The candidate of the Labour Party in the forthcoming Ondo State gubernatorial election, Chief Sola Ebiseni, on Monday, criticised the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, over his silent position on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway in Ondo State.
Ebiseni challenged Aiyedatiwa to address the people of the state on the proper alignment of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway in Ondo State.
Briefing journalists in Akure, the state capital, on the preparation of his party for the election, Ebiseni noted that available maps of the alignment showed that the road may not appropriately traverse the Ondo coastal portion.
The former local government chairman said, “Incidentally, candidates of the leading political parties are from the coastal area of the state. Politics apart, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway by the Tinubu administration is the most visionary project for the people of the Niger Delta.
“The Ondo State portion of about 100 kilometres and longest shoreline stands to benefit the most, particularly in the area of coastal investments and management of coastal erosion, but available maps of the alignment show that the road may not appropriately traverse the Ondo coastal portion.”
Ebiseni explained that “all efforts by leaders of thought from Ondo State, particularly the people of Ilaje Local Government, to ensure justice have proved abortive.
“The Governor has been indifferent. I personally suggested to him since May to call a meeting to brief our people for representations like other states and communities to the Federal Government on the proper and beneficial alignment of the palpable tension all over the place.
“Our Governor is busy celebrating a kilometre of concrete walkway where a project that will enhance the establishment of deep-sea ports, coastal investments, redress the coastal erosion in Aiyetoro and other places, and impact our lives and civilisation for good is being allowed to slip by.
“We need a governor with the proper understanding and clout to make things work.”
While speaking on the chances of his party, the Labour Party, Ebiseni said, “The Labour Party is a household political party in Ondo State and indeed the first political party with the grace of being elected twice for governorship from 2009 to 2017.
“My Deputy, Dayo Awude and I were Commissioners in the government headed by Dr Olusegun Mimiko. Our campaign is woven around the achievements of that government in education, health, integrated rural development, and women and youth empowerment.”
Speaking further on the campaigns of the party, Ebiseni, who is also the Secretary General of Afenifere, Yoruba Socio-political Organisation, said, “We are not in the business of crowd rentals or preaching to the disciples by hauling our members in buses to Akure and end up persuading the converted; we are meeting the people where they are, and it is easy to remind them and point to Labour Party projects in their localities.
“They know that under the Labour Party government education was absolutely free up to secondary school level with the state government paying WAEC fees, which the present government refused to pay, resulting in monumental national embarrassment where WAEC had to withhold the results of children.
“We are reminding them that in the state university and Polytechnic, by deliberate policy, tuition fees were pegged at twenty thousand Naira compared to the sum of two hundred thousand.
“Our Mega schools are speaking for us and the students are not likely to forget that bursaries were last paid in 2016 At the end of the LP administration, parents will remember our free bus shuttles for pupils throughout the state and vote for us.
“Mothers won’t forget that their deliveries in our hospitals were free of charge compared with about N250,000 they are paying today. Our first-class mother-and-child hospitals and other health facilities in every ward and rural community are the only medical outreaches seen in most parts of the state.”
“Since our departure, none has been added to the modern markets we built in the crannies of the state, roads infrastructures, the University of Medical Sciences, and other first-class facilities attached to it like the Trauma Centre and Gani Fawehinmi Diagnostic Centre, all of which have become moribund in the hands of the present administration, are speaking for us.
“Incidentally, these projects are easily identifiable with their Labour Party orange colours. The people believe us that we will do much more knowing that we were part of the success stories The other parties have nothing to show except personal controversial records of their candidates,” Ebiseni said.
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