You are the Deputy National Chairman of your party. What prompted you to seek nomination to fly the flag of your party in the forthcoming election?
I was compelled by what I have observed as a clear lack of governance in Ondo State by successive administrations that have ruled the state. I have also noticed that due to the kind of misrule in the state, there has been so much poverty among the people of the state.
Our people have not been able to obtain the basic necessities of life for so long. For instance, the level of infant mortality rate is so unprecedented and it is becoming worse by the day. By virtue of my experience in dealing with the people as a grassroots man, I see poverty on a daily basis and feel so much for our people. Ondo State has gone backwards in virtually all areas of human endeavours, be it in education, health, human capital development.
The level of decadence is unparalleled. Many of these issues were addressed when the Labour Party was in power here in Ondo State but unfortunately, the governments that came after felt that the shoes left behind by our party was too big for them. From all that I can see, all residents of the state are eagerly awaiting the return of the party.
Considering the fact that the PDP and the APC are the dominant parties in Ondo State and you talked about your party having been in power before. How confident are you that you are going to win the election?
Like I said, the Labour Party took over the reins of power in Ondo State and I know that history will surely repeat itself again. I know that we can do it again. I am sure that the people of the state know what they want. If they are resolute, one million APC members and one million PDP members cannot stop them. It is all about the people and what they want. You believe that your party is the preferred party in Ondo State.
What the people are looking for is the party with the difference and I can tell you that the Labour Party has shown the difference. The Labour Party has shown capacity in the past. Like I said, if the people of Ondo State are tired of the sufferings that they are going through in the state; if the workers are tired of being owed their salaries; they are tired of epileptic power supply, they will vote for the Labour Party.
The APC and the PDP have zoned the governorship to the Southern district, are you from there?
No! I am not from the South, as a matter of fact, I am from the Northern zone of the state but I can dare say that the North where I come from did not finish its turn with the death of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu who has been succeeded by his deputy from the South. If that is the case, the other parties should have allowed the North to complete its turn but they have decided to pick from the South.
This in itself is some form of disruption. If that is the case, I can say that I have the right to complete the turn of the North. This they should allow to ensure that my area takes a single term left before power rotates to the South. There is nothing wrong with that. Meanwhile, this is a party that had governed the state before and we did very well.
When we were there, we produced a governor from the central district, specifically from Ondo town. If we can go for one term and make our people see what governance is all about. After that, we can then have an arrangement with our brothers in the South to take their turn.
Are you saying you are going to spend just a term if you are elected?
One term is okay but that doesn’t mean that I cannot go for another term if the people can see the impact of my government. If I do one term and in order to respect the zonal arrangement, we can then allow power to go to the South in the spirit of brotherhood.
In the end, the South too can do a single term and then the contest will now be free for all. By then, I can also go for my second term. That happened in Ekiti State before. The bottom line is not whether the office is occupied by anyone from the North or the South but what should be paramount is that the people of the state enjoy good governance.
You spoke glowingly about when your party was in power, the person who was the governor then was Dr. Olusegun Mimiko. Is he with the Labour Party as a member as we speak?
I can assure you that Mimiko is with us anywhere we are. I am sure that the spirit of Labour is with him. I have told you the reason he left the party in the first place. If you remember, he was frustrated out of the party by the antics of Adams Oshiohmole and his gang using the instrumentality of the NLC.
We are trying to address the issues that led to his exit and I can assure you that he will come back considering the fact that he is a welfarist and a populist. I am sure that he is with me in this cause.
What will form the basis of your governance approach if you are elected into office? I mean your primary areas of focus?
The issue that is seen to be clearly lacking here is quality and accessible healthcare to the people of the state. If elected, we are going to return the ABIYE initiative of the Mimiko administration. We are looking at the possibility of women going to the hospital to deliver their babies safely and free of charge.
We will even go further to ensure that the mothers go home with some other things after they have delivered their kids. I mean giving them things like towels, diapers and the likes. We are going to bring this initiative back. We are going to engage in a pre-emptive healthcare initiative.
Doing this, we are going to have mobile healthcare workers to go round the state. They are going to go round the communities both in the rural and city centres. This will be done to ensure that people don’t live with underlying health issues and when and where we have that, we deal with them on the spot. A lot life threatening ailments would be dealt with both at the rural communities and the urban centres.
We are also going to have a comprehensive approach to the curative aspect of medicare too. We are going to do all these without putting some financial burden on the people. We are going to fund all these with a tax system that would tax the rich and middle class to cater for the needs of the poor in Ondo State.
It seems your primary focus is healthcare alone.
No! Education is another critical area. Our belief is that healthcare is the primary need of man, without it one can’t do anything else. We are going to take education seriously. We are going to redesign our education curriculum in such a manner that it would suit modern day technological realities. We are looking at the possibility of a technological driven economy in Ondo State.
To do this, we are going to ensure that our pupils in schools are exposed to practical aspects of learning science subjects. We are going to achieve this using advanced, up to date text books for teaching our children. We will put in place a system that all other states will copy.
What about infrastructure?
We are going to engage in massive infrastructural development. Our towns and communities are detached from one another because of non-availability of connecting road infrastructure. When we get into power, we are going to embark on provision of feeder road infrastructure that will link all communities in the state together.
These roads will open up these roads and connect them to their main centres. When we get to power, we are going to ensure that we maximise the advantage provided by the recent concurrent approval given to states to generate their own power supply. We are going to invest in massive solar energy provision that will power the state. We are going to also invest in Independent Power Supply utilising gas too.
Don’t forget that our party has done something like in Abia where we are in control. We will do the same thing here too. It is a very good example that we are going to borrow from. We are also going to create industrial hubs across the three senatorial zones of the state. Each of the zones will have a business hub that will be primarily based on their comparative advantage. We will work closely with the Federal Government with a view to getting them to build a port at the Southern district of the state.
The idea is to make people and businessmen stay in Ore and its axis without necessarily coming to Lagos. We are already in consultation with businessmen in Alaba Market to consider moving their businesses to Ore when we come to power. We are already thinking of establishing a dry port in Ore. Doing this, we hope and we will be working on how to reduce the influx of people into Lagos.
(New Telegraph)
