In furtherance of activities reflecting the six years anniversary of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq in office, the Commissioner for Communications in Kwara State, Mrs Bolanle Olukoju, believes the vision of the Governor is for a new Kwara, which has manifested in various developmental strides his administration has undertaken. In this interview with AHMED ‘LATEEF, Olukoju is convinced that with the policies and level of development in the state, the people of the state won’t be cajoled to return to the dungeons in the next dispensation. EXCERPTS:
Q: His Excellency AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has spent six years in office as Governor. How has been the journey?
It has been 6 years of impact, innovation and transformation. His Excellency, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, is a man who had a vision of what he wants Kwara to be, how he wants to achieve that and he had road map. Of course in the first term, we were just taking a face but by the second term in the fifth year we have done a lot of remarkable projects; some uncompleted projects by the last administration were completed, while some were started afresh and some are in the pipeline.
Majorly, the roadmap to a new Kwara that is economically viable, a beehive for investors, and people can now talk about Kwara and be proud of the state because of the level of the development in terms of the policy, infrastructure development, healthcare, education, across the state. It has been a different ball game from what Kwarans were used to.
Q: Speaking of infrastructural development, truly when you go around town, you will see physical projects everywhere. But it is said that development comes with inconvenience. In what way has the government been able to manage the inconvenience that attended some of these projects, especially the urban renewal project?
There is no growth without inconvenience. People have to step out of their comfort zone to be able to see progress, and what is the inconvenience? We built up some places, took down some shops that were encroaching the setback of the road infrastructure in the state, and for some people, where we have their shops demolished, many of them don’t have the Right of Occupancy.
Everywhere in the world, the land belongs to the government and they can decide when and where to take the land from. Now, for some people, there was compensation because the kind of person His Excellency is, he cannot bear to see people suffer. We are taking away their livelihood, let us compensate them. So, some people were compensated and of course, the inconvenience has brought a lot of development. Now, urban renewal, if you look at it in terms of what it does, you have a road that has been there for the past 25 years, of course, there will be wear and tear.
You want to bring investors to a town and they are still seeing the same old structure. There is no difference. These things have a way of not giving the investors confidence about economic viability. Nobody wants to go out and put their money in a state whereby it is just going to be there. There is no improvement.
So, it was natural for us to do the urban renewal. Now, if you drive through the town, this urban renewal ‘inconvenience’, has brought confidence and security to people in town because crime spots have been turned into recreational areas and also some of them, we have built up walkthroughs. It is just that people are not used to change, that is why they are calling it inconvenience.
For instance, the Ahmadu Bello Way Corridor in Ilorin, we tell people we don’t want commercial vehicles there. But there are connecting routes where commercial vehicles can actually ply. If you go abroad, you will walk sometimes 200 meters, sometimes a kilometer to get to your next place. People don’t complain when they come back to Nigeria, and they do a lot of walking they normally wouldn’t do here in the country. Now, we are seeing in Kwara State. We can’t mandate everybody to go to the sports facility, but we can help you with your fitness plan.
Q: Are we saying that the present administration is positioning the state for economic prosperity?
Yes, we are positioning the state. We are getting there. Before now, Kwara used to be the civil service state because you just come to work, earn a salary, go home. Even the small businesses were not moving like that. But now, we are having branches of major telecoms.
We have manufacturing industries. We have a lot of industries come back, being revived here in Kwara and what does it do? The creative economy is being built up. We have an innovation hub that is the first of its kind in West Africa. And now we have countries who have already gotten spaces in place. What does it do? It means that a lot of their people will be coming into the state.
And once these people start coming in, we will have a boost in tourism. Because when you come to a place and work, you won’t sit in your house all day. You will want to go out. It is going to be a boost in the supply chain because they will buy from the market, local people will get something because there will be more buying and selling.
Even healthcare facilities, our healthcare facilities have improved by more than 100%. Kwara is one of the places that our primary healthcare centres are the number one across the country in terms of utilization. So, for economic prosperity, that is the dream. That is the vision, part of a roadmap of a forward-thinking Governor.
He understands that if I can make the state economically viable, there will be less demand on the government’s resources. So, the government’s resources are now used to do projects that will impact the life of a citizen. But you see, when you don’t have a state that is economically viable, that everybody has to take money, I’m hungry, money from the government, I need money, the government will get tired.
And if there is no money to build up, you will say, this person came and didn’t do anything. But all along, we have seen that every money being utilized by the government is to the benefit of the citizens of the state.
Q: Still on urban renewal. The government has erected walls along some areas within the Ilorin metropolis. Recently, a former Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Professor Ali Ahmad, reportedly said that if the opposition is opportune to come back to power, those walls will be pulled down. What can you say about that?
Let us picture the scenario. You have people who sell wares and where they are selling the wares, a car suddenly loses control and clears them, people will start to blame the government, they will say the government should have put up some barrier to protect the people.
