Author: oduduwanews

The Chief Press Secretary to Governor ‘Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, on Tuesday, flayed Senator Teslim Folarin, a governorship aspirant on the platform of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, for claiming that none of the opposition party’s gubernatorial aspirants is as worse as Makinde.

Adisa, in a statement in response to Folarin’s attack on Governor Makinde, said that the Senator “dished out lies about Makinde” while declaring his governorship ambition at the APC Secretariat in Ibadan.

The governor’s aide, who wondered why Folarin turned an event designed for him to declare his 2023 governorship ambition into a fiesta of lies, said the Oyo State electorate would not fall for the lies of APC chieftains, including Folarin, against Governor Makinde.

The governor’s aide declared that it was laughable that despite the massive infrastructure development, improvement in the education and health sectors and other efforts of the Makinde government in the last three years, Folarin could still say he was coming to rescue Oyo State “because every tangible project in the state was done by the previous government.”

According to Adisa, rather than Folarin articulating details of his agenda in comparison to Makinde’s globally acclaimed Roadmap to Accelerated Development of Oyo State, 2019-2023, he only marshaled a couple of lies, which insulted the sensibilities of Oyo State residents across the five zones of the state, who have continued to laud Governor Makinde for good governance in the state.

Adisa, however, commended Folarin for telling residents of Oyo State what they already suspect; that governorship aspirants in APC were bad products, as according to him [Adisa], there is no basis to compare Makinde with any of them.

Adisa said: “We have read with amusement words credited to an Oyo APC governorship aspirant, Senator Teslim Folarin, that he is coming to rescue Oyo State and that none of the aspirants in the ill-fated APC, Oyo State chapter is as bad as Governor Makinde.

“Indeed, we must commend Folarin for letting the Oyo State public know that governorship aspirants in APC are bad products. However, there is no basis to compare any of the APC governorship aspirants with Governor Makinde.

“Nobody can compare light with darkness. In three years, Makinde has done what the APC government failed to do in eight years; building over 500 kilometres of road, putting in place a free and qualitative education system, improving the health and security sector and all that.

“Senator Folarin was also credited to have said that all tangible projects in the state were done by the previous government. This is an outright lie and we are sure that the people of Oyo State do not need such a lie. The people will not fall for cheap lies and deceit.

“It is easy to ask whether it was the previous APC government that built the 65 km Moniya-Iseyin road, the 45km Saki-Ogbooro-Igboho Road, the 12km Awotan- Akufo concrete road, the 38km Oyo-Iseyin road and the 76 km Ogbomoso-Iseyin road, which are at various stages of completion as we speak.

“The people will also ask whether it was the failed APC administration of 2011 to 2019 that built the magnificent Bus Terminals at Ojoo and Challenge as well the Terminals at Iwo Road and Old Ife Road, which are nearing completion.

“It can be seen that Folarin has not been in touch with the reality in Oyo State, he thus needs to connect with Oyo State people and his followers, who could tell him the state of things regarding infrastructure development under the Makinde government.

“He needs to at least be conversant with his local government, Ona-Ara, where massive developments are ongoing. He needs to be told that in his Ona-Ara Local Govt of origin, the Makinde government is building the 37-kilometre Akanran-Olorunsogo-Dagbolu and 21 Ajia-Airport Road with spur to Amuloko and the two will be commissioned shortly.

“In order to end his apparent lack of information or is it denial of reality, we will volunteer to take the senator on a tour of tangible projects across the state, from Moniya-Iseyin Road, to Asipa-Sabo-Gedu-Oroki Road to the Saki Township Road, and also visit ongoing road projects in Oyo-Iseyin and the 76-kilometre Iseyin-Ogbomoso roads and end the trip in Ona-Ara.”

Adisa warned Folarin to stop his unnecessary obsession with attacking Makinde, urging him to focus on how to convince his partymen in the APC to accept him as candidate despite his undemocratic credentials.

“We urge Folarin to focus his energy on convincing those he met in APC, when he defected from PDP which he ruined with his undemocratic tendencies, rather than inciting the people and engaging in baseless conspiracies against a government that is delivering good governance,” the statement added.

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan said on Tuesday that the Senate will intervene in the lingering dispute between the Federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) by bringing back the two parties to the negotiation table.

Lawan made the promise to the officials of the National Association of Nigerian Students(NANS) who were led to his office by a concerned Methodist Bishop, Dr. Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha.

The NANS President, Sunday Asefon who spoke for his other colleagues lamented their continued stay at home and disruption of their academic programme and urged the Senate President to intervene in the dispute between the Federal government and the University teachers.

Responding, the Senate President expressed unhappiness about the turn of events, recalling that the Senate had intervened in the past before everything broke down again.

He however promised that the Senate would wade in again and expressed optimism that the issues would soon be resolved.

“You are in the right place. We are going to intervene. We will make concerted and sustained efforts to bring back ASUU and the Federal government to the negotiating table so that we are able to resolve as quickly as possible those issues that are now very knotty and have stopped our Universities from reopening, that is now making our students walking the streets all over the country.

