‘Ondo Must Get the Best Governor Now’
In a chat with reporters in Lagos, one of the leading All Progressives Congress governorship aspirants in Ondo State, Mr. Akinyinka Akinnola, said irrespective of what part of the state the next governor comes from, it must be somebody who can quickly fix
Why are you in the race for Ondo governorship? There have been a lot of developments in the country of recent. A wind of change is blowing all across the country and it is important that everybody should be part of this wind of change. I found that most of the time, people like me with exposure and experience do not participate actively in the affairs of this country but we complain loudest when things are not going well. It is for us to get involved to bring a change to the country.
Over 20 aspirants are jostling for the APC ticket. Many of them are not from Ondo axis. You come from Ondo West like the incumbent governor Mimiko. Will it be logical to have the next governor from Ondo when another Ondo man is just concluding a two-term of eight years even though he is in another party? The man on the street is less interested in where the governor comes from but more in what the governor is able to do to better the life of the common man. What is important is the passion, the commitment and the competence to do this job! Too many times we have been short-changed by the politics of placement and positioning which insinuates that there should be a direct benefit from the people of a particular area because the governor comes from there.
But the fact is that a turn by turn approach to governance doesn’t give us the best the state deserves. Let us look at it. There is representation for the wards at the local government, and for the local governments at the state House of Assembly. The governor does not represent any ward or local government. He is the governor of the entire state and is not mandated to represent any group or area, thus his origin is of no importance.
Ondo State is at such stage, where it needs somebody who has the experience, the exposure and the commitment to put things in order. I believe the people of Ondo and indeed Nigerians generally are getting more and more enlightened in this regard to the effect that what is important is the competence and ability to deliver.
If elected governor, you will be coming in at a time revenue is at an all-time low. What would you do to ensure governance does not suffer? First of all, success in governance, like any other human endeavour, is determined by the quality of people you have in charge. I will build a team of competent people with more experience and knowledge than myself in their chosen field of endeavour. We have all had experience in the private and public sector, confronting problems and proffering solutions . We are going to take our eyes off the federal allocations because that can hardly sustain us as it continues to dwindle, and concentrate on Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) through various activities and programmes.
The level you are now is where the delegates are kings. From experience, these delegates often don’t believe in the best man for the job. They go for other criteria in most cases. What would you do to make them yours at the primaries? First thing is that I am running on a platform that has democratic values. I mean my party, the APC. The delegate system now being adopted gives a wider voice to party members as it is more inclusive. We are engaging the delegates. A lot of them we have spoken to and interacted with and what I see is that people are beginning to understand that this is beyond a game of immediate gratification.
Everybody has been pushed to the level where they cannot fulfill basic aspirations or take care of the family and they are realising that it is time to bring in sincere and appropriate people into government. It is about building confidence and good relationship and we are developing this relationship with them every day and I’m confident that by the time we go for the primary, we will be in a position to appeal to a very large segment of the delegates to support us for the office.
The incumbent governor has different ratings among different people. Many people do hail his health programme, among other things. What would you do about these programmes if you get elected? And what do you hope to do differently? Continuity is the bedrock for growth. We’ll review all programmes we may inherit and certainly such programmes that are good and viable will definitely be sustained. We do not know the financial models upon which they are based but if these programmes are beneficial to the people and are financially viable in terms of sustainability, they should endure. That is my view regarding that.
As for what I hope to do differently, my experience over the last 30 years has been in engineering, infrastructure and manufacturing and that is what I really bring to the table here. My own task is to embark on industrialisation of Ondo State on a scale never seen before in this country.
Ondo State produces over 40 per cent of the cocoa from Nigeria and of course, we have timber and vast land for agricultural development. I shall concentrate the state’s resources first on these areas and ensure a calendarised programme that will encourage in-situ processing and thereby giving additional value to these items.
Eventually, raw materials taken out of Ondo State without any value addition will attract heavy taxation. This will encourage the setting up of industries and the resultant creation of employment. We shall develop and deploy an efficient inspection and monitoring mechanism for this. Also, the state has a comparative advantage for the setting up of location positive industries whereby the raw materials are domiciled within the state as a natural resource.
We have the glass sands in Okitiputa, we have iron ore in the Akokos, we have granites in the Iwaro area and so on and so forth. We will seek private public partnerships for the development of these resources also with the caveat of calenderised value addition.
We shall also take advantage of our geographical location and attributes. The ancient city of Owo and the city of Ore are respectively key gateways to the Northern and eastern part of this country. We shall invest heavily in developing these areas as both transit and distribution points for goods, providing such infrastructure and services to encourage warehousing and inland port activities. All these shall create further employment and shall form the basis for government revenue through taxation.
As you are aware also, Ondo State has one of the longest coastlines in Nigeria, joining up with the Lekki coastline. Traditional commercial water transport routes from the colonial era to Lagos shall be revisited and developed as a means of getting produce out of Ondo more economically and safely. The whole riverine area is available for a major commercial fishing and fisheries enterprise and sea salt production. These are just a few of the programmes we shall be looking at.
Still on zoning, some persons have said every part of Ondo has qualified persons to govern the state and so their zones should also be given a chance. What is your thought on this? Ondo State is very rich in terms of human capital. From all over the senatorial districts, we have very competent people . The question is do all these people always come into government and compete? In a competition – which this exactly is – I don’t think anybody should be saying anybody from here is good or anybody from there is better or it should be reserved for anyone.
We should all come out and compete. The party delegates will decide who emerges at the end of the day and then the electorate will decide. Zoning, a lot of the time, doesn’t create an atmosphere, where the best can be produced. It doesn’t create healthy competition. And so without zoning, which is what the party is saying now that they are yet to adopt zoning as a formula, they are asking everyone to come out and compete.
The theme of your campaign is ‘less politics, more governance’, how did you arrive at this and what do you mean exactly? Of course, there will always be politics but what we are saying is that it should not be the main thing once we are in government. Governance is the reason people get elected to public office.
Some persons have said all Buhari is doing is waging anti-corruption war while neglecting other critical areas. Do you agree? Every government will have a primary focus. I do not see all the things that the president see and do not have all the information that the president and his ministers have. But let me say that corruption in this country is the single most destructive element to our growth and it needs to be attacked the way the president is attacking it. He has shown great courage and commitment by starting from his own historical base which is the army. He has shown enough commitment and I think he should be supported.