Masked and armed operatives of the Department of State Services were seen shooting on the peaceful streets of Osogbo, the Osun State capital last week. Gov. Rauf Aregbesola spoke to selected senior editors about this unprovoked show of force and the forthcoming guber election in the State of Osun. Read on…

The governorship election in Osun State is a few days away. How prepared are you to avoid what happened in Ekiti State?

The real issue is not about you as a candidate but the quality of the electoral process. Once the quality is good and high, whatever the people say is final, because they are the ultimate deciders of who represents or governs them. But to answer the question properly, I have prepared so well for the office in a way that going by the normal run, I should not be working as hard as I’m working now for re-election. Why we are different from them is that we have always been with the people from day one of our administration.

How many governors walk the streets with their citizens? I have been doing that since the first month in office. How many governors created interactive forums in Nigeria before me? There is none. I’m the first governor that devoted close to 10 hours of continuous engagement on a quarterly basis with the citizens. The people ask any question in a conducive atmosphere.

Ogbeni Till Daybreak is a worldwide engagement, because we take feedbacks from social media. Gbangba Dekun is a monthly community interactive forum where I sit with stakeholders in the community to ask or make inquiries on any issue. This is the picture of direct engagement we’ve had with the people that no government in Nigeria has ever attempted to do. We also have a carnival-like procession in Walk to Live where we just walk round the communities and it’s quite engaging and popular because everybody wants to be with the governor. Hardly is there any community in this state that I have not touched.

In terms of physical and social services, this is the first government that can say that there is no household, be it PDP, APC and others that our programmes have not reached. I feed 300,000 pupils every school day at the cost of N3.6 billion a year. I have been doing it since 2012 and I have spent N7.2 billion on it. You can go to these schools and observe what the pupils are eating to be sure whether it is worth what we are saying or not. I can tell you that nobody touches the money except those in charge.

Long before we commenced the feeding arrangement, we empowered poultry farmers and fish farmers to produce chicken, eggs and fish the pupils now consume. We gave them close to N600 million. The only people we buy from now are herdsmen.

We have the second batch of O’Yes cadets, the first batch of 20,000 have graduated and the 2nd batch of 20,000 have commenced training. They work two or three days a week and they have the rest of the week left for them to see what they can do with their hands and earn a living because they are taught entrepreneurial skills. They earn N10,000 monthly as cadets. On this scheme alone, this administration has spent N9 billion. I tell people what these schemes mean for national development.

I have in that scheme directly injected N9 billion into the economy, and a man earning N10,000, unless you promise to double his investment, has no business traveling to Ibadan with that N10,000. If it’s not going to yield anything more, he won’t go to Ibadan. Every bit of the money is better spent here. Every O’Yes cadet has a smart card and the issue of anyone tampering with their money does not arise.

Mine is among the few governments that developed a meaningful welfare programme for elderly citizens. We have a package based on an extensive survey of citizens that are 65 years and above in our database. We now identified those among them that are without any support. It’s the first time any government will do so in Nigeria.

We identified 1,800 of such people state-wide. The selection was purely based on their conditions, no primordial sentiment. Professor Ogunbameru of Obafemi Awolowo University administered everything and gave us the list with their addresses. We have been giving them N10,000 monthly since 2012. Still along that line, before now, ambulances here used to carry dead bodies, whereas they’re not meant only for carrying dead bodies. We have ambulance points everywhere in the state now working 24 hours.

Also we just launched debit cards of   between N100, 000 and N150, 000 for farmers with which they buy their farm inputs at their doorsteps. They buy on guaranteed credit and pay back with either their commodities or sell and pay back.

I look at my government’s engagement with the people which has impacted every home positively, and I say if election is about acceptance, popularity and impact you have made on the people, we are waiting for what the verdict of democracy would be. In a credible, transparent, free and fair election, I’m not worried at all about what people will say about his administration.

How do you react to the heavy security presence in the state?

Democracy is not just voting. Everything pertaining to the capacity of the people to vote or not to vote and to freely decide what they want must be of interest to all of us. Whenever that right is infringed, it’s a total assault on democracy. We cannot call that democracy.

The issue of militarization of the state is not one man’s job. We owe it a duty to let the whole world know what is happening here. It’s an infringement on the rights of Nigerian people. We’ve all forgotten that we pay the salaries of these security agencies. We don’t pay them to wear masks in our towns. They should only wear masks when they engage terrorists and if they have to operate in a region where seeing them might compromise their own safety and security.