“But I want to appeal to you too, since we are going to make effort to bring back everybody back to the negotiating table, you should give us a chance to do that believing that we are going to find a solution because it is not only enough to bring them back to the negotiating table, but we will participate and I want to make sure that we find the solution when we start the negotiation again.

“Now that you have come here, we are going to make sure that everybody in this sector especially those in public sector who has responsibility and mandate perform their functions. We will make sure they do that.

“Because you have come, I think we also have some tonic enough in us. Time is of essence and we must do whatever is necessary to get this issue resolved.

Also responding to the threat by the students to distrupt political activities, Lawan appealed to them to continue in the path of consultation and avoid confrontation.

“I want to also advise, I don’t think it will be necessary to distrupt political activities. We shouldn’t do that and we don’t need to do that.

‘What we need to do is to continue to follow the path of consultation, consolidation and avoid confrontation. It is when you emphasise consultation, it is much easier for us to find something that you can consolidate.

“Your prayer that you want the Federal government and ASUU back to negotiate and resolve the issues. We have taken this prayer. We have endorsed it and we will work for it as quickly as possible.

“It is an opportunity for me also to appeal to ASUU to suspend this strike period because there is no way ASUU can negotiate with the Federal government when it is on strike. So it is an opportunity for us to have them, at least create a window, suspend the strike for a certain period and let us see how far we can go.

“I want to be very positive that we are going to resolve this issue as soon as possible by the Grace of God,” Lawan said.

The Senate President said the 2009 agreement which is the Crux of the matter was not properly thought out before it was signed.

“Somebody just wanted ASUU to go back to the classroom and just signed everything there.We must understand that there are things that when we promise we should do, we must do,” Lawan said.

The erstwhile PDP Senator representing Oyo South Senatorial District, Sen. Kola Balogun has alleged that the Light Up Oyo Project is a scan that was set up to serve milk the resources of the State dry and serve the personal interest of some few individuals in the state.

He made the allegation yesterday at an event organised to formally announced his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). “They claimed they are lighting up Oyo State with streetlights. Ask them, whose company is selling the diesel they use to power the generator they use to run the streetlight. They are just serving their personal interests,” he said.
Senator Balogun also berated the PDP-led administration, under the leadership of Governor Seyi Makinde, for the pervading high level of insecurity in the state.

He alleged that hoodlums have taken over Oyo State, maiming and killing recklessly and unchecked, especially in the Ibadan metropolis. Senator Kola Balogun also described his defection from the PDP to the main opposition party in the state as a journey back home.

He said he did not defect to the APC but “came back home” and appreciated President Muhammadu Buhari, the APC national leadership, the state chairman of the party, Mr Isaac Omodewu and other party executives and leaders for accepting him back to the APC fold. “I didn’t decamp into the APC. Rather, I came back home. I went to the PDP on sabbatical,” the senator representing Oyo South Senatorial District said on his speech.

Speaking on his sojourn in his former political party, the PDP, Senator Balogun said he helped to secure victory for the party in 2019, when its ticket was not attractive to anybody.
“The senatorial ticket the Oyo PDP gave to me was fake, ‘gude’. Everyone else they gave it to rejected it. I accepted and secured victory for the party. Now they are making a useless case out of it,” he said.

Senator Kola Balogun was joined in the defection by several members and of his political team, the MKB Gladiators, and supporters in his former party to the APC.
Prominent among those who defected with him are Prince Adeniran Adeyanju, chairman, Providence Coalition Nigeria (Ibadan North Local Government); Alhaji Teslim Omilabu Gandhi (former chairman Ibadan North), Alhaji Adebayo Aruna, legislative aide, National Assembly (Egbeda) and Hon Adeniyi Ajani Possible, former House of Representatives aspirant (Ibadan North).

Others included Dr. Kayode Hamzaat- Legislative Assistant (Ibadan North West); Akintoye Akinyemi, a former member, Governing Council Alayande College of Education (Ibarapa Central); Hon Adebowale Adeyoju, aspirant, House of Assembly (Ibadan North) and members of the Itesiwaju Oyo Group, represented by their president, Comrade S.O. Olawale.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has picked the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

A northern group picked the forms on behalf of Jonathan at the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Abuja, on Monday evening.

He took over power when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in 2010 and contested the 2011 election, which he won.

Jonathan is yet to announce his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC.

He lost his reelection to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and acknowledged defeat before the final collation of the election results.

Daily Trust reliably gathered that two influential governors from the northern part of the country are behind the return bid of Jonathan.

Multiple sources, who are in the know, said the two governors, close to Buhari, have secured the buy-in of a section of the presidency to actualise their agenda of drafting the former president into the presidential race.

While one of the governors is from the North West, the other is from the North East geopolitical zone.

The two governors have been playing key roles in the affairs of the APC in the last few years.

Earlier in the month he told some of his supporters who were insisting he should declare to “be on the watch”, a disposition political pundits described as acceptance.

In the last seven years, the former president has not been attending activities of his party. This is just as his romance with President Buhari and top shots of the ruling party takes the centre stage, a development that has pitched him against opposition leaders in the country.