The Oyo state governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Kolawole Teslim Folarin, in this interview with BAYO AGBOOLA, speaks on the chances of the presidential candidate of his party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC and his own quest to become the next governor of the state, among others
What is your party’s preparation for the February 25 presidential election in Oyo?
I can assure you that the Campaign Council would deliver at least two million of the over three million votes available in the state to the presidential candidate of our party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima. We know Asiwaju will win and we are looking for ways to maximize the win. That is what prompted us to be going round the state again to solicit for the votes of the people. Our target is to win between 1.5 and 2 million votes. Of course, the presidential election will be different from the governorship. Our projection is that Asiwaju will get 80 per cent of votes in Oyo state. Tinubu is coming to the state on February 7 and our plan is to have the best rally so far. On February 9, we will start our campaign rallies that everyone is expecting. For Tinubu, it is like intoxication. Tinubu is like Lionel Messi of Nigerian politics. So, when you have him on your side, you have to use him. He is our best player. It is a wise decision to market Tinubu instead of myself. If Tinubu makes it, I know it is over. His emergence is the icing on the cake. When you have him, you are going to use him.
As the governorship candidate of the APC in Oyo state, what will you say stands you out among the three popular gubernatorial candidates in the state, Governor Seyi Makinde of PDP and Adebayo Adelabu of Accord party?
The cutting edge issue is not about being an Ibadan man or using the Ibadan factor. The issue is about being experienced, and with due respect and with all sense of humility, I know that I have the experience more than both of them. If you put me side-by-side with the other two candidates (PDP and Accord), there can only be one winner, who is Teslim Kolawole Folarin. I don’t intend to knock anybody but to sell myself. I also believe that I am the only person who will come to the office of governor, well prepared. The present government came into office with a learner plate. The government is a child of the coalition (the eyi je, eyi ko je type). They didn’t really have a plan but we are coming with a plan because we know what the issues are.
In this year’s general elections, what are the issues you believe are of very paramount importance to your party?
First issue which is a major challenge to our party is that of security. We have got our blueprint on how to achieve zero tolerance for insecurity. We are going to disband the state’s Park Management System (PMS), because the body is not known to law. Security is key to developing the economy. The late Governor Abiola Ajimobi operated with zero tolerance to insecurity, we are going to operate minus zero tolerance to insecurity. We will get rid of state sponsored thugs in the state. You make an ex-convict Head of PMS which is alien to the law. That will go. There is nothing like PMS. It is unconstitutional. We know NURTW. On my first day in office, the first thing I will do is replace PMS with NURTW. PMS will go. I don’t have any fear over NURTW. They will be generating money for the government unlike what we are witnessing in this state for about four years. You cannot be running a government where you will be told not to go to certain places at certain periods or times because some thugs are causing chaos there. There is no way you can grow the economy where there is chaos, insecurity, brigandage, kidnapping, violence as we have been witnessing. Going about with thugs, armed with ammunition during campaigns, creating fears in the minds of the residents is not civil at all. We are going to ensure this trend is reversed when we get to office after the next election.
Second is the issue of education. The recent ranking which put Oyo state in the 33rd position out of 36 states, and the delisting of about 50 schools in the state by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) for exam malpractices, is shameful. We are going to reverse this. We have an idea of what we want to implement, but the first thing we want to do is to declare an emergency in the education sector. I think we’ve reached that stage because we must speak the honest truth. How many of us would be happy to send our kids to these schools? The schools out there are not schools. It is only in Oyo state that motor parks are better than schools and that is unacceptable. To change that, we will sit down with stakeholders – government, parents, alumni associations, religious bodies, etc.- put all the cards on the table and decide the way forward. “Makinde is building bus terminals at N4.5billion each.
If you do a calculation of N50million per block of classrooms, you will build nothing less than 370 across the 33 Local Government Areas in the state. And the terminus in Lagos is different from what we have here. This is condemnable. We are going to correct this for the betterment of the education of our children. Agriculture is also another area. I believe strongly that the present government has paid lip service to and committed huge sums of money that has not yielded positive results. Mango, cashew and cassava are crops in which we have comparative advantage to some other neighbouring states. There is ethanol in cassava but our local cassava processors don’t have the mechanical capacity to extract it. That is very sad. This is because we know for a fact that the economy of Thailand is based on ethanol from cassava. Ethanol from our own cassava is even of clear higher grade than Thailand’s. That is a fact.
(Cuts in), How?
I expect my state to have taken this advantage. We shall experiment it to the advantage and benefit of our farmers and the populace in general. We are going to generate power to create an enabling environment for the farmers in the rural areas where such is being produced. When this is achieved, we can then think of exporting the crops we harvest instead of allowing some Chinese nationals to come here and just buy up our plantations. Another interventional drive to our economy is the dry port. I believe that with my experience in Abuja over the years, I can get our dry port which has now been moved from Erunmu to Akinyele because of the rail line, work within a year, I will do my best to get it work.
What will be your plan with regard to welfare in the state?
If elected as governor of the state, my administration will form a symbiotic partnership with journalists for the development of the state. I will ensure that journalists’ welfare is accorded the priority it deserves. We know and we have our ears to the ground how things are going with you journalists in this state. It is unbefitting for journalists’ union not to have an office to meet and interact as professionals in the state. I am assuring you of a befitting structure as an office unlike the current situation where you people lack a good office… With regard to your office, I thought one of the structures in the government GRA would have been allocated to journalists to use as their permanent secretariat. This is not too much to do, and this is what I meant by symbiotic partnership.
The role of journalists is very critical to the development of the state, and a governor who knows his onions must accord journalists the dignity they deserved as partners in progress. This, we shall ensure, when elected.
Do you foresee an eventual alliance between you and your former co-aspirant in the APC, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, who is now the candidate of the Accord party?
Such an alliance, people believe, is capable of shoring up your party’s chance of defeating the incumbent Governor Seyi Makinde. Politics is a game of interest. None of us snatched the wife of another now! Adelabu is my younger brother, so anything can happen.
But you see, the way politics is, nothing will happen until after the first poll which is the presidential. You know we politicians, including me, are incurable optimists. Even if you see a party that will not win a polling unit, they will still be spending money all about, boasting that they will win. What does that tell you? It means that politicians always believe that anything can happen even at the dying minute.
We have our own calculation in APC, but whether it will work or not, only time will tell. We pray that it works. After the first round of polls, we may even sit down with Seyi Makinde and he may say this result is too terrible for me; let us do a deal. So, you can see that everything is possible in politics. The window of working together with Adelabu is not closed yet. What is uppermost is that we shall ensure that our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, wins the February 25 election. That is the factor that will determine our next move.