What would they say is the reason for what they are doing now other than intimidation? So, what this means is that they want to conquer and cow our people, which is a direct assault on democracy. Yes, you asked for what I am doing. I won’t use guns against them but I will not be quiet.

I believe this must be condemned by all, because this is not about Aregbesola alone. You people may not have any press office to work in if this continues. Don’t think it will stop there. By the time they finish with the press, they can say you should not even go and buy yam to eat anywhere. Everything will be affected.

This is the longest coup in the history of this country, where gun-wielding and masked security operatives are unleashed on the people ahead of an election by a desperate federal government. But this PDP coup will fail. If election is about acceptance, popularity and impact you have made on the people, we are confident that their show of force has failed.

Is your administration on good terms with teachers, civil servants, okada riders and students?

Most people don’t even know how to assess relationships. They assess them on the basis of complaints by a dissatisfied section of a critical lot. It cannot be like that. It is impossible for human beings to exist without conflict. The Yoruba have an idiomatic way of saying that. They say the teeth and the tongue fight, but they are always still together. Let us look at what we have done and then situate our relationship within it, though some people for whatever reason do not just like us.

I told someone that what should concern you is not those who are opposed to you especially as it gets to the run-up to the election. When it’s still far ahead, you may be bothered so you can make adjustments. But when no matter what you do, that’s their attitude, you just stay put. According to newspapers, not less than 20 parties are seeking power democratically. If you win 60 per cent of the votes, it does not mean you don’t have opposition. The 40 per cent who don’t want to see you may cut your head if you are careless. If you win 60 per cent, you are home and dry. In a struggle with other stakeholders this is good enough. What we are doing is to ensure that each of these critical sectors don’t have any basis at all to oppose us.

Let us start with the students. Before we came in, students were being given a bursary of N3, 000 and they didn’t even get the bursary on time.The system was ridden with scams. I wondered why I should approve N3, 000 for anybody? It’s better if we don’t give bursary or we give it meaningfully. We raised the bursary to N10,000 flat. Medical and Law students receive N20,000 while our indigenes in Law schools receive N100,000. The school authorities give the money to students in their systems.

I don’t see how such students will hate us. Whoever now hates us has something else against us, not because we have not done the needful. The increases weren’t solicited. We did it out of our own understanding of the reality of what students are going through.

There was agitation for reduction of tuition fees and we reduced fees from a huge amount to something that is comparably affordable. Also, we have been investing in developing the institutions much more than any administration has done in the history of this state. Yes, we are having some challenges with the lecturers but it’s not peculiar to us but you just have to bear it.

For Okada riders, they have no problem with us. They may want us to do things for them as we have done to some other groups, but it is not as if they said, compared to others, these are the problems. The roads here are appreciated even by those who use legs. Has any government succeeded in constructing 200 kilometres of road in all nooks and crannies of the state?

There is no part of this state that we have not constructed a new road and it’s not just any road but roads with concrete drainage, with stone base and kick asphaltic cover and above all when I get to campaign grounds, I say our roads have tribal marks. In all general roads, we have roads with marks. We now have special roads, when we complete some of them, they will be tourism attraction and centres on their own. The road we are building in Gbogan, people will be coming to look at it, mark my words. That road you see, Gbongan to Akoda, will be a tourism attraction because it is not an ordinary road because it’s a road that took me time to conceive and design and we are taking our time to develop it. So, when people talk about the cost of our roads, I just laugh because it’s not good to be talking to people who don’t know what they are saying. We have different types of roads.

That road is going to be a reference point in road construction. We are changing the landscape and making the state of Osun a hub of everything that is good. We also want to tell the world that the black man is a human being.

Before our advent, the civil servants never knew that salary could be paid before the end of the month. For seven and half year, salaries were never paid here before the end of the month. But from when I assumed office, we changed that. Before the year ended when I assumed office, I paid 10 per cent of their basic as 13th month salary and paid December salary before the end of the year, the civil servants were dazed.

Since that day up until December 2013, I pay salary on or before the 25th of every month. But as from January 2014, we ran into trouble which we explained to everybody six months before then. In July 2013, the Federal Government began a squeeze that they themselves know that nobody believed them. They said 400,000 barrel of crude oil is being stolen everyday.

