Oyo: Peace at last

By OLA AJAYI

The difficulties of the new administration in Oyo State were well articulated by the one woman who should know at the end of the first 100 days. The governor’s wife, Mrs. Florence Ajimobi, speaking at a thanksgiving service to mark the first 100 days of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN administration said: “Ordinarily, the beginning of everything is always challenging. But the first hundred days of this administration have been very challenging.”

Mrs. Ajimobi said she noted the challenges from natural disasters among other issues that encumbered the first days in office of the new administration. Though it was never expected to be easy given the milieu of violence and political antagonism that preceded the advent of the new administration.

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has predictably scored the Ajimobi administration low saying through one of its new groups, the PDP Synergy Group, that the ACN government is in slumber. It cited the administration’s difficulties in managing the Ibadan flood disaster as its yardstick.

The group in a statement issued by Prince Dotun Oyelade and Morounkola Thomas pointed at what they described as the the “callous neglect of flood disaster victims numbering over a hundred thousand across the state and in Ibadan” as a basis of their claim that the Ajimobi administration is without vision.

Senator Abiola Ajimobi

However, their claim remarkably is not wholly adopted within the PDP family given the other measure of performance by some PDP chieftains. Dr. Dejo Raimi, a staunch loyalist of the immediate past PDP governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala has cited the restoration of peace to the state as a notable achievement even going as far as disagreeing with the PDP Synergy Group as he maintained that Ajimobi was prompt in his response to the Ibadan flood disaster of last year. Indeed, the assertions of the PDP Synergy Group were countered by the Oyo Patriotic Front through its Chairman, Chief Lare Adepoju.

He noted: “It is unthinkable that these major actors of a profligate administration that ran Oyo State aground and left nothing but ruins could now constitute themselves into opposition and advocates of good governance,”just as he reminded the former governor and his cohorts that if they had performed wonders while in office they would not have been shoved out of office.

Adepoju said: “It is regrettable that Oyo, which had been ruled by the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Chief Bola Ige and Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, was relegated to a state where violence, brigandage and unprecedented corruption reigned supreme.

Indeed, peace which was almost totally elusive in the last four years of the PDP regime has been restored to the state. Not even critics and political opponents of the governor would disagree with the total peace that the state now enjoys.

“It is a big surprise that the violent activities of members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers in the state have been effectively tackled. For several years, the violent tendencies of NURTW members became an albatross for successive governments in the state.

“Besides the dividend of peace, the governor after some initial lethargy has moved on to the development of physical infrastructure and development of job creation schemes. About six months after he was inaugurated, the governor launched the Oyo Youth Employment Scheme popularly known as O-YES through which 20,000 persons were immediately recruited into various sectors of the state’s public service.

“A free health scheme has also been launched for all citizens of the state in the state’s health facilities, construction of a N2.13billion overhead bridge at Mokola Roundabout has been inaugurated, construction of a new five-star hotel to boost tourism was flagged off last week and with these the initial scepticism that almost clouded the initial euphoria of the coming of the Ajimobi administration has started to clear.

“It gives hope that beyond the remarkable peace that is the hallmark of the governor’s first year, that much more could come from the Ajimobi administration in its second year.”