We Need To Emulate United States By Running Issues-based Campaign – Engr. Adeyemi

The newly appointed Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) member from Kwara State, Engr. Nurudeen Adeyemi has stated that he is always thinking about how to add value in his community, state and the country. Engr. Nurudeen Adeyemi (ENACT) in an exclusive interview with our Correspondent, Motunrayo Saka speaks impact of TETFUND in the education sector, performance of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, 2027 politics and other trending issues. Excerpts;

How will you describe your appointment as TETFUND Board Member?

TETFUND is one of those rare opportunities where you get to impact of both the young and the old being. Specifically impacting the lives of students and academic because there are many interventions on research and infrastructural development. TETFUND supports the Tertiary Institutions (University, Polytechnic and College of Education) both federal and state owned.
With that, I think we have over 2 million students that is powerful position, by the time you add the academicians, you will be impacting over three million people. I see this as a special privilege that i can use to help the good people of the North Central, particularly Kwara State.

How do you intend to contribute to development of education sector?

The education sector in Nigeria have ups and down but the wisdom of some people led to the creation of TETFUND. Nigerian students of public institution, one time or the other, they would have seen the logo of TETFUND on their buildings. So, people know that TETFUND is very important. With the new role and my basic understanding, one of the major problem we have is the issue if abandoned project. This country is littered with tons of abandoned projects and before we start investing in new infrastructure, we will need to interrogate the various higher institutions of how they can complete those abandoned projects. That is one of the questions that i have, How do we make that happen? So, as the board continue to meet, I will see how I can drive that initiative to ensure we have value for money in terms of getting results from the abandoned projects.

Another thing is to ensure that the quality of work done is there. Probably take more active role in ensuring that the government get results for what he has paid for in terms of good quality infrastructure. We are also building hostels for schools. Another area is how do we access the impact of ICT program and other various interventions. What have we done to measure the impact on the people that are suppose to be positively impacting on. They have initiative to go Hybrid manning mode especially after the COVID. They are trying to build capacity of all the universities to be able to do research on how well is the university utilizing ICT. Maybe some of this helps relieve the pressure in some of our classrooms. Maybe adding some remote action will relieve pressure on physical space that we have. If we invest a lot of money in research, how do we follow up on the research and turn it into innovation. That way we can get this benefits. So, those are the areas that I hope to impact positively.

In Kwara, There are some agitation that Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq is implementing capital projects in Kwara central, Do you agree with this sir?

Being in government can be a little bit tough. When we look at the mega project, we are talking about siting them anywhere else will not yield the impact we are looking for. Some of those things may need to be situated in the capital because of the access to the airport, a lot of the expected users of those facilities may be people flying in and out. Therefore they may need to be within the state capital. Outside of the state capital, just few months ago, over N10billion was allocated to various roads in Kwara south. Yes, we will continue to agitate for equity not equality because government wants to spent every naira to deliver dividends of democracy to every part of the state.The truth of the matter is most of our people are located in major metropolis when we are talking about Ilorin, Offa and other places. So, if I’m building 1km road in rural Ifelodun local government for example, and building 1km road in Ilorin with the number of people that will be using the 1km road in Ilorin and the rural road, those road will cause the same but the lives that will be impacted will be greater. So, government wants to ensure that majority of the people benefits from various interventions. That’s why they make some of these decisions but as an advocate of Kwara south, we will not keep quiet and about fighting for equity not necessarily equality. So, we will never stop agitating for equity. From the past administrations to this current administration, I will say that this administration has made a conscious decision and effort to ensure every ward in Kwara State has something to showcase. Everything may not be directly from the state government in terms of mega project but when you will look at the SUBEB program, water intervention, primary health care centers and others. No ward can say that they don’t have something but you can never have everything.

Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq led administration is the most equitable administration in terms of projects balancing, people balancing, ethnic balancing, senatorial district balancing, muslim-christian balancing and male-female balancing. The government keeps detailed record around all of this parameters and they try to make sure that is not heavily weighed in one way or the other. I will say the Governor is very conscious and doing his own very best to make build a better Kwara.

You are based in United States, their election will hold this year, what do you think Nigerians can learn from their democratic system?

In terms of practicing democracy. Our democracy is very young but we can continue to take bold steps in advancing it. The first thing about democracy is that we have to make sure that people’s voice are heard and count. The electoral act has made it known that people can not just sit in the corner of a living room and expect result, with this people vote actually count. The second part is to engage the citizens that have been over the years somewhat have an idea of what is going in terms of the electoral act. Like saying whether you we vote or not our vote doesn’t count that has been draining the people’s mind. So, people don’t want to come out and the turn out of the election is very poor when we are talking about 25%. United States also have poor turn out in mid election but for the presidential election typically is close to 60%. Some democracy have 90% but our when have about 25% of eligible voters come out during the election but when they release result everybody starts screaming how and fair it is but they will not participate. Hopefully, we have a good take away that our votes count and people show up. The third thing is you will see outside of all the craziness of American politics, you will see that they will always go back to the issues. In Nigeria, it is very difficult to know what party ideologies are or what it really means. That is what I think is take away for Nigerians. We are very susceptible to outside influence and outside interference but we don’t seems to be able to do anything about it. Facebook, TikTok and all social media channels are spreading fake news or misinformation but we as government basically surrender to some of these things and take it for granted.

