Open letter to Gov Makinde: This your Ibadan-centric orientation will haunt you
Ben GEORGE
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Your Excellency, you are not doing badly as governor, especially in terms of workers and pensioners’ welfare but governance is much more. It is not hidden you care less about other zones in the state, you dot on only Ibadan where you hail from. You over-concentrate developments in your Ibadan while other communities in other zones languish in neglect.
The unfortunate thing is that you don’t conceal your disdain for the people of the other zones, you persistently rub in salt to their multiple injuries, never caring a hoot what they feel. Today, you announce unabashedly to the world that you are committing over N100b to the Ibadan Circular Road, tomorrow, you boast that you are replenishing the fleet of cars of your monarch the Olubadan of Ibadan, the day after it’s the Ibadan Airport you are pooling billions in naira to upgrade, and the next day after it’s to make it public that you are voting another billions of naira to the rehabilitation of Ibadan intra-city roads. And on and on like that. It’s unambiguous your administration begins and ends with Ibadan. It was like that in the past too but it was not so damning obvious. You are availed with opportunity but you use it for your primordial whims and caprices without regards for the good of others. Your nepotism knows no bounds.
A visit to other zones will reveal the deep rot especially in respect of intracity and rural roads. Under your watch construction and rehabilitation of roads outside of Ibadan have been halted ingloriously. Roads are in dilapidated conditions with users persistently hissing and cursing. New areas are not being opened up with access roads as it used to be. Communities now construct culverts through arduous communal efforts, bridges are getting damaged without repairs. Potholes have taken over roads, with insidious effects on vehicles, accidents are constantly induced.
Your Excellency, state of infrastructures under your government is worse. Local governments that used to fill the gap have been put out of action by the abrogation of local government autonomy which came full circle under you. Councils ridiculously cannot construct culverts again. They have to look up to you, and usually in vain. Selective and occasional grading of roads and streams channelization are now being celebrated by communities. It’s so disgusting.
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This is not good. You feel you are a superhuman who can do all but you are despicably lopsided, harming the grassroots in no small measures. You stunt political evolution, you put a noxious bar on infrastructural developments, but most sadly Your Excellency is injuring yourself because all this will haunt you later. You throw peanuts here and there to others, calling it political dividends, you make promises of utopia every time about extending the gestures to other zones but never fulfilled. Last year you assured each local government would execute at least 30km road by August but none has graded 30km road! Your tenure is dotted with many unfulfilled promises. The few uninspiring projects local governments execute, you claim glory for. You ordered the 11 councils in Ibadan to purchase cars for the Olubadan but you will later appropriate the glory. You ignore cries for state government’s intervention from other communities. You use the silent treatment so effectively believing the pleas and hoopla would subside.
In closing l repeat that your Ibadan-centric approach to government will haunt you later. Everything is for a season. Governorship ends for every lucky chap who clasps it. I plead with you to have a change of heart and use your remaining two years to make other zones feel your impact infrastructurally real good.
