…says ADC’s best option 

Ambassador Dare Bejide is the Governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the June 20 gubernatorial election in Ekiti State. In this interview with ADEWUMI ADEMIJU, he expressed optimism on electoral victory in the state, saying that the people of the state deserve better governance. He also spoke about his programmes and plans for the people, and why he thinks federalism is not being properly practised in Nigeria. Excerpts:

Ekiti State has been governed by two major political parties; the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) for many years. So, why do you think ADC, a smaller opposition party with many crises, will do better or defeat the incumbent?

Well, I’m not aware of any many crises in our party in the state. I’m aware of what is happening at the national level, but at the state level, we are united. Our party is the most stable in the state because we are aware that the other two political parties have legal issues.

Even the incumbent party still has their own issues. The PDP is also in a serious mess. So, as far as we are concerned, there are no major crises in our party in the state. The people have witnessed the government of both the PDP and the APC.

The feedback we are getting is that they have not done well. But that leaves us with the option of something new, something that will offer the best. I believe that, with regards to my experience, and my exposure, I’m a proper and fit person to offer something credible.

The Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Ekiti State is said to be among the lowest in the country. There’s also youth unemployment, what is your plan for the development of the state?

I want to grow the economy of the state in terms of youth development and food security. You have mentioned two important issues; one, youth unemployment and IGR. Unfortunately, the present administration has relied so much on federal allocation.

This is because they have no idea of what governance is all about. I’ve been in government before. When we were in government, the allocation was between two and three billion naira every month, yet we were able to do so much. We paid gratuities, we paid pension, and we repaired roads.

We even facilitated the construction of a 135 kv transmission station to improve the level of energy and power generation in the state. But the present administration has not done much. Even on the IGR they are able to generate, they have not brought transparency to bear. You can hardly determine how much is coming in and what they get every year.

That is an area we want to develop. We will involve information technology to be able to monitor what comes in to prevent people from stealing. If there is no proper monitoring of what comes in, you can hardly get an accurate figure of what you generate every year. Again, I see them as very lazy because they are not thinking outside the box. They believe that what they get from Abuja is enough.

That’s why nobody is thinking of how to increase the IGR of the state. Number two, the issue of IGR is also associated with economic development. When there is no effort to provide an en- vironment for the economy to grow, you can hardly generate income. You will impose tax on people based on income. When there is no income, you cannot generate tax. So we will make sure that we grow the economy to bring in more money.

You can’t have a poor economy as we have now and expect to get money from people in form of taxes. We are going to improve the economic activities in the state such that you can legitimately ask the people to pay taxes. We will also promote agriculture to make it more at- tractive. The people that are farming are aging, and nobody wants to go to farm.

A lot of people consider it as unattractive. People believe in white-collar jobs because they don’t feel that they can get so much from farming whereas in most advanced countries, farmers are respected and they are making much money. We will ensure that farming becomes more attractive. We will assist the farmers by organising cooperative societies among them. We will make sure that our level of farming is no longer based on subsistence.

There is hardly any way you can really make profit from that. We will also involve mechanized farming and make sure that we grant loans to young farmers so that they can be encouraged to go to farms. We will make living conditions in the rural areas very attractive.

So those are the areas where you can reduce youth employment. Again, we will recruit young people into the civil service regularly. We noticed that there has not been any employment into the civil service for some years. Again, we will make retirement from public service more beneficial to the civil servants. Once they know it is easy for them to get their gratuity and pension in time, most of them will want to retire.

But the fear they have is that if they retire, how will they fend for themselves because the government usually owes gratuities and pensions…

When I was in government, people retired even before their due dates be- cause they knew that once they retired, they will get their money, bulk money, either to do business or to build houses. We introduced the idea of you retiring and bringing in your children to replace you in service as a means of creating employment for the youth.

So these are the things we believe we can do. We will also make sure that we encourage young people to embrace skilled acquisition because skill has to do with what you get in terms of employment. If you don’t have any skill, it will be difficult for people to employ you. We will ex- plore all these areas, and we will have skill acquisition centres. We will make sure that we have schools where young people can learn skills apart from the conventional education.

We will find a way to create special centres for artisans, where the government can retrain them at no cost. We’ll retrain the bricklayers in modern ways of doing things so that people from Ekiti State will stop going to other places to bring in artisans to work for them. Even mechanics, there are certain cars mechanics cannot work on in the United States. If your car is faulty, you have to take it to labourers.

All those who come to our aid, we will make sure that we bring people and train them so that we can create a conducive economic environment for everybody. And once that is done, it will be very easy to pay taxes because when you are making an income, it will be easy for you to pay tax.

Ekiti is the fountain of knowledge, what will the ADC do differently in terms of school infrastructure and teachers’ welfare and do you have any plan for free education?