Somebody says that if the opposition comes back and they are going to pull down the fences, nobody wants to go back to the dungeons. Nobody wants to go back to a place they wish they never went.
Look at what we have achieved in six years. In almost 16 years of the past administrations, what did they do? A lot of abandoned projects, roads they did and we had to re do. The bypasses they made, we had to work on them. Workers were not paid their salaries for months.
Who wants to go back to ‘Egypt’? Nobody wants to go back to a bad place. We want to move from where we are to a better place. It is just like the vision of His Excellency, the President of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
When he started this reform, people started to complain but today, look at it. He has paid back the loan from the IMF and what he did was to institute anti-inflationary policies that he put in place, stabilizing the Naira. Of course, forex went up, but we are able to get our foreign reserves. When you get foreign reserve, It builds up what you have at home.
Now, your people now have confidence in saying they want to come and invest in Nigeria because you have a stable financial forecast. Same thing in Kwara State. You look at Kwara State now, you see that this is a viable place to invest and put your money to.
If you were in Kwara in the last administration, drive through Ahmadu Bello Way, it was like any normal place. But now, you have some sanctity. Not only the Ahmadu Bello Way, we have the Sulu-Gambari Bridge now. We brought some aesthetics to the town. With those fences, people are not walking carelessly on the roads. Our roads are drive-free. So, why does somebody who claims to want better Kwara say that the good things they are witnessing now he wants to put a stop to it?
Even going forward, it is somebody who will consolidate on the good things that we are looking for, not just anybody who thinks that he will stop whatever good that has been happening to the state. Anyone who wants us to go back to where we are coming, we will sternly oppose such a person, who wouldn’t accept that for the residents of Kwara State.
Q: Can we say that Kwara State Freedom of Information (FoI) bill was transmitted to the House of Assembly under pressure to serve as face saving for the government?
No, the government is elected to deliver the mandate of its people, and that FOI is a law that every government is expected to abide by. But what we see here in Kwara is that it is used as a tool of witch hunting. People are trying to stampede public officials and to give them bad names.
FOI is not used to stonewall governments. What is it about? Freedom of Information. You ask for information, not to witch-hunt someone but because here in Kwara State, we run a credible and transparent government, that is one of the things we try to do when we are doing our inter-ministerial briefing. We open up and say, ask us anything, because we have nothing to hide.
I have been on radio programmes, oppositions will call, and they will ask questions and all. I often say that I don’t argue with people who don’t have facts. If you have your facts, bring them up, let us sit down and talk. The government will always work in the interest of the people but individuals or organizations should not use it as a tool of witch-hunting public officials.
So, my own take is that we are not under pressure. We are just doing the right thing at the right time, and nobody is going to push us to say, it is because we’re afraid of something. We are not afraid of anything, our books are clear, our accounts are up to date, and information is given out as and when to. So, we are not under pressure.
Q: Let us talk about government relations with the media in the state. How cordial is it?
When I came into the office and immediately that I got my portfolio, I sat down with my team and we drew a roadmap of what we want to achieve and what narrative we want to put forward. How do we want people to perceive the state and all of these cannot be possible if we don’t have cordial media relations.
So, what do we do? We have to sit down with the media correspondents and discuss with them in terms of media relationships and they said, they want more interface and they want much patronage from the government to allow them to tell their stories. This brought us to say they want to tell the stories about the government.
The government is about its policies and its activities. Why don’t we now have an inter-ministerial brief where each commissioner, head of agency, or a particular department who is receiving funding from the government, come and tell the media about their activities so that the media will tell the story the way they understand it.
We try as much as possible not to gag the media in Kwara State. That is why sometimes when we see some things online, in the past , you can’t come online and insult the government. But now, we allow people, we call it constructive participation. We all have our blind spots. Let us know, but in a way that is not detrimental, that will not stir any kind of fracas or cause any public uprising.
So, this is one of the things we were able to do and it has worked for us. So, relationship with the media in Kwara is very cordial.
Q: Let us talk about this issue of pensioners; they have been requesting an upward review of their pension. What is the position of government?
Yes, we are paying our pensioners as and when due, and I know a lot of them are clamouring for upward review. That will be in the purview of the Ministry of Finance. Because they understand when money is coming in, money going out.
If I say, this is what they are going to do, I might not be able to speak, because it involves number. But what I know is that when it comes to pensions, the government is up to date on the payment of pensions. We are able to clear some backlogs, because what we have now, even with gratuity, is more of backlogs, which the government is paying. One thing is that people want payment at one full swing. It is not possible. We have to do it in phases. So, payment of gratuity is done in phases. Pension is up to date.
We get the messages, people want an upward review, maybe in the near future we will look at it. But for now, we are trying to make sure that everybody old, or, pensionable gets their pensions, and their entitlement as and when due.
Q: It has been said that the majority of the Governor’s projects are concentrated in the Central, what do you have to say to that?
