Oyebanji: 365 days in office is not a joke!

By Bola BOLAWOLE

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Governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, is already one-year-old in office. How time flies! It looks just like yesterday when dust was raised by the godfather, the outgoing Ekiti State Gov. John Kayode Fayemi, anointing Oyebanji as the godson to take from him the mantle of leadership of the state tagged “Land of Honour and Fountain of Knowledge” It is doubtful if Ekiti or any state for that matter in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s south-west can still be said to be the pacesetter in education in today’s Nigeria. Other states, especially in the south-east and south-south, appear to have overtaken the region that birthed free education and set the pace for others to follow.

Decades of lousy leadership has done the southwest in. Today, in all competitive examinations, students from the south-west play second or even third fiddle to their counterparts from elsewhere. This is unacceptable. The south-west must reclaim its pride of place and claw its way back to the pinnacle of the country’s education ladder. It appears to me that Oyebanji is working hard to achieve this with the pride of place accorded the education sector by his administration; but what of the other states in the region?

As I was saying, dust was raised when Fayemi anointed Oyebanji as his successor, ditching other aspirants that many had thought were frontrunners. Having been Secretary to State Government and Chief of Staff in the same Fayemi administration, Oyebanji was no push over. So, by the time the dust settled, Oyebanji was firmly clutching the APC gubernatorial flag! That, however, was not the end of the matter as he had other mountains to climb in the main opposition PDP and Engr. Segun Oni, who had defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The rift in the PDP, split down the middle by the power tussle between former Gov. Peter Ayodele Fayose and Senator Biodun Olujimi, and the lack of capacity (read, financial muscle) by Oni helped Oyebanji to make the battle with the combined opposition a walk-over. When Fayose reportedly agreed terms with the APC/Oyebanji and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s rumoured support for Oni dried up, everyone who could read the signs started singing “Hail the king” for Oyebanji. Within and outside Ekiti, the elements worked in Oyebanji’s favour in such a way that it became clear to the discerning that he was destined to be king; but the intricacies of that need not detain us here today.

The last time I was on ground in Ekiti was during the tenure of Fayose, which ended in October 2018. Since then, I have passed through Ekiti twice; once when we took a family friend to the Afe Babalola University Teaching Hospital and I spent three days in that state-of-the-art facility. The other time was when I passed through the state to Ogbagi-Akoko for a funeral ceremony. I have, however, been kept abreast of happenings in Ekiti. I mourned with Ekiti when my comrade, Funminiyi Afuye, the then speaker of the state House of Assembly, passed on exactly two years ago (19 October, 2022). Again, how time flies! Apart from what I read on a daily basis about Ekiti, the Chief Press Secretary to Oyebanji, Yinka Oyebode, has regularly inundated me with information on the state. Yinka’s civility and humility can only be equaled; I don’t think it can easily be surpassed. He is a professional par excellence.

Oyebanji appears to me a combination of his two immediate predecessors in some respects. He is urbane and temperate; in that he resembles Fayemi. He goes out of his way to interact with the people rather than be rooted in his office; in that he resembles Fayose. To succeed, a governor must combine both in equal measures. One year is but a short span in a four-year tenure; all the same, morning shows the day, as they say. In those days when we got newly admitted into secondary school, our Nemesis were the Form Two students or seniors, as they loved to be addressed, who were usually exuberant about the fact that, too, had become seniors and could only show that by “punishing” junior students. They were a pain in the neck and you would wonder why the real seniors – Forms Five and Four and even Form Three students – were not as oppressive. The bragging words of the bullies were: “Three sixty-five days is not a joke!” That’s true! Even a day’s seniority is not a joke! So, what has Oyebanji been able to achieve in 365 days?

There is a compendium of achievements of the Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji’s administration in its first one year in office encompassing the six pillars of his administration’s programmes and policies. The pillars are: Youth and job creation; human capital development; governance, arts, culture and tourism; agriculture and rural development; infrastructural development; and industrialization. A list of the plethora of projects, policies and programmes initiated, accomplished and on-going are contained in the compendium. They are too numerous to be listed here but I am particularly impressed that the security situation of Ekiti has greatly improved under Oyebanji.

To confirm this, Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) listed Ekiti as the safest state in the country in 2022. To note the horrendous state of security in Ekiti in previous years is to understand that this is no mean achievement. My native Ondo state is one place right now that is hell on earth security-wise, especially the axis that shares boundary with Edo state. Yet, the governor is nowhere in sight and the state House of Assembly is preoccupied with the impeachment of the deputy governor. Not that I give a damn, though! Birds of a feather! Six and half-a-dozen! Gambari pa Fulani…!

Not one to be content with the report of a PR person, I went to town, as they say, seeking independent opinions and views on Gov. Oyebanji and his administration. One person said: “Interestingly, I have, in the past couple of days, been weighing what the people are saying about the governor and the performance of his administration. He has been described as hardworking, focused and imbued with foresight. He is, no doubt, doing so much to receive the support of the electorate.

“On a personal note, I praise him for the restoration of public electricity supply in my community, among others, after a decade in darkness. That fact alone has placed him above his immediate predecessors who used the same electricity issue to canvas for votes, even setting a deadline (but failing) to bring light to the communities.

“Gov. Oyebanji is being hailed as having successfully engaged with the citizens in his governance style, attending party meetings at ward level, visiting notable political figures sidelined by his predecessors under the guise of political differences, and soliciting support for his administration in the interest of the State, irrespective of partisan politics.

“The ever-cynical civil servants in the State are also being carried along as their salaries and wages are promptly paid and conditions of service catered to. So far, the governor is credited with giving due attention to the substance and symbolism of governance in this first year of his four-year tenure”

Another said: “Though I hail from Ekiti, I live in the neighbouring Ondo state. News snippets reaching me indicate that Oyebanji is humble, courteous and gentle, a departure from the garrulous, proud and arrogant regimes of past governors. He is also a home-grown governor (which is) a clear advantage from the past two governors who came from nowhere and knew very little of the people. They only came for business and people have made bold to say that they helped themselves so much to the meagre resources of the state. Oyebanji is likely going to be different”

Space constraint will not allow me print more but they were all generally positive. In Gov. Oyebanji’s “State of the State” address to Ekiti people on the occasion of his first anniversary in office on Monday, 16th October, 2023, he announced that, henceforth, no one will pay for child delivery and the treatment of malaria in all primary health centres across the 177 wards in the state.

Projects, policies and programmes are the “dividends of democracy”. Making the state more prosperous, improving on the people’s quality of life and leaving the situation better than one met it is the true essence of good governance. Yinka Oyebode listed the qualities of his boss to include regular engagement with stakeholders; making deliberate effort to cut the cost of governance; delegating but not abdicating authority; not playing to the gallery by commissioning uncompleted projects; getting communities and their leaders involved in the appointment of commissioners and special advisers so that such political office holders may be aware that, in the final analysis, they are answerable to the people; and operating within and beyond party lines to carry everyone along – friends and foes alike. What Yinka said was confirmed by those I independently interviewed.

This governor, then, is a man to watch. My anniversary gift to him, however, is to be found in the time-honoured saying of our elders, to wit: Ibere o ki n se oni’se…! It is not of him that starts a good job but of him that consistently does the good job to the very end! Happy anniversary!

• Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of THE WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.