(Interview) Abdulrazaq Has Demystified Office of Kwara Governor – Engr Adeyemi ENACT
Engr. Nurudeen Adeyemi Balogun (ENACT) is the Chairman of KSANG Homes International Board of Directors and APC Senatorial Aspirant during 2019 electioneering process. He is a US trained Aerospace Engineer working to revolutionize human access to Space with many years of corporate experience in the automotive industry. Enjoy the excerpts of his interview with FACTUALTIMES Crew on our Special Series tagged- #OtogeAyearAfter
The Otoge struggle in Kwara State has changed the political narrative in the state. What can you say about this?
The Otoge movement is a microcosm of the entire political landscape in Nigeria, where the masses fell like they have a very little voices in the active participation of their government and in governance as a whole. A State of a true democracy, being a government of the people, by the people and for the people as against government of the few and for the few and the whole elitism, attitude determines the entire political landscape and what the people voted against. The issue of democracy is that, at least in our environment is that every four years or so, we have a chance to elect any party in the space. Giving that the previous administration was in charge of power for 16 years, that meant that the people wanted to try something different and that is the beauty of democracy where the voices of the people can rise and they can have so much of self determination. The Otoge movement in Kwara is probably a leading effect of the entire political landscape in Nigeria and while Kwara maybe unique in some certain ways but I think we are more of a reflection of the entire view of the nation.
Do you think we’ve achieve the reasons for Otoge movement in Kwara State?
Well, the Otoge movement in Kwara is going to be around one thing. The new government have been in power now for maybe a year or so, coming in a week or so. Let look at what the current government have been able to achieve. First of all, I will say that is Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq has not achieve anything, he has successfully demystified the office of the governor of Kwara State. We can say that the governor of Kwara State is closer to the people now that it has ever been. We can see from the various project embark on by the current administration with respect to road construction, with respect to school rehabilitation, with respect to health center rehabilitation. Some of the things that the government is able to do is actually localized project where the local community get to have a say in the contract so that if I won the contract and failed to deliver, they can be held accountable. So, in this case, we are saying that the Otoge is that the people have a say in the government. I will say that will looking at the prospect, I will say it is better than what has been obtainable in the past. I don’t know and I can be very wrong if local community have had a chance to be part of contractors nominating process before now but at least that is what the current government have been able to do, at least with respect to the various road constructions in various community. So, from my perspective to say that the Otoge achieved the mantra, I’ll say yes! Bringing the government closer to the people, have a say in what is going on in the government. So those two things are work in progress that we can point to as probably something that is a deviation from the past.
You are an active participant in the struggle and even the platform used for the Otoge movement in Kwara State, APC. You participated in the primary election in Kwara South as a senatorial aspirant. How would you describe that process and what can you say about the ongoing activities in the party at the moment?
We are very motivated, especially those of us in the diaspora to see the positive change in the lives of the people and that allow us to take congruous project at home from rehabilitating schools, helping repairing various boreholes and brought in the whole idea of Igbomina Mobile Clinic. So all of those are things that we are trying to do in the health sector, the education sector with respect others and try to encourage some of our youth, with respect to entrepreneurship skills and development. Since we are constantly looking for ways to make the lives of the people better, we just travel out the world to see the political prospect where where the emergent political leaders here have not been serving the people adequately. That was what prompted us to join the political trend to see that its not enough for us to stay on the sideline and complain about what is not obtainable. Why don’t we go and make the change that we desire to see. So the process is a very good one and we learned a lot. The political exigency of that time, obviously led to few that might not be quite as transparent process as possible but as candidate emerged, we did our best to support the candidate despite whatever reservation one might have had. Those support actually transform into a massive win for the party because winning all the entire state is not an easy thing to do. The glory belongs to Almighty Allah and also to the dedication and passion of the people that wanted to see the change that they desire. Not only they lead us in voices, they also came out in mass to support it. It is now left for the various representatives, various elected officials to now work hard to deliver on the mandate of the people.
How would you rate the achievement of some of the political office holders in the state?
