A security expert and certified golden member of the International Security Association, Mr Jackson Lekan Ojo has called on the governor of the State Osun, Gboyega Oyetola to look inward and correct every other mistake of the past administrations. Ojo, who’s a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in an interview with some selected journalists, speaks on the current state of affairs in Osun state which revolves around the reversal of all except one (Opon Imo ; computer tablets) of the education policies of the immediate past administration of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. He also call on Mr Adegboyega Oyetola to with autocrmatic fiat expunge other policies that are not at abeyance with the norms in governance of Osun and Nigeria as a whole. At the national level ,Ojo advised President Muhammadu Buhari on what to do to win the ceaseless war against banditry, terrorism and insurgency in Nigeria. Enjoy!
Q. As an indigene of Osun State, what can you say about the performance of the incumbent Governor of the State in the last 15 months ?
Answer: I am not 100% in tune with the happenings in the state because I am based principally in Port Harcourt,in Rivers State. But I must tell you that almost on a daily basis I relate with people across Osun who gives me the day by day trend of the current situation of things.
From the feedback I have been getting so far I want to appreciate the governor Mr Gboyega Oyetola. I think one thing I know about him is that he is not a noise maker unlike many other governors in Nigeria. We have so many governors in Nigeria today who will execute a project of #10million and use #200m to get it advertised . Oyetola is on the contrary in this regard. He is not a noise maker or rabble rouser in governance. Quite cool and focus driven a person he is . For instance a lot of infrastructural development handed over to him uncompleted by the former Governor Aregbesola, are now being steadily and progressively being continued so as to get them completed anchored on the continuity mantra under which the administration came on board in the first instance.
Just few days ago I listened to one of his commissioners in charge of Works, Engineer Remi Omowaiye on TVC about strides that have been made so far and still being made in the area of road construction and infrastructure in the state in the last couple of months of Oyetola in office. That interview alone coupled with other daily gists being fed me with by my people at home gladdens my heart about oyetolas tremendous performances.
So far so good, I think he is doing well. On a personal note too just few weeks ago I also had a one hour interview programme on Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (osbc) radio where I advised the governor informally that he should try to carve a niche for himself by putting in place Programmes and policies that will endear him to people even after leaving office. For instance there are some policies he inherited from the former Governor Aregbesola which are not in anyway good at all and which as a matter of fact must not in anyway be allowed to see the light of the day any longer I’m Osun.
That does not mean that Oyetola is fighting Aregbesola by jettisoning or doing away with such abnormal policies which to a great extent are not people centred. If you ask me to rate Oyetola, So far, I will give him 70% and before the completion of the remaining two years in office, my rating and that of the generality of the people of the state must have been nearing 97%.
Q. Recently, Governor Gboyega Oyetola,among other policies of his predecessor in the education sector pronounced the abolition of single school uniform for all public schools. Many people saw it as a welcome Development while others especially those who are still loyal to Aregbesola saw it as political vendetta. What is your own view of this education policy reversal ?
Answer: Honestly, Aregbesola is somebody I respected and still respects so much .I did a lot of publicity work for him. I took many risks when he was contesting during his first tenure. I took one of the greatest risks of my life when he was contesting for a second tenure in office too Personally speaking n the area of publicity in both print and electronic media, I took many responsibilities for him even without his knowledge. I did it not in anticipation of any reward from him. I just did it because by then I saw Aregbesola as a Messiah for the people of Osun. Honestly, he did well. But at the end of the tenure, I developed a paranoid for most of his policies leading to my personal disagreements with him . However I kept quiet on some areas.
For instance I condemned him for not being able to pay workers salaries as and when due. I was not happy about it. I also condemned him because of many of his policies that lacked the needed human face for Osun people. At a point in time Aregbesola almost cut Osun state out of Nigeria due to his near of mot draconian policies. For instance there was no longer uniformity in the school children uniform until the recent reversal by Oyetola.
This was an abnormality of the highest order. As a security expert nationally and internationally , I saw the many dangers in doing that and I counselled him to Know that there is no where in the world where such has happened and it will never happen .
