All Progressives Congress (APC) governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, in this interview with journalists, narrated how he succeeded in the consensus arrangement that made him governorship candidate of the party for next year’s election, among other issues. STEPHEN GBADAMOSI presents excerpts:
Q: This is the first time we will have a consensus arrangement in the All Progressives Congress (APC) where all the tendencies within the party are saying it has to be you. How did you achieve this?
Gov: Well, thank you so much and before I answer that question once again, thank you for the honour of your presence in Ekiti State. I’m happy that you are here to see for yourselves what we have been able to do in three years. What happened today is historic. In the history of this state –we are 29 years old as a State –,no democratically elected government has been able to pull this kind of feat. There has been no time that a government succeeds itself.
Q: How will this impact on next year’s election?
Gov: By God’s grace, when we win next year June, we’ll be the first government that will run back to back. We have had governors that have spent two terms, but usually they will lose an election, leave and then return back to office. And that has been the bane of our development, because there is always policy truncation, you know; when a government comes, it abandons the project and policies of the former. It will start its own, and it will spend four years, it will go, another government will come.
Q: How has that impacted the state?
Gov: When we were fighting for this state, by providence, I was the secretary of the committee for the creation of Ekiti State; I was a very young man then, I was 26 years old then. I worked with the founding fathers of the state and I sat at meetings with … I know their desire for Ekiti. I know the visions of the founding fathers of this state and there’s no politician in Ekiti State today that has the kind of experience I’ve had in public service.
Before I became governor, I’ve put 11 years into public service. I started as a Senior Special Assistant, I later became a Special Adviser, and later became the Chief of Staff to Governor Niyi Adebayo.
We left in 2003. And then Dr Kayode Fayemi came in 2010. So, there were seven years hiatus. We came back in 2010, and I worked with Dr Fayemi for four years. I served in three different capacities – Commissioner for Integration and Intergovernmental Affairs; Head, Office of Strategy and Service Delivery, and Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning.
The government lost re-election in 2014. In 2018, Dr Fayemi came back and I was appointed Secretary to the State Government, So, I have seen governance at very close range and those two appointments as Chief of Staff and SSG made me to work very closely with the two governors. I’ve seen them taking decisions and facing the consequences.
So, I cannot claim not to have the experience when it comes to governance. I told myself when I got to this seat, that ‘look, all these mistakes they’ve made, I have to avoid them’. It was intentional on my part. I also discovered that the former governors don’t have good relationship with one another. When former Governor Segun Oni was governor, we had a meeting in Ilupeju, and I told him, ‘Your Excellency, why don’t you do something like the Council of State, like an association or a forum of former governors to meet quarterly?’ He said he would do it, but he didn’t do it. I’m going to do it in my second term.
Q: How will that be achieved?
Gov: We are going to send a bill to the House of Assembly that will make it mandatory for any governor to have such a meeting once in a quarter. So, when I became governor, I made up my mind to be at peace with everyone. Governor Fayose did something that shocked me: his party contested against our party. The day I won, he called the candidate of his party to congratulate me and that he should also write a letter of congratulation and he should not go to court. He did that. This same Kayode Ojo took me to court on pre-election matters, it ran to the Supreme Court. Engr Segun Oni took me to court; it ran to the Supreme Court. For two years, I was in and out of courts.
So, if Fayose had added his own to it, I would have had three cases. At a point, I had 35 court cases. So, I went to him and said, ‘why did you do this?’ He said ‘look, I am now matured and now I can rise beyond politics and be a statesman; you deserve every support that you can get’.
Q: So, now, what’s your relationship with those former governors?
Gov: I just respect them. If they want to see me, I go to their houses. I don’t allow them to come to my office. I call them, I check on them. If they have social functions, I go there, that is all. But people assume that maybe I’m giving them money. No. it’s not like that. Even if you give money and you don’t respect them, you know, they will just take the money and they will not support you. But it has got to a point now where I can pick my phone and call former Governor Fayose or call the wife; it’s that kind of relationship I have with them and I also have relationship with their children. So, we are members of the same family, and the people are happy for that, we are able to plan our life, people are able to sleep with their two eyes closed. There is no tension in town, there’s no violence, you know and everybody is happy, and the state is better for it. So, it is just mutual respect and understanding.
Q: There’s been clamouring in recent times for reserved seats for women generally in politics. What are your plans for women ahead of 2027?
Gov: If you look at our record, we are one of the best in the country when it comes to gender equality and affirmative action. We have the highest number of female in the House of Assembly in the country today.
My deputy is a woman, my Head of Service is a woman, the SSG is a woman, Accountant General is a woman, and Accountant General for Local Government is a woman. We have so many women serving as Councilors, vice Chairmen and Chairmen of Local Government Councils. So, maybe you have one or two states that could beat our record.