RAAMP’s responsibility is to deal with rural roads. The state government looks at traffic, usage and the populace. That is what they use to look at the usage of roads. Remember when I was talking about the urban renewal project, some roads were constructed during the time of Chief Obafemi Awolowo; several years ago, almost as old as I am. There is wear and tear but these roads are not fixed.
And the way the roads are constructed now, we are moving from the normal, asphalt-based roads to stone-based, because of durability, and long lasting. Now, some people say the roads are just concentrated in the state capital but the capital has to project the appearance of a state capital.
Now, if you go to Kwara South, roads are being done there. We have two major roads now that are going to open interstate trade. That is from Osun, to Kwara, going to Kogi, and Ekiti. It is undergoing construction. We also have the one that is going to four communities and the thing is these are only for Kwara South.
When you go to Kwara North, I was at Ilesha-Baruba recently to look at this road. Some roads have never been touched, but this administration is doing it. The reason people do not see these things, is that they don’t travel beyond the capital city. So, they just come up with conclusion. Ilesha-Baruba is about some four, five hours, from the capital city, how many people would actually go there, just because they want to go and investigate the road, No. So, they just assume everything is concentrated here.
Now, apart from roads, the 50 ton Shea Butter Factory is in Kaiama. On that project, we have both the WTO, World Trade Organization and the Nigeria Export Exchange with us on the project.
That project has a tendency to open up the landscape of those people. Our Shea Butter in Kwara is good grade but access is impeding the progress. So, how many people know about these things if we don’t talk about it in the news?
When you go to Kwara South, with the new Ministry of Livestock Development, they are planning to have, like a ranch, where we can do livestock production. Meat, that is the cow. We have goats. We have dairy products that are going to come from there. We are going to have the chickens, eggs. So, that is for the South. And one thing about the South is that the South is more of an agrarian community. Even when you want to plant, you don’t need so much fertilizer.
So, this goes beyond infrastructure. Recently, one of our private universities on boarded one of our general hospitals. Now, that hospital is being equipped. Everywhere in Nigeria, Teaching hospitals are always the best places to get treatment, because you have different specialists concentrated in one place. So for us, it is a plus.
Al-Hikmah too also is doing something with Sobi Specialist Hospital, that is the central. What are we trying to do? We are trying to make sure that it is not just infrastructural development. I can stay in Kwara today, and I can work anywhere in the world. When the innovation hub came up, people were not sure of what to expect. It is fully powered by the IHS Towers but it is an initiative of the Kwara State government. It only takes somebody with a vision to understand that the tech ecospace in Kwara is very large.
Now, we have people in tech whose turnover is in billions. These people are the ones who are bringing their communities. When I went for a programme launch, somebody said when they did the Google search, the tech community in Unilorin topped search. What does it mean? The tech ecospace, people are coming to embrace it in Kwara State. So, what I’m diversifying is that I’m not only talking about infrastructure, but talking about everything that has gone across the state.
Also for Kwara South, we have hospitals, we have roads, we have agriculture, we have solid minerals.
In the North, they have lithium, but in the South we have gold and the gold is not so deep in the ground, which means, with proper structure, proper management, it is a good one for us and the way Kwara State is blessed, is that in every single local government, there is something of export from that local government. So, we are not concentrating in the Central. It is our state capital, and it has to have the features of the state capital.
Q: Despite his impactful projects, Governor has remained a silent achiever, not the type that prioritizes commissioning. Why is it so?
Before now in Kwara State, we had an era of plenty noise, no work, and one of the things we try to turn around is that people believe when they can feel and not only seeing it, then it becomes believability. Now, His Excellency, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq believes in, progress, action, than for him to say, I will do, or I am doing.
Periodically, we give the status of projects so that everybody is going along with us. But when it is time for commissioning, it is a whole lot of funfair, monies are going to be spent, dignitaries will come around.
But the Governor feels, we can quietly commission, use the money, and put it into something else. People that voted for him, there was something they saw before they decided to say, this is the man we want. They have to feel the impact of what they voted for and how will he do this? Doing things that will actually resonate with them.
And what I will say is that every project in Kwara now belongs to all of us. It is our responsibility to sustain it. At the end of his tenure, he has created those projects. He will leave but we, who are residents in the state, are the ones using these projects and we have to sustain them.
So, I will tell every Kwaran, it is your responsibility, to make sure, every project constructed for us, is not destroyed, is used properly, and of course, we will become the ambassadors.
Q: The Governor has already spent six years in office. What should be the expectations of Kwarans in the remaining two years?
Kwarans, first and foremost, all projects we embark on will be completed. We are not leaving any abandoned projects. It will only get better because we are trying as much as possible to bring the kind of relief we want in the state. Relief cannot be quantified, by numbers or percentage. It can only be quantified, by how we feel and how we can say, this is about us.