You know, let start from the National Assembly members. The National Assembly members obviously came on in May of last year (2019) and part of the legislative process outside of making laws that will benefit the masses or trying to resolve the issues of the masses. The section begets opportunity for some of our National Assembly members to have a say in the budgeting process where they can facilitate the federal government projects, presence and other developments into their various constituencies. So for the most part, the 2019 budget was already set particularly when they came on and the 2020 budget is their first chance of having a say in what is bound to happen. So we will see the challenges and the vision of what they hope to accomplish with respect to the implementation of the 2020 budget. So it is too early to gauge their performance right now but what we can see is at least in Kwara South, is that our National Assembly members are trying to make their presence known with the people on ground and trying to do what they can. And with respect to State Assembly, obviously they of the same oversight role as the National Assembly and they are partnering with the State Government in terms of ensuring that all the people friendly programmes and government desires were passed in a timely manner, so that the governor and his cabinet can go about implementing those ideas. So we can see that state has paid a lot of counterpart fund for various life changing programmes that will benefit the entire masses of Kwara State. So I think everyone is trying to work within their sphere of employment and that is what we hope will happen to our elected officials that everybody is marching or dancing to the same drum.
Should we be expecting synergy between the State Government and kwarans in diaspora?
Well, when Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq emerged and I believe before he was duly sworn in, we have been in constant communication and the diaspora population obviously want the state to succeed and we see in Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq a partner that we can work with because all of the programmes outline resonates with our people in diaspora and we want to be a able to be in a position where we want to support the government of the day because by synergising with the government most of the challenge can be harmonise for the benefit of the people. When you are talking the in area of health, when you are talking in the area of education, when you are talking in the area of engineering, infrastructure development, agriculture, mechanised farming. All of those things are things we see here everyday that we can look for ways to partner with the government and facilitate either individuals or the government taking advantage of those to bring them together for the benefit of the people.
The Covid-19 pandemic is having negative effect on the global economy and limited to Nigeria. What will be your advice to kwarans as regards their expectations from the government especially in 2020 with the way the pandemic is affecting the federal allocation, the internally generated revenue and other engagements of the government?
Well, obviously when we talk about dislocation in the economy, we are talking about a recession. And those have underpin of micro economy impact, so you can actually see them coming and you can plan ahead for them if you have a very good theme. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic is a all of a sudden thing that caused massive economic dislocation. So it does not give a lot people time to plan and react accordingly. So going forward, I believe the government of the day will have to start sensitising our people and have to start making checking calls on prioritisation of some of the ideas that we have going out, in that way, we can try to make the most impact with the issues that will be coming. Let me say to us, the pandemic is going to cause a lot of things in the 12 to 18 month range. From the addressing revenue phase, we just have to look for a way to be creative and look internally to see ways we can drive up economic activities and also focus on maybe turning Kwara into the food basket of the country and start looking for way where we can start adding values to some of our agricultural produce by embarking on agro processing so that all the raw materials that we are producing will actually be converted to something that will add value and sell to other states. So we have to start looking inward to economic activities. That is where entrepreneurship skill development in our youth and some of our office holders and civil servant. We need to start having a kind of retraining programme for them to make them productive for the state and that way help the state to grow. Those are the things we have to look towards and we have to basically look inward to our own survival. We have to believe help is not coming from anywhere so we have to do things that will boost us. The days of waiting for allocation at least should be somewhat behind us and focus internally on what we can do for us and our people.
Lastly, the global pandemic that is here with us and this too shall pass. We pray that the Almighty Allah heal our land and for everyone going through a tough time at this time, we just have to try and adjust ourselves accordingly and know that this is no going to last. But why it is not going to last, we still need to look for ways to re-priortise what is important in our lives. Some of us may need to retrain ourselves and hire new skills and look for ways to diversify whatever it is that we are doing in order to improve our economy at large. It is going to be difficult, nobody can say it will be easy, but with resiliency of the Kwara people, we have no doubt that the people will come out in mass from this pandemic, resilient than ever before and even more innovative and more ingenuity in how we go about solving everyday problems.