- The gubernatorial candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Oyo state, Mr. Michael Lana has attributed the slow pace of development in Oyo state to misplaced priorities.
- The former attorney general stated this while featuring on AIM FM TV politics show tagged Politics Today.
- Michael Lana berated the past Oyo state governors, insisting that the time has come to go back to the old principle of ideology where governance will be felt in every household.
The gubernatorial candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Oyo state, Mr. Michael Lana, has berated past and present Oyo State governors, accusing them of producing poor citizens rather than prosperous ones.
Speaking on Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Aim FM & TV on Wednesday, the former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice said there is the need to change from the present system that lacks ideology which is full of misplaced priorities, insisting that the time has come to go back to the old principle of ideology where governance will be felt in every household.
According to him, “Ogbomoso has the biggest mangos, and there is no factory there, when Governor Ajimobi was in power and he wanted to do the fly over at Mokola, he said 3.3billion and I wrote to him two or three times that the fly over at Mokola is not the major problem of people in Oyo State, our problem is getting food on our table,”
“Imagine the 3.3billion is divided into three and put a factory of #1.1billion in each of the three senatorial Districts, at least a business of that time will consume not less than 3000 graduates,”
“This are the things we need, it is taxing from these industries that we can now later use in building roads and projects, what we have now is not governance, it is just mismanagement of state resources. What we have since 2004/2005 has been a mis-direction of priorities. They will leave what will benefit the people and spend substantial amount of state funds to do what people don’t need.”
“The present administration has spent huge money on modern garages, motor parks, is motor parks the problem of Oyo state that he met on ground?, Is the spending 15 to 20 billion naira on motor parks solving the problems of Security, Education, Economy, Unemployment unemployment in the state, I think this are the things we should look at,”
“In my village in Ladotan, my school has no doors, windows and only 6 students when I visited it last, Governor Makinde-led government is not concerned about the people in the villages nor the plight of farmers.”
He added, “Meanwhile we have only one industrial estate in Oyo state, that’s Oluyole and no government has gone there, they have not even the road there, a road that leads to where they can generate revenue, isn’t that a misplaced priority?”
“Folarin has been in the senate, what have he done exactly, looking at the problem in the state, Folarin has not proffered any solution at any point.”
The SDP governorship aspirant decried the present security situation in the state which according to him is worsening and handmade adding that the state deserved the best governor in 2023.
“I don’t rank myself among people who are not achievers, I would prefer to be ranked among candidates based on their nose for Oyo state problems, because if one doesn’t know a problem, finding a solution would be a problem”, he said.
Speaking on how he joined partisan politics, he explained that people whom he has helped as a lawyer were the ones that prevailed on him to join the gubernatorial contest, adding that he joined the gubernatorial race ahead of the 2023 elections to heed the calls of Nigerians who got succour from him through his legal profession.
“So many organisations, so many groups and individuals that I have helped through the cause of my career as a lawyer has come to me that I should contest for for the post of governor in Oyo state, stating they were not satisfied with what is going on in Oyo State and they want somebody like me who has the passion for the people to come out and lead the people into another level of governance.”
“In my youthful days I was also a soldier of the upn in the 70s and early 80s as a student, so it made it an home coming for me and I got the real and I emerged by God’s grace the candidate of the party”
He explained further, “That is why I chose SDP because it is more or less an offshoot of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) by the late Obafemi Awolowo. Those who formed the bedrock of UPN are people from UPN. And the new generation can still see what Awolowo has done in 1959, in 1958.”
“You see we’ve got to a point in our political history where people that have no idea of what Awolowo stood for wear his cap disguising for the purpose of winning elections, they lost touch with the principles and ideologies of Awolowo and they spread here and there you remember that Afenifere is also an upshot of that school of thought but Afenifere did not metamorph into AD neither did it metamorph ACN and the movement of AD to ACN and ACN to APC was more or less an ambition of certain individuals and not really on the pedestal of the ideology which brought them up,”
“Look at it this way, look at APC look at UPN, can you have any comparison of what Awolowo stood for in UPN, can you have it in APC today, you cannot, so all of them that came together to form APC are people that probably antagonist to the ideologies and principles of Obafemi Awolowo, they have have lost touch of what the real progressives stands for”, he added.
Speaking on the fate of SDP in the 2023 election, the Governorship aspirant insisted that the time has come to go back to the old principle of ideology where governance will be felt in every household.
He said, “The 16 years and 8years of the ruling party does not amount to anything, we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, we need to be more vibrant, like minded people should come together to form the real progressives and move the state forward and have a new movement,”
“The oldest party is SDP, but the crisis during MKO Abiola time that affected the party, the next election would be focused on individuality and not the party with more women and youth inclusiveness in Oyo state politics.”
