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OYO State APC Chieftain, Barr. ADEBAYO SHITTU
He is one top politician everybody is talking about right now in Oyo State. This is because APC chieftain Barrister Abdur-Rahman Adebayo Shittu wants to be the next governor of Oyo State. And he has started intensive consultations with stakeholders across the state.
A few days back, City People spent quality time with him at his chambers in Mokola area of Ibadan and all we spoke about for close to 2 hours was the Oyo governorship race and why he thinks he is the best candidate. Below are excerpts.
You have come out to say that you are interested in the governorship of Oyo State. What inspired your decision?
My interest in the governorship is not new. I contested for the governorship of Oyo in 2011. I lost. It was under the CPC at that time. In 2015, I contested for the governorship under the APC. In 2019, I made an attempt, having bought a 20 million naira form.
I was unjustifiably disqualified by the then governor of Oyo State, the late Abiola Ajimobi, through the former National Chairman of the party, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, on the baseless ground that I didn’t do national service.
Interestingly, Ajimobi, who got me disqualified, also didn’t do national service. And yet he was given the ticket to contest for the senatorial election, which he lost. The governorship candidate they disqualified me for, so they could impose him, Bayo Adelabu, also lost the governorship. That was how the PDP became prominent in Oyo State. So, consistently for the past three or four election cycles, I have been contesting. In 2023, I also attempted, but Senator Teslim Folarin somehow got the ticket. So I had to withdraw for him.
This will be the fifth time, and the reason is my conviction that I possess something other governorship aspirants in Oyo State do not. And what is that? The training I got from the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the greatest Nigerian politician, regarding a more abundant life for citizens. That was the philosophy with which Chief Obafemi Awolowo engaged in politics at that time. He wanted to ensure that people saw the benefits of good governance. I trained directly under him in 1978 to 1983.
At that time, we had four cardinal programs: free education, free health services, integrated infrastructure and development, and full employment.
I still believe in these four cardinal programs. I have actually improved upon it, expanding it to seven cardinal programs, which I have produced as my current governorship electoral manifesto. If you look at it, no other aspirant has any such ideas. In fact, nobody has a manifesto other than me. A lot of people just want to be the governor. It’s the ego of being governor that inspired them. But I am inspired by the principles of life made abundant for the people. People deserve free education at all levels. They deserve free health services. They deserve full employment, and they deserve a government that cares for them in real terms. These are the issues. So I’m not new to aspiration for governorship.
How prepared are you now that the governorship race has become more competitive with the emergence of younger aspirants, compared to 2011 when you first contested?
I’m fully prepared to compete with everyone. If you talk about younger ones coming on board, I also came on board when I was much younger. I was just 26 when I came on board, but my experience has been like old wine in new bottles. I am telling you about the things that will benefit society: seven cardinal programs. Who else is talking about it, whether old or young? And who else is capable of doing it? Who has the experience to bring all these to bear on society? A lot of people are interested in political office to foster their ego. They think it’s a thing of enjoyment. We have not made all the new ones could make in politics. I’m not in politics to aspire to make any new name because I’m already well known, thank God. All over this country, I’m well known. Even in the press, I’m the most press-savvy. I’m the only one who is always at home with journalists because there is no question that I don’t have answers to. I’m very plausible in that regard.
Has your years of experience in politics changed your perspective about governance in any way?
My perspective about governance has not changed because society remains the same.
You are aspiring to contest under the APC; have you resolved your past issues with the leadership of the party in the state?
The greatest issue I have had in the party was with the late former Governor Abiola Ajimobi. He was the only one I had a problem with. And what was the problem? I can’t really say much now, because unfortunately, the man is dead now. And as a Muslim, I am not supposed to talk ill of the dead because he is already with God and he will account for everything he did. But whatever I’m saying now is only of historical value. In 2011, I was contesting under the CPC; he was contesting under the ACN at that time. I’m told that after our debates in press houses, he used to tell his followers that ‘Olorun lo yo wa ti Shittu ki se omo Ibadan, bi beko ko ba yo wa lenu’ (thank God that Shittu is not an Ibadan Indigene; if not, he would have given us a tough time). This means he appreciated the quality of my delivery in press conferences and debates. Because I was always ready, coming from the Awolowo background. He had to, with due respect, get somebody to write speeches for him. I mean, I didn’t need such a thing. When I’m going for interviews, a lot of people will say, ‘I hope you have known all the questions to be asked?’ I tell them I don’t need to know. I have answers to all questions. So, with all sense of humility, since he left, I don’t think I have a problem with anybody in the APC, in Oyo State, or at the national level.