Secondly, do you know that it is only in Osun State in Nigeria whose official normenclature is quite different from other states in Nigeria.? For Gos sake what is the State of Osun?. If i were the president of Nigeria, I would have made sure Osun State is not paid its allocation from the monthly federation account because of this abnormality in the official normenclature different from that of other states in NIGERIA.
Again look at the local government structure. It is only in Osun state that we have parliamentary system of govenment at the local government level. Is this the norm in the remaining 35 States on Nigeria where the local government system is structured in a parliamentary way and governed by ordinary counsellors during which one of them in a given local government will be chosen as the Chairman and others go about parading and acting like parliamentarians . So funny and unheard of !!!
In Osun state today, with this so called parliamentary system at the local government level of administration nobody is contesting election as a local government chairman. All of them contest election as councilors. At the end of the day, the government will pick one of its known politically favoured ‘boys’/ girls” to be the parliamentary leader who goes about enjoying all the perquisite office as the Chairman .
Let me ask you ,what is the monthly and annual revenues being generated by Osun state? What is the statutory allocation from the federation account for Osun state that will make a given administration like that of Aregbesola to go the extra mile of creating additional LOCAL GOVTS that go by the name local council development areas?
The only state that could do that conveniently in Nigeria is Lagos state.
In fact all these policies to me as a matter of fact, are giant abnormalities which again should be corrected by Oyetola very very soon. We can’t wait to see such political courage and genuineness of intention put in place to right the many wrongs still in place in Osun
The then state house of assembly members were single handedly put in office one way or the other by the former governor and that was why , whatever policy he brought before them ,it will receive an automatic consideration and eventual approval. Aregbesola made them to become rubber stamp law makers without an iota of any personal or official legislative will of their own.
So left to me & people across the globe, we are all applauding the current governor over the entire reversal of the education policies .
However we still want him to do more. He should particularly reverse the name of the state of Osun back to its originally official toga of OSUN STATE. We are Osun State and not State of Osun. Ours alone can’t be and should not be different from others in Nigeria
Q. But some people in Osun have a contrary view saying it is a way of abolishing the legacies of Oyetola predecessor.
Answer: Okay good. For instance if you are my friend or let me put it this way if you are my father and you used to engage in the plantation of Indian hemp, which is against the law and after a while , I now inherited that farm from my father and I decided to be a good son by not planting Indian hemp again but chooses to plant to grow plantain, banana, yam, orange and other things, does that mean I am against my father?
See! Aregbesola is not the owner of Osun state neither is Oyetola. Both will be there at a certain time to govern the state on behalf of the people. If I hear that Oyetola today insulted Aregbesola or go to destroy Aregbesola’s property in Osun State, I will now know that it is a personal vendetta. If it is an administrative vendetta that will favour the populace, so be it. I can not say because you are my father and i will continue to build on your illegality or bad governance in the present circumstance as exemplified by Aregbesolas style of leadership .
Q: But people are of the view that the incumbent governor was part of the team that formed the decision then. If he was not satisfied by the decision, why didn’t he speak out at that time ?
A: As a chief of staff, you are not part of the decision making organ of the government. You are just a head of a personal staff to the governor. Some governors can do without the Chief of Staff. My houseboy can not be part of decision making processes in my house. No matter how close he is to me. Is he my wife or my son? No! We might be too close. He may meet me in my bedroom and said Oga do you see this thing. He can’t say this thing you are doing is bad.
So to me, a lot of people are not happy with developmental projects of Aregbesola yet he took Osun to a higher height. But in the area of policies, it was an abnormality. To me, I expect Oyetola to reverse all these abnormalities little by little.
Q: But Sir, don’t you see this reversal of a thing as a clog in the will of the party’s success in the future gubernatorial elections especially for Governor Oyetolas second term ambition because majority of APC members, especially those that are loyal to Aregbesola see it as a way of setting their boss against the populace?
Answer: Do you know our problem in this part of the world? Our problem is that, we have blind loyalty. A lot of people under Aregbesola were not comfortable. Aregbesola is an autocratic leader. He believes that he knows better than anybody in this world. A lot of his loyalists are not happy with so many of his policies yet they kept mute so as not to “offend” him.
