Ismail Omipidan is the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Osun, Adegboyega Oyetola. In this interview, he spoke about the July 16, 2022 Governorship poll in Osun, insisting Governor Oyetola did not lose the election but that he only lost the vote counts.
How has it been in the last three and a half years?
Governor Adegboyega Oyetola came into office in November 2018. He came in at a time when nobody really gave him a chance. There were few issues that heralded his election, especially issues of salary payment, reclassification of schools, single uniform, among others. Owing to the fact that the Mr Governor came on board at a time when the country was facing economic downturn and when Osun in particular was financially challenged, a lot of people feared and felt he would not perform and have difficulty meeting government’s obligations like payment of workers’ salaries. But thankfully, three and half years down the lane, and up till this morning, we are not owing any worker a dime. We pay salaries as and when due, and we also pay pension and gratuities to the retirees on a monthly basis. In addition to that, we have invested heavily in infrastructure, despite paucity of funds. It is on record that the Oyetola administration has done over 500 kilometres of road construction and rehabilitation across the State. The interesting part is that some of the critical roads we reconstructed are roads that had been neglected for 20, 30 years.
For instance, in Osogbo, there is the Alekunwodo network of roads that we constructed in less than two years when we came to office. As a matter of fact, we fixed that road during the peak of COVID-19, and you know the pandemic also came with its own challenges; it affected businesses, and even our ways of life. Ordinarily, if we were to be a government that is not serious and responsible, COVID-19 was enough excuse for us not to have done a lot of things including fixing the Alekunwodo roads but we did it. Another major road that we fixed is the Ede/Ara-Ejigbo road. That road is located in Ede Federal Constituency and in the political history of Osun, that constituency had produced three speakers of the State House of Assembly who served for a cumulative of 20 years. We had Adejare Bello who was in office for 8 years, Najeem Salam for 8 years, and Professor Mojeed Alabi for 4 years, making a total of 20 years.
We also reconstructed the 13.15km Ada-Igbajo Road, which was last touched about 33 years before our intervention. There are other critical roads that we have fixed; the Moro-Yakoyo road that was last touched 44 years ago, Ejigbo Township Road, Gbongan Township Road, among others.
But what I keep telling people is that we were to accomplish all these because of the ingenuity of Governor Oyetola and the fact that he prioritizes his expenditure and is extremely prudent with the resources of the state.
If your governor has done all these, how come he lost the election, is it the party’s internal crisis, or do you think people didn’t want oyetola back?
I think there are a combination of factors that led to the outcome of that election, and I will not want to ascribe to the fact that we lost the election. I think what we lost is the vote count; I want to put it like that.
In 2018, only about 254,000 or thereabouts voted for Governor Oyetola but in 2022, more than 375,000 people voted for him. If you do the calculation, he got like a 50 per cent increment in the number of votes he got 4 years earlier. So, would you say such a person is not loved by the people? For me, I think there are other factors, which can be attributed to the outcome of that election, which I would like not to mention here because the case is already in court.
And if you look at the conduct of the election, you will agree with me that the usual tension and anxiety and desperation that usually accompany such exercise was nowhere near the Osun contest and that is largely because of the personality and the character of my boss, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola. I won’t want to go into details that may be responsible for us losing the votes count because the case is already in court and I believe we will emerge victorious in the end.
But many won’t agree with you that the vote count was responsible for the APC’s loss.
If you look at the margin, it is not large. It is 28,000 and that was exactly the margin from Ede North and South local government areas. We have filed a petition at the Tribunal, and we are challenging the results in over 700 Polling Units across ten local governments. I will leave the tribunal to do their work and I’m convinced beyond reasonable doubt that with the votes we got, we shall come out victorious by the end of the court process.
What do you think about Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and your boss not reconciling?
I can only speak for my principal and won’t be able to speak for Ogbeni Aregbesola. If you know my principal very well, you will know that he is a very peaceful man and he loves peace. If you look at the way he governed the state, you will realize that in the history of Osun, this is the first time a governor will be in the saddle and for close to four years, no strike or protest was staged by either the workers or students. Apart from the national protest like the ENDSARS, we have never had any protest, industrial or labour dispute in the last 3 and half years. That will tell you about the man and his
character. He is peace-loving and will do anything to ensure peace reigns. He has done that in the APC but you know you cannot force an unwilling wife to stay when she has probably made up her mind to go.
I will give you an instance. When the APC was conducting its membership revalidation exercise, the committee started with President Muhammadu Buhari. After that, they came to Ila to do for Chief Bisi Akande being the first interim National Chairman of the party. After Chief Bisi Akande, because they were in Osun, they did for Mr. Governor and his wife. When they were done, the Governor deemed it fit to invite his predecessor, Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to come and do his, the governor proposed two days to him. It was not as if I was told, I was there when my principal was talking to him. Mr. Governor proposed a Monday date and he said he would be traveling with the president to either Katsina or Kaduna, I can’t remember now and Mr. Governor proposed the next day, which was a Tuesday and he again said he would be traveling with the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed to Kwara. But he promised that he was going to inform Mr Governor 48 hours earlier, anytime he was going to come and do his own. Unfortunately, we never got the notice. The only thing we got is that one Friday, we heard he was in Ilesha and he was saying they were trying to block him from doing his registration. The next question I asked was, “by who?” This was a man Mr. Governor spoke to personally and they had an understanding that he was going to give 48 hours’ notice for us to get prepared and receive him so he could do his own re-registration. What we got from him is that he was in Ilesa and saying it publicly that they were trying to block him for revalidating his membership of the party. I’m just giving you that instance to allow you and the reading public to judge who – between the two of them – is prolonging what looks like a crisis. My principal is not quarreling with anyone. My principal has no issue with him or any other member of his TOP group. And all through the APC congress and governorship primaries, my principal said it publicly that the door of reconciliation was widely open but we must be genuine in our intentions. Because there’s no point constituting yourself into an opposition and you keep saying that you are in that party and you want to work for the party. We all knew the role each and every one of them played in the last election. What plans are you putting in place to restructure the party so it won’t lose the general elections?
Mr. Governor said from day one that there will be a need to carry out some reforms in the party. But not the restructuring some of our brothers and sisters are talking about. A house has been built, you deliberately set fire on it, but by divine providence, you did not succeed in bringing down the house, and you said you want to restructure, which house are you restructuring? The one that you set on fire? In any case, the constitution of the party is very clear, those who have been elected into leadership positions in the party are allowed to run for four years. How can someone who did not work for the party, someone who did not mean well for the party and who continues to constitute himself as opposition to the party be saying he wants to restructure the same party? It is not done anywhere. If they are seriously genuine about remaining in the party, they should just come back home, apologize for their wrongdoings, so they can be re-integrated back into the party.
What do you have to say about people who think Oyetola is too calm to be a politician, and that is why he lost the election?
If your definition of a politician is someone who believes in violence, lies and propaganda, then I tell you that Oyetola is not your kind of real politician. With my association with him in the last three years, I have come to realise that you can be a politician and still be true to your conscience. You can be a politician and still govern with the fear of God. That is what has happened as far as governance is concerned under Oyetola. Continue Reading
