In October 2020, Members of the House of Reps from Ondo State paid a courtesy call on Babatunde Fashola who was then Minister of Works and Housing.
The purpose of the courtesy visit was to lobby for inclusion of roads transversing Ondo State in the 2021 budget. In the course of the meeting, a member of the delegation remarked that Buhari’s government was yet to execute a single project in Ondo State after over five years in Office.
In his vexed response, Fashola identified construction work on the Ogun State section of the Benin/Shagamu road as a project in Ondo State to the bemusement of the delegation.
I know this because I was working at the National Assembly at that time and I participated on the sidelines of the process. After eight years of Buhari’s government, one could not identify any infrastructure project that was executed in the entirety of Ondo State. Eight years! Nothing in the South, Central or Northern district!
Has Ondo State fared better under President Bola Tinubu?
The resounding answer is YES.
Within the two years and three months of Asiwaju Tinubu’s government, the following projects are being executed in Ondo State;
1. Reconstruction and dualisation of Akure—Ado Ekiti Road
2. Reconstruction and dualisation of Ore—Akure road.
3. Reconstruction of Ado—Ikare Akoko Road
4. Construction of sections 3 & 4 (Ondo State section) of the Lagos—Calabar coastal highway.
5. Award of contract for reconstruction of Ilesa/Benin road through Akure and Owo in Ondo State.
6. Approval of a Medical School and Teaching Hospital for the Federal University of Technology in Akure
7. Approval of the establishment of Aviation College in Ondo State.
8. Currently Ondo State has two substantive Ministers in the Federal Executive Council supervising two important ministries.
I expect that the road from Owo to Kabba or Okene in Kogi State will be added to the list of projects in the next budget.
Given this plethora of achievements in the state, should campaigning for the re-election of President Tinubu be difficult? Should we be having difficulties selling a candidate whose good works are cogent and verifiable? Like they say on the streets of Oke Aro, the woman who sells hot Akara and Agege bread does not need to shout at a construction site. A good product sells itself. And that’s the lot of President Tinubu in Ondo State.
Now if the foregoing is the case, what then is the issue in Ondo State APC? If all parties profess love and support for President Tinubu, why then are laundries being done in public? What are we struggling over that cannot be settled? Will the ongoing furore bring us better dividends? Aren’t we undermining ourselves to the chagrin and bewilderment of our adversaries?
While writing this paper, my attention was drawn to a news report of the recent stakeholders meeting called by the Governor of Ondo State where he reportedly stated unequivocally that re-electing President Tinubu should be the number one goal of the party and that all stakeholders must set aside individual interests to achieve that goal. I would have thought that Governor Lucky’s submission provided a platform for all members of the party to set aside whatever differences they might have to achieve a common goal. If we are still warring after that appeal, then we need to explain to party members what the war is exactly about. Do we have other interests outside President Tinubu’s re-election? Are we unaware that our individual aspirations can only be realized within and after President Tinubu’s re-election?
Dear leaders of APC Ondo State, do you have anything to profit in zero? I beseech you to please call your ‘boys’ to order and refrain from this path of assured destruction. And to APC youths, you are all losers in this war. Stop lending your pens to the destruction of a house that will be your inheritance. Remember that the party called PDP was once the hotbed of internal rivalries. You can see what becomes the situation of that party today. Learn, dear brothers and sisters, learn from the downfall of your neighbors.
Samad Orijeminiyi writes from the FCT, Abuja.
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