Q. They said Oyetola didn’t deem it fit to consult his predecessor before taking this decision. What’s your reaction on this ?
Answer: When Aregbesola was there for eight years, did he consult Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola whom he took power from ? No!
There is the Law of karma everywhere. If he consults him, must Oyetola go to the media to say that? If Aregbesola will frown at these education policy reversals by Oyetola, let it be. It doesn’t matter. It is an official matter.
Q: As a security expert, insecurity has beclouded the country over the years now. What are the causes and the way out?
Answer. The power to fight this insecurity, I am not seeing it in this government. At the initial stage of this administration, the military base was shifted to Maiduguri. That was when they were ready to do something. Now, you see a lot of lackadaisical attitude of the military fighting the war. There must be surveillance to detect the secret of boko haram. Federal Government should monitor the military men that are fighting to know if some of them are sabotaging the war. When you are not building the morale of the men fighting the war, how do you want them to fight the war wholeheartedly? We know that Boko Haramites are in sambisa forest, why can’t they destroy the forest completely ?. The chief of staff, the chief of naval staff and others dont have anything to offer again. When you are seventy, you can not run a hundred metre race like a secondary school student.
Q: What then is your take on the persistent calls for the sack of the current service chiefs by Nigerians?
Answer. In Economics, there is what they call the law of diminishing return. 20 years ago in Port Harcourt, if I see a man with a V-boot Mercedes Benz, I would regard the man as very rich. But today, if you give me a V-boot as a gift, I won’t accept it because its outdated and not in Vogue again.
What I am trying to say is that there is time for everything in life. General Tukur Buratai has come and he has worked. At the beginning of his military career as the Chief of Army Staff, Buratai relocated the headquarters of the Nigerian Army to the center of the war. At a particular Christmas, he went to wine and dine with the soldiers in the war front just to give them the needed impetus and zeal.
Nobody is saying Buratai is not good. He has tried his best but his best is not enough for us now in Nigeria especially in this all important fight again the insurgents . He should be dropped alongside other service chiefs in NIGERIA. If Mr. President loves Buratai so much, he can make him the new Minister of Defence. In the war front, however, Buratai is out of place now. He is like an old fashioned Mercedes V boot example I earlier cited as a corollary to drive home my position.
Q: What should the security agencies do to win this war against insurgency?
This is the first time I am going to say this. A lot of us have seen what is going on wrongly. Nigeria should stop publishing and advertising the kind of weapons we have in our arsenal. There must be internal mechanism to monitor the military through a telecommunication system.
They can bug all the army personnel in the system that are going to the war front because I believe that some of these khaki boys at the war front may have one form of sympathy or the other for the insurgents . It could be religious sympathy . It could be tribal sympathy and it could be social sympathy with the Boko Haram members. How is it that when you have planned that you are going to bomb Borno and before you get there, the Boko Haram is already there laying ambush?
Q.Recently, Southwest Governors unvailed regional security network popularly called Amotekun with a view to combating Kidnapping, banditry and all sorts of criminalities in the region , what is your take on this sir?
I support Amotekun, I have expressed my feelings earlier. I am one of the first security experts that said Amotekun is very good but they should make sure they back it by the law of the various states in the south west. I said it on National Dailies , I said it on Radio Nigeria Network News more than four times.
For now there wouldn’t have been reason or purpose for Amotekun if the security situation in the South western part of of the country was like how it used to be in the time past.
A situation where my mother was sick and I told her I was coming home to see her and she told me she would die before I come because of the fear that I may be kidnapped. Can you imagined that it is up to that level in my own town of Imesi Ile? There was a day I think some Fulani people went to kidnap about 14 people if not for the quick Intervention of of Hunters in my town who went to repel and set those people free, it would have been in records again that 14 persons were kidnapped in Imesi ile . What business are they doing in Imesi ile than only farming? If people could no longer go to their farms then what are we talking about? The people there would die by hunger .So it happens like that. It happens in Ondo. It happens in Oyo State .It happens in every part of the south west and the people of the south west and governors of the South West must have lost confidence in the security apparatus of the federal government and that is what gave birth to AMOTEKUN.
I think the idea of amotekun should be given a global applause . I commend the initiators.
Thank you.
