Democracy Day: There’s Little or Nothing to Celebrate in Oyo—APC Fires Makinde 

As Nigerians celebrate another year of constitutional democracy and civil rule, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has cautioned Governor Seyi Makinde against further parades of fake democratic toga and achievements that have been found to be far below expectations in the celebration of the first year of his second term in office, as doing so would be tantamount to rubbing salt on the injury of bad governance already afflicted on the people of the state.

In a statement issued on Tuesday and made available to journalists in Ibadan by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, APC regretted that Oyo State was lagging behind among its peers in the country in the areas of concrete developmental plan and execution, wealth creation, management of resources, probity, transparency, and value addition in governance, among other things.

“The first year of Gov. Makinde’s second term in office has been established to be a continuation of window dressing, ubiquitous noise-making, and grandstanding at the Agodi Government House as against the expected quality service delivery and building of strong institutions for democracy and good governance to thrive. Under the present administration, no key sector of the economy has received any fillip or boost, even as powers-that-be do not give room to openness, probity, and transparency to allow for objective and accurate public assessment.

“Gov. Makinde writes an examination, and at the same time, he marks his own script and gives himself marks. The extant law, which mandates the state to subject contract awards and execution to Due Process is not being obeyed in Oyo State, as everything starts and ends on the table of the governor. He gives contracts out first before involving the State Executive Committee and the State House of Assembly. He gets the lawmakers to make approval noise after he must have obtained and pocketed billions of naira in loans periodically.

“As we speak, nurses and midwives on the employ of the state are in industrial action, and there are indications that their doctor colleagues would soon join. This tells you that all is not well with the health sector, even if we do not want to talk about the rot in our public health facilities. In public primary and secondary schools, there are no adequate teachers as staff retire and japa without any replacement. In most government-owned secondary schools, there are no teachers to take core subjects such as Mathematics, English language, Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Principle of Accounting.

“In the Agriculture sector, Oyo cannot boast of any clear-cut achievement despite being blessed with vast arable land and human resources. Rather than encourage investment in agriculture and assist local farmers with modern technology and information, the state government is busy grabbing land and selling it to estate developers. In 2019, Gov. Makinde took N7.6b loans for the purpose of upgrading the farm settlements in Akufo and Eruwa but nothing has been done on those facilities five years after. Oyo is popular for no single crop, farm produce, or livestock.

“The traditional institution has been bastardised under the current PDP administration, while investment inflow is at its lowest ebb, resulting in a skyrocketing youth unemployment rate. The same PDP government patronised and empowered one Mukaila Lamidi, also known as the Auxiliary, only for them to sacrifice him after using his gang to unleash terror on the hapless residents for about four years in order to win elections and hold the state by its jugular.

“As if these were not enough, the Makinde administration has succeeded in strangulating the third tier of government. The governor left no one in doubt of his disdain for local government autonomy, and he does everything to frustrate efforts to make the 33 LGA’s in the state function as expected. This was evident in the sham called the council election, which they helped last month to the embarrassment of the good people of the state in the global community.”