So that is the tradition I met on ground because my predecessor’s wife, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, is a gender activist. So, we have a strong structure to protect the rights of women. But it should go beyond political appointments and elective offices. There are also spaces for those of them in the informal sector to ensure that we provide resources for them to support their businesses, and to support their trade. So in every area, in every department of government, there’s a desk for affirmative action.
But for the reserved seats, you know that depends on the National Assembly. If I am going to tell you the truth it’s going to be a bit tough, but we must have to keep the conversation ongoing.
Q: We have gone around and we have seen your efforts in terms of road infrastructure and health. But one area that Ekiti State is known for is agriculture. What are you doing to leverage on both the weather and the landmass, especially to help youths and the economy of the state?
Gov: When I asked whether you have gone outside the town, I wanted to know whether you have visited our agric belt. You know, agriculture is one area that we have invested so much resources and Mr. President has been supportive. In the last one year, we have been able to pull from the streets to the farm 5,000 youths across 13 clusters in the State. We clear land for them, we give them improved seedlings, we do tractorization, we do land preparation, land development, and we also set up an aggregation company to buy from them.
We have now scaled it up to also building what we called the Renewed Hope Farm Dormitories. If you go to Ikere –I don’t know why you didn’t get to one of them –the dormitory is built as hostels for male and female, security house, they have a kitchen, they have a common room, there is internet, there is DSTV for their comfort. You can decide to stay on the farm for three to five days and you will not miss anything in the city. We provide buses and provide security for all the clusters, we are doing this in partnership with the Local Government. It’s something I’m so proud of, because there’s no kind of formal employment that you can pull 5,000 people off the streets at once. The governor of Edo State, His Excellency Monday Okpebholo has commissioned a road project and one of the dormitories.
We have done six dormitories across six clusters in the state. Our intention is to scale it up to 16, because we have 16 Local Government Areas; the challenge they are having presently is having to commute to the farm everyday, which is not good for them, but now they can sleep over. They are making so much money and they are happy, and I am so excited.
Q: How do you navigate the influence of political godfathers while maintaining autonomy in governance? Also, this state is known as ‘Fountain of Knowledge’, how are you ensuring that public education matches this reputation in terms of quality and outcomes?
Gov: To your first question on godfatherism, I think I have been lucky a bit with that, because in Ekiti State, we don’t have a history of a predecessor lording it over his successor. We don’t have that history, and do you know why? Because we never had continuity. How do you talk to a man who doesn’t belong to your political party?
The closest we’ve had was Governor Niyi Adebayo and Governor Kayode Fayemi, not because they succeeded each other, but because Otunba Adebayo brought Dr Fayemi to Ekiti. But Governor Adebayo left government in 2003 and Governor Fayemi did not come until 2010. So, it was actually Governor Segun Oni that left before Governor Fayemi came in. Immediately Fayemi became governor, Adebayo left the State. I was in that government, he did not come back; in fact at a point, people were insinuating they were quarreling and when I asked him, he said, ‘look, I have given you someone that can be Governor, so why should I disturb him? Let him run his government’; and when he came back, the same thing happened. I worked with Governor Fayemi as Secretary to the State Government; in fairness to him, when it comes to policy options and everything, he doesn’t disturb me at all, except I call him and I ask him for his advice.
So, we don’t have that, and when he asked me to come and run, he did not give me any condition. He didn’t say ‘you have to do this for me’, he doesn’t disturb me at all, you know. Yes, there may be political interests, people going to him to ask him to talk to me for appointments, but those are things you can manage, but with respect to a predecessor lording it on his successor, we don’t have that problem and I was telling Edo and Kogi Governors yesterday that once I leave as a governor, I will just allow the Governor to run his show. Having faced these troubles for eight years, one should go and rest.
Q: This state has the slogan, the ‘Fountain of Knowledge’; how are you ensuring that public education matches this reputation in terms of quality and outcomes?
Gov: Coming to education, our strategy, just like you said, we pride ourselves as one of the most educated states in the country; we have the highest PhD per capita in the country. There’s no household in the state that doesn’t have a PhD holder, but are we still that strong? No. And for us, the reverse is the trend. We made up our mind that we need to strike a balance between what you teach, how you teach, and where you teach. I believe that those three issues will be extremely critical to the future of education. What you teach refers to the currency of the curriculum. How current, how relevant are your curriculum? How you teach refers to methodologies of teaching, the conditions of the teachers and other staff; are they happy with their welfare? Where you teach refers to the environment itself; is it inviting and conducive?
So, our policy in education is to address all those gaps and we are doing that at the primary school level now through UBEC, but we don’t have that structure for our secondary schools and one area that, by God’s grace, that we are going to put attention on in the second term is secondary school education, because I’m not happy with the state of our secondary schools. There’s no structure at all to renovate them; we concentrate on primary schools –and secondary education is so critical. You cannot have a good primary school and a bad secondary school. Once we strike a balance between the three issues of content, welfare and environment, the outcomes will be okay. The outcomes will be okay.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Gov. Oyebanji.