We will make sure that there is free education at the primary school level. It will not only be free, we will provide adequate infrastructure in terms of hu- man power, and infrastructural devel- opment. We will make teaching more attractive than it is at the moment. Most people feel that the teaching profession is just like glass windows. If they can’t get to work in government, can’t get to work in banks, they will go for teaching.

We will ensure that a profession that is not very attractive is made attractive We will make sure that apart from those who are working in urban centres there is a special allowance for those who want to be transferred to rural areas. Most people want to be transferred to Ado Ekiti, they don’t want to stay in the rural areas because of the conditions there. We will make the conditions at that level very attractive.

We will pay them hazard allowance. That will be an incentive for them to go to the ru- ral areas. We have discovered that in most schools, they don’t have furniture, children bring benches and tables from their homes; all these things will stop. Again, we believe that the curriculum of most of these schools don’t contain what is needed for employment.

It will change. We will look at the availability of jobs outside, and what some- body needs to qualify for those jobs. We will look at the types of skills, the types of training, and we will match them together so that you don’t have to start looking for employment when you get out of school once you have been properly trained in the school. Again, we will embark on the retraining of teachers. We now have new technologies, and new ideas are coming up.

We will embrace information technology, and modern teaching methods. We will also offer scholarship to deserving students. The fact that someone’s parents are poor will not be an impediment to the person from going to higher institutions. We will make sure that we provide scholarship awards for them.

Do you subscribe to local government autonomy, if yes, how will you ensure that money is properly allocated to them as governor?

Local government autonomy is not only a matter of convenience, it’s a constitutional provision. There are three tiers of government. You have the federal, the state, and local governments. What we have at the moment is just an aberration. Money meant for the local governments is hijacked by the state governments, who would later give some to the councils.

They have joint projects, and these are devices to cheat the people. We will ensure that in accordance with the constitutional provision, and the Supreme Court ruling on the matter, the local governments in the state are autonomous, and all the funds meant for them should be paid to them directly. When I was in government between 2007 and 2010 as the Secretary to the State Government, that was what we did. We allowed the local governments in the state to award ontracts.

Apart from the fact that with this, you are fulfilling the constitutional requirements, you are also empowering the people. Most people have no business coming to the state government for contracts, they are satisfied with having contracts to build comforts, to do a few things at the local governments. That is no longer possible because the money is always hijacked at the state level. They only pay salaries and do a few other things. That is not the intention of the people who came up with federalism.

Federalism is a form of government that embraces the three tiers of government; the local, state and the federal governments doing different things based on the requirements of the people. So what we did was that we enforced it strictly, not only for the local governments but at the state level. We have the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive.

A position where the executive hijacks the funds of the two other tiers of government is undesirable. It’s not good for the principle of separation of powers. The judiciary should be able to manage their funds, the legislature too, and the executive too should manage their funds. That is the provision of the constitution. In most cases, the governors hijack everything and believe that it is only the executive that exists.

It’s an aberration and If I’m given the opportunity, we’ll streamline the entire process so that the federal government and the state government would take their own money, the local governments would take their own money too so that development can go to the grassroots. A local government can tar roads. There are some roads that are supposed to be tarred by the local governments.

But everything is in a very bad state because they are centralised. The state government has hijacked the entire system and it makes it so difficult for local governments to perform their functions, but all these things will stop.

Many people see the governorship election as something between the PDP and the APC, with the ADC lacking federal might how do you want to protect your votes on June 20, and how do you want to convince the electorate that you are not going to be a spoiler?

I’m surprised that you are still thinking of the PDP and the APC. The election is between the ADC and the APC. I don’t know how you want to explain that. The election is between the ADC and the APC. We are going to make sure that we don’t allow them to rig the election.

The people in the ADC have seen that the party is a coalition of political par- ties and groups. I’ve just spoken to the chairman of the party at the state level. We are together on this journey. Every- body is tired of the APC and the PDP, that’s why everybody is embracing the ADC. At the level of our party, I’m of the ADC. I’m the candidate of the party. My deputy is from the APC.

He was in the APC until I chose him as my deputy. The chairman of the party is from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and our Director General is from the PDP. You can see that we have a balanced mandate, and a balanced agenda made up of people who feel that we must salvage the state.

That’s the motive. We must get the best governance. We need a government that is transparent, where opportunities are created for the people to reach their potential. I believe that our government must be inclusive, and we have started with the ticket itself, which is very inclusive.

The governorship candidate is ADC, the deputy is from the APC and the chairman of the party is from the SDP. So these are people who believe that the state must move forward. The state must move beyond the APC and the PDP, and that’s what we are doing.

Looking at the incumbency factor, do you think your party can defeat the ruling party?

You are looking at the incumbency but we are not looking at that. The people too are not looking at the incumbency, they are looking at the person who is there now.

What has he done, nothing, absolutely nothing. So, as far as they are concerned, it’s a battle between Bejide and Governor Biodun Oyebanji.