve committed all this money to such projects. You mentioned all these other inner roads and connecting roads. At what cost? Some of these inner roads have created more problems than solutions. If you look at the Bodija-Isopako Road, they closed an important road that leads into an international plank market from February to July. And when it was commissioned and opened, it still wasn’t fully completed or motorable.

So, what will you do differently if you are elected governor of the state? How many points are we looking at in your agenda?

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We have a seven-point agenda, actually. Central to the entire agenda is bringing governance closest to the people through the local governments. We believe that it is only the local government that can address the plethora of localised problems that are unique to certain and specific areas. For example, the agrarian Oke-Ogun can never have the same problems as the cosmopolitan Ibadan city. So, if we don’t understand their problems, we cannot apply the same solution to everybody. I believe that central to our theme is to turn local governments into service centres that are able to channel the entire thrust of our administration to the people. Once we have that backbone, every other thing can ride through the local government services.

Education can ride through it. Healthcare delivery can ride through it. Support services for the agricultural community can ride through it. Infrastructure development and proper needs assessment can direct the infrastructure delivery that we are talking about. Youth empowerment will also be localised because the kind of skill sets required in every local government will be different. So, we can channel that through the local governments. More importantly, access to funds and funding for small and medium-scale businesses can also be localised through the local government services. The local governments would already know their people. They would be able to define their needs and provide the solutions they require.

How will you handle local government autonomy?

I think the incumbent governor has a complete misunderstanding of what local government autonomy means. I think he’s probably struggling with the fact that he would have to relinquish the wallet that belongs to the local governments to them, rather than the actual administration of the local governments. If we talk about coordination or the delivery of services, a state government can coordinate, suggest to and advise local governments. I think what is proper is to allow local governments that level of fiscal autonomy where they decide where their funds go, even if those funds are co-signed by the state. I don’t think the state has the capacity to tell local governments what they need, what they should have and what should therefore be approved for them. His opinion of what he has seen before and what he hasn’t seen before, in my opinion, is irrelevant in this matter. He should just listen to what the Constitution says: that local governments are designed to be autonomous.

A local government chairman should be content with being a local government chairman sometimes. And he should feel compelled and capable of aspiring to become a governor at some point, or even president. They shouldn’t be lackeys or subordinates to a state governor because they are the third tier of government, as enshrined in our Constitution. Maybe because he appoints the council chairmen and decides who becomes a local government chairman, he knows he doesn’t find the most qualified people to be there, so he doesn’t see how their value can contribute to society.

But with competent people at the helm of local governments, I dare say they are closest to the people and can deliver government services most effectively to them. So, it’s not lost on us that the governor may be worried about the wallet that is leaving his control. It’s why he holds that dim view of local governments.

As a socialist party, what will SDP do about free education, which was practically implemented by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the South-West?

It breaks my heart to announce that Oyo State, during the times of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Bola Ige, was one of the foremost educationally advanced states in the entirety of Nigeria. To now juxtapose that with our current position, Oyo State has become the most educationally backward state in the entire South-West.

Let us look at social welfare and sports. Oyo State used to be very strong in sports. What should the state expect from an SDP government?

Sports is a massive industry worldwide. Everybody knows that a club without a feeder system is just a training ground. We need to create a system that allows children’s abilities to be harnessed from primary school through secondary school and university, and then into the actual clubs run by the state. It wasn’t only Shooting Stars that we had in Ibadan. We also had Exide Battery Boys and Leventis United. Shooting Stars is currently being held together because it is sponsored by the state. Every country that excels in football builds industries and infrastructure around it. I would return Academicals to the institutions, and I would also bring back the Principal’s Cup, just as we want to reinstate literary and debate societies, extracurricular activities and athletics. These are things that can get our children back to competing and bring out the best in them from the primary school level, so that we can identify those who are truly gifted from a young age.For example, if we look at Jamaica, it is not a very big country, but it produces some of the greatest athletes in the world. They start from the primary schools, identifying people who are gifted and skilled and who have the physical attributes to excel. We all know that this is one of the cheapest forms of productivity because what they need is their body and a pair of boots on their feet. So, it’s not a very expensive venture to go into if only the state can look at it holistically, as we intend to do.