Senator Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi came into power in 2011 and remained in office as the Executive Governor of Oyo State for the next eight years. He was the first to break the jinx of becoming a two-term governor in Oyo State. It must be noted that the second term win of Senator Ajimobi came on the back of the disunity of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ajimobi was only able to win 36.8% of the total electoral votes. So, 63.2% of Oyo State voters voted against Ajimobi.
However, as we approach the election year, politicians will begin politicking and some of them will attempt to force their version of history on the rest of us. Therefore, it is important to write an article like this. Note that this piece is not an attempt to smear a dead man’s name; rather it is a shot at looking at the facts as presented by the realities of the times in his administration and document how the decisions of his administration impacted the state – especially as he had dubbed himself the Architect of Modern Oyo State. This piece is about the Ajimobi most of us remember.
ECONOMY
What is a state without a viable economy? Anyone who claims to be the architect of a modern state ought to build such a state on the foundations of a solid economy. The Ajimobi we remember did not lay such foundations for the economy of Oyo State. No strategic structure was put in place from which a modern Oyo State could emerge. The IGR of Oyo State in 2011 was 8.92 billion Naira. And by 2018 it was 24.64 billion. This means that in total Oyo State’s IGR grew by below N16 billion in 8 years under Ajimobi. You will better understand the wasted potential when you juxtapose this with Oyo State under Governor Makinde. In just 2 years, Oyo State’s IGR grew by N15 billion despite a pandemic. This means that while Ajimobi increased IGR by an average of less than N2 billion per year during a time of economic boom, Makinde increased IGR by over N7 billion per year in spite of the economic downturn of COVID-19.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Infrastructural development in the 8 years of Ajimobi administration was riddled with projects awarded but barely completed. The last administration barely scratched the surface of infrastructural development in other regions of Oyo State outside of Ibadan. The Ajimobi that we remember awarded infrastructural contracts at outrageous prices without any tangible returns on those contracts.
For example, the 110km Ibadan Circular Road, awarded in 2017, was broken down into 3 phases. The first phase of 32 km was awarded for N67 billion to be built within eighteen months and delivered in December 2018. However, when Seyi Makinde paid an unscheduled visit to the project site upon assumption of office in 2019, the contractor claimed to have spent two and a half years clearing the bush. They were allowed the time to honour the contract, the deadline was even extended by a couple of months, but ENL Consortium could not deliver up to 3kms out of 32. The contract was terminated and re-awarded.
This is not the only infrastructural project fraught with this kind of story.
The Idi Ape-Basorun-Akobo-Odogbo Barracks Road was also awarded in May 2017 for N7.1 Billion. This included the construction of a flyover bridge at General Gas. The contractor had been paid 30 per cent of the contract sum upfront and they ought to have completed the project in January 2019. The project was never completed.
While work on Idi Ape-Basorun-Akobo-Odogbo Barracks Road was rewarded for non-performance, the Ajimobi we remember went ahead to rename the road after himself. This project is now complete. Ditto the General Gas Flyover. The termination and re-award of the contract saved the state close to N400 million while delivering quality construction for the benefit of the state.
The 65 km Moniya-Ijaiye-Iseyin road was another contract awarded by the Ajimobi administration. The contract for “limited rehabilitation” was awarded at the cost of N7 billion. Due to non performance by the contractor, this contract was also terminated and re-awarded for the sum of N9.92billion. This time, it was re-awarded for a proper, extensive reconstruction. The design was reviewed to accommodate a better drainage system for the road, there was also an increase in the stone base core from 150mm to about 200mm; the asphaltic wearing was increased from 40mm to 50mm. As of the time the contract was revoked, N2 billion of the N7 billion that is over 25% had been paid upfront by the state to the contractor while they had barely done 5% of the job.
Yet another infrastructural development blunder that we will remember Ajimobi for is the dualization of the 9.7km Saki Township Road along Oke-Ogun Poly-Ilesha-Ibariba Road in Saki awarded in 2016. The abysmal state of the road was captured in Seyi Makinde’s words: “I came here during my campaign and wore white cloth. By the time I finished, it turned brown.” On Sept. 9, 2020, the contract had to be revoked for underperformance. At the commissioning of the road on Thursday, 27th January 2022, Makinde made it known that the state was able to save over one billion Naira from the initial contract awarded by the previous administration.
HEALTHCARE
The Ajimobi we remember spent billions of Naira in acquiring 32 Tricycle ambulances and two buses to provide “emergency services” in the “modern society” he architectured.
When Seyi Makinde came into power, he reported that less than 10% of 721 primary health care centres were in goodshape, one then wonders what the “architect of modern Oyo State” did regarding primary health care for the period of 2011-2019 apart from commencing a health insurance for the people.