You will see that United States is actively and aggressively going after countries that they felt are melding into the election influence, even if the previous one they have to send the high ranking of Russia Envoy away by sanctioning Russia for that interference. But even if we don’t have such power to be able the do that we should be able to tell people “back off”. We can make our own decision without you trying to put undue influence on the outcome of elections.

Local government election is coming up in Kwara. From your own perspective on local government autonomy, how do you see it, and secondly, with the way things are going in Nigeria do you think APC have good chance of winning this election in Kwara ?

Local government autonomy is always good for each level of government to have some level of autonomy. State want less burdensome interference from the federal government and same thing should be expected from our various local government council so that they can determine their faith in one way or the other. Unfortunately, most of our local government were traded without the thought of economy viability. Many of them are not completely viable which led to some of this alteration. If we look at Kwara State for example, i think the local government autonomy is good in principle the application of the practicality of it or the effectiveness of being put into use is very difficult. Let take Kwara State for example, a lot of local government have staff from any places and when we are pulling resources is it the problem. Another difficulty we face is issue of the primary health care system that the local government suppose to be in charge of but state government have been helping with it and the issue of SUBEB for basic education. Now let take issue of the minimum wage’s consequential adjustment for example, if that happens, a lot of our resources will go to recurrent expenditure. That is very little for capital project. What will happen if oil production drops or the price drop. That’s when oil production decreases from whatever reasons or let assume the uprises fall for whatever reason the resources will dwindle. The amount of what the local government will share will go down. Local government according to our constitution can not really go out and obtain loan in their own violation. Just like state can now go and borrow foreign money without the covering of federal government, so local government can not just go and borrow money without their father-the state government guarantee him.

On the issue of the local government election and the possible outcome, all politics are local in Kwara State. What the government needs to do is prioritizing welfare of the workers, prioritizing infrastructural development, prioritizing the intervention of students to helps take care of what that happen around and prioritizing the vulnerable that we have in ensuring that their is distribution in whatever intervention that is being done across all lives all of those are to government that care and think the people will know that.

I believe that APC will come out with flying colors because of the performance of the governor and because of all the various intervention across many communities in the state. People know who cares about them and people are not really forgetting why we decided to move away from the past. I don’t think 5 years down the line, people would have forgotten what it was then. I think our people are very wise enough to know about what is clear.

Economy hardship is affecting many Nigerians, what advice do you have for the Nigerians?
No one can deny the fact that our people are going through difficult time. Unfortunately, some of the programs that could affect the people are coming out gradually but in my humble opinion, the price of commodities will start to come down in September, that is what i believe due to series of federal government and state government intervention did back in April, May, and June.

Unfortunately, we have short of supplies, what happens in our exchange rate that people from kazeem village can come to our country to buy food because the exchange rate is favourable to them. You will find out that if you go to Gbugbu market to buy all those things, you will find out that our neighboring country are coming to buy just because is now cheaper because if the exchange rate. So, that is one of the issue because they are competing with the local. The second part of it is the affordability, even if the food is there, can you afford to buy, that is the issue. Well, the new minimum wage has been passed and consequential adjustment is being work done. Additional money will come into people’s pocket and they will be able to afford the food. With that, the farmers will be able to gather money for their products, the market women will be able to get more money for whatever they are doing.

What is your plan for 2027 politics as former Senatorial Aspirant?

Let talk about representing my people, we thank God with the current appointment, I’m able to represent my people on larger scale. Thank God for that. Being in the position to be able to positively impact the lives of the people is my focus for now. 2027 is still far away, let me focus on the job i have now. Whatever happens towards 2027, we will take care of it when it comes. So, i have a task that i need to focus on because only the performance in those task will let my people know what i’m capable of representing them.

You still maintain a strong relationship with the grassroots, how are you doing it all the way from America?

I will say Kwara is on my mind 24/7 because i’m aware of the state of living in Kwara. So, if you care about something, you will want to make sure that you do your best by getting up to date and let them know how you feel and that you care about them. In politics, empathy matters, people need to know your care about them. So, when we have the issue of subsidy removal, you have to reach out to people with whatever you have and also if you are somebody that believe in the word of the scriptures, they said “Be your brother’s keeper” and you can’t do that without not caring about them. You want to do more but you can only do what the Almighty Allah has blessed you with and with what Allah has blessed me with, i think I’ve been able to put it to maximum use and i will continue to bless people more.