How do you see the performance of the current administration, in Oyo State?
I must be fair to him; he has done well in two areas that I can remember. First is the abolishment of the one thousand naira terminal fees for secondary school students. That is a very commendable thing because, even though that one thousand naira was small, a lot of parents couldn’t afford to pay it. As a result, people had to be driven out of schools and all of that. The second area for which he should also be commended is infrastructure development. I recall, unfortunately, that when he came on board, the road from Ibadan to Iseyin had been abandoned after being awarded. So, people from my hometown, when coming to Ibadan, had to pass through a longer route via Ibarapa to cut through Iseyin, Igbo-Ora, Eruwa, and Ido before getting to Ibadan. He constructed that road. Even in my hometown of Saki, a 10km stretch of road within the town had also been abandoned after being awarded. He completed that road as well. So, I must commend him.
But having said that, I want to say with all due respect that his best is not the best for Oyo State. There is still so much to be done, and so much that ought to have been done has not been done. Let me tell you, we are in Ibadan, which is the capital. That is where he concentrates a lot of his work. But in areas like Ona-Ara, Oluyole, and Ido local governments, there are so many community roads that remain unattended to within town. In fact, there is a particular one in Ona-Ara which is being maintained by Engr. Dotun Sanusi, the owner of Ilaji Farms and Hotel. Ilaji is the one doing that, maintaining the road—a government road.
My answer to all that, by the grace of God, if I become governor, my first task is to set up a Greater Ibadan Developmental Commission to speedily attend to the infrastructural deficits within Ibadan. I promise to do that. I want to do that to accelerate the rate of developing Ibadan. Because Ibadan is our capital, everybody from everywhere in Oyo State lives in Ibadan. So, one evil done to an Ibadan resident is also done to every other Oyo State person. I mean, I have been in Ibadan for 47 years. I’m lucky that I live in the central part of the town. But there are many people who are not as lucky as I am, who live in the peripheral areas of Ibadan.
I would also tell you with all sincerity that I once attended a political meeting in Akinyele Local Government, and the community people told me that they are made up of more than ten communities with only one secondary school, whose roofs are dilapidated, whose infrastructure is dilapidated, and the government ought to have given them more schools, but the government has refused to do that. These are very important issues. Roads are very bad in Oke-Ogun.
Again, if you look at how the governor has treated the local governments: Local governments, who are supposed to be independent, just like the state, now depend solely on the state government. Local governments, who are supposed to use their monthly federal allocation to maintain their communities, find their monthly federal allocations being pocketed by the state government. And I’m saying it publicly; I have said it on several on several radio stations.
So, it’s not about blackmailing anybody, but about telling the truth—a truth that nobody has come out to deny. If you have that type of situation where local government councils are ‘incarcerated,’ as it were, then you cannot praise Governor Seyi Makinde unless you are completely ignorant of governance issues in the state.
As a fair-minded person, I will acknowledge the areas where he has done well. But I want to say, as I emphasized the other time, his best is not the best for the state. The state deserves much more attention.
If I may also tell you, perhaps because you don’t live in Oyo State, we have a situation where the governor wants to spend 63 billion naira to renovate a government house where he has not lived for six and a half years since he’s been governor. Renovate, not reconstruct! How do you explain that? Who is calling for such expenditure on a place he has not lived as governor? Which future governor will not be able to stay in the government house as it is today? And why does it require money that ought to have been spent on infrastructural developments throughout the state, including roads and schools and all of that? You know what that money can do. So, these are the issues.”
Don’t you think this your perception of the governor’s performance is political, because some people who felt you didn’t do enough also said the same thing about you when you were a Minister?
Let me tell you, as a Minister, I didn’t have the responsibility to build roads in Oyo State. As Minister, I didn’t have the responsibility to build schools in the state. These are the duties of the elected governor of the state: to build roads, to build schools, and to manage the resources of Oyo State from federal allocation, from internally generated revenue, and all of that. So, you can’t compare a governor with a minister.
And all these facts I’m saying, you can go and find them out if they are not true. I am a public figure; I won’t just talk carelessly. I want to be taken on the record, and I challenge anybody, not just the governor alone, to come and meet me in a debate on the way Oyo State is being badly managed. It’s only ignorant people that will think that ‘Seyi n se bebe, bebe ki lo n se’ when poverty, joblessness, and underdevelopment are still very rife all over the place.