For the eight years of Ajimobi’s tenure, state-owned hospitals were in a poor state. The Adeoyo Maternity Teaching Hospitals were a shadow of themselves.
Interestingly the so-called Maternity Hospital which Ajimobi built and also named after himself, The Abiola Ajimobi Mother and Child Hospital, was never equipped. The abracadabra commissioning was done with “borrowed” iron beds. Today, the hospital has been upgraded, equipped with the latest laboratory technology in modern disease detection and control and renamed the Infectious Disease Centre, Olodo
WELFARE (PENSIONS, GRATUITIES & SALARIES)
The Ajimobi we remember paid salaries plus 13th-month salaries consistently for 2 years between 2011 and 2013. He abandoned Oyo State workers at the first sign of trouble. From 2014, Ajimobi started owing civil servants salaries. In fact, as of September 2014, Governor Ajimobi administration claimed they were paying the civil servants in “alphabetical order” while some were paid, others were owed. This continued throughout his tenure. As of May 2019, arrears of accumulated “percentage salary payment” (January 2016 to December 2017) of LAUTECH Ogbomoso Resident Doctors were still being owed.
As for gratuities and pensions, outstandings to people who had served the state for most of their adult lives were left unattended. In the eight years of the last administration, outstanding payment of gratuity and pensions amounted to N56 billion. In fact, in 2018, the Oyo State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners filed a suit against Sen. Ajimobi and others over unpaid N42.3 billion pensions and gratuities to its members. This liability inherited by the present administration came to N56 billion in unpaid gratuity to pensioners.
The Ajimobi we remember was cruel to pensioners. When he met with them over unpaid pensions he told them that it is the responsibility of their children to take care of them. Eye witness accounts relate how he asked them in his characteristic brashness – “Don’t you have children to take care of you?”
CONSTITUTED AUTHORITY
We will never forget that fateful day when Abiola Ajimobi asserted himself as the “Constituted Authority” to students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso and threatened that he could keep the school shut down indefinitely and nothing would happen.
The school had been shut down at the time because the two state governments that co-owned the school at the time could not properly fund the institution. Lecturers were being owed and their strikes became a recurring experience which left many stuck in the university years after they should have graduated.
And when the students took a protest to the governor’s office, Ajimobi denigrated them for having the audacity to speak up against oppression. In a viral video, Ajimobi asserted that “even if he owed salaries…the fact remained that he is the constituted authority,” and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He said, “Your school being locked for eight months is no big deal. Is your school the first to be locked, if this is how you will come to talk to me, go and do your worst, I dare you.”
Or have we forgotten in such a hurry how Ajimobi is the architect of the ongoing impasse that disrupted the easy succession of a new Olubadan? Was it not Ajimobi that reviewed the Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration of 1957 to allow Ibadan have multiple Obas? Was he not the one, in an attempt to decimate the powers of Olubadan without deposing him, who made the members of Olubadan-in-Council, Obas and provided them beaded crowns?
SECURITY
Many Ajimobi supporters will hail him for restoring “peace and security” but this is just another whitewashing. They will say he put Alhaji Lamidi Mukaila aka “Auxiliary” in prison forgetting that the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) were not the only security challenge Oyo State was having at that time. Do they think we have forgotten that the then governor appointed “Fele” in place of “Auxiliary” and ‘Tokyo’?
Have we forgotten how the NURTW continued to cause mayhem in Ibadan as Tokyo and Fele boys clashed. Can we not remember the Agbeni area clash of 2014 that left 6 injured? Are we going to pretend the cult clashes which became ‘normal’ in the Oke-Ado area leading to residents even moving out of the area did not happen during the years of “peace and security” of Ajimobi? What about the clashes in Isale-Osi, Born Photo and Gidarami areas of Ibadan in 2017?
All right-thinking people will rightly remember that the farmer/herder crisis that led to people from Ibarapa abandoning their farmlands all happened under Ajimobi’s eight-year tenure. Was it not under Ajimobi in 2018 that a reconciliatory meeting to reach a truce on Farmer/Herder crisis was held in Eleyele, Ibadan and yet Ajimobi never attended the meeting?
The fact is that peace and security is relative. When compared to the Akala era, Oyo State was “peaceful” under Ajimobi. Also, when compared to Ajimobi, Oyo State is “peaceful” under Seyi Makinde.
As 2023 approaches, we must completely reject any attempts at gaslighting the people. Let anyone who wants to run for elections run on their own true records and merit. This brainwashing propaganda must be completely rejected. Every man will be remembered for his works. Of course, the late Abiola Ajimobi was not a total failure but he was far from the saint he is being made out to be. The people of Oyo State rejected him completely and totally when he manifested his true colours to them. The man has taken his bow from the earth but his deeds speak and we shall always remember these things.
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