We didn’t know problem was coming. Instead of collecting N4.6 billion, they gave this government N2.6 billion, 40 per cent slashed. We thought it will be temporary because after that month, they said the stolen crude has reduced to 200,000 barrel per day. When the oil being lost reduced, would you still expect a 40 per cent cut? From that July to now, the maximum allocation this state has ever received is N3.2 billion which was in November 2013.

I am not making up anything, simply saying the truth. Now ask me how was I able to pay up until December 2013? My people are called osomalo- they are very deft in the management of money and I took this from them. I had been saving through the Omoluwabi Conservation Fund in which 10 per cent of all allocation must just go and rest. So, I had money in reserve, which was a build-up for my refusal to form cabinet for 10 months, I had the money. Whereas my income fell to N2.6billion at the lowest and N3.4billion at the highest for a month, my statutory expenditures which are expenditures that I have no control on once we have agreed on it, for instance salary, pension and they are N3.6 billion every month, I have no power over it. I can’t say no, I’m not paying, Between July and December, I augmented my income with N5.4billion.

All in the hope that this thing will go, it didn’t go. It has not gone as we speak, it is even worse. Before, when you get your allocation, you will cash it by the 15th of every month. That was why they were paying salaries on the 15th of the month before we came in. That used to be the practice. But now, because you want to squeeze the opposition government, they even squeeze themselves. Nobody gets the reduced allocation earlier than the 26th of the following month.

But before now, I wasn’t waiting for their money; I just pay on or before the 25th. If for whatever reason, because when we wanted to introduce the digital automation, it was difficult to do cross over it will get to the 1st or 2nd of the following month, not that the money is not there, we have arranged, banks just pay, we have money with them. To make up the deficit in what I received and what I must pay, I spent extra N5.4 billion.

However, I told you earlier that I gave 10 per cent of basic salary for 13th month salary; the second year I gave 25 per cent; the third year I gave 50 per cent; the fourth year, I gave 100 per cent. So, December of 2013, I gave every worker in the employment of Osun 100 per cent of their basic salary as extra income which I paid before the end of the year, ordinarily, why should any worker say I am not friendly with them.

Before, workers here were given their leave allowances en bloc at the end of the year, I told them this is unreasonable because we don’t go to leave at the same time, so choose when you want your leave allowance to be paid. Is it at your birthday or the anniversary of your employment into the service?

So, whenever you summit your birthday, your leave allowance will be credited to you. I don’t know if any other government in Nigeria does that. Two, go and visit the secretariat and see what we have made of their work environment. So, if these are things that should motivate workers, I stand tall and proud because I have done my best.

No matter what anybody tells me, majority of them will appreciate these things. However, since January because I have exhausted my reserve, it is when we get money that we now go to look for money to add to it and pay. That began in January. The difference between me and others is that I don’t hide anything; I tell whosoever cares to listen.

I am the most loquacious governor in Nigeria. I went to the retreat of lawmakers and I said what is happening in Nigeria today is equivalent to the declaration of economic war on the states. If it is just mere shortage and it comes early, of course we will pay, it doesn’t come early. As we speak, we have not collected June allocation. What we are saying is that is either people don’t even care or they think you can just conjure money or they know what you are going through.

I said at a rally recently that from what I have heard from their grapevine because they had a meeting where they said that, squeeze them, if they can’t pay salary, you will create problem for them. Mark my words; they might not give us June allocation until the end of August. But we will pay our workers, already we have paid June.

I am happy to tell you that majority of our civil servants see and appreciate what we are doing. You can to the secretariat and see what we are doing. We increased the car loan by 400 per cent; we increased housing loans by 100 per cent. For 36 out of 43 months we have been paying regularly, let’s even assume that there is a problem of delayed payments now, I cannot believe all the workers will be against us because I have done my best. If the demonstration of interest of workers in their remuneration and allowances counts and with what we have done, I don’t think they will be against us.

I read the advert they published and I laughed because it indicted them. They wrote that my income was N2.8 billion and this is what I have to pay, N3.4 billion and pegged it with state and local governments. There is no way I can touch local government account because it is separate and distinct. We made sure nobody touches local government account and get away with it. Local government has its own separate account and I don’t know where their account is. I can only give policy statements on that.

Our teachers in the state are now very well motivated, such that you cannot distinguish between them and bank workers. When you see a teacher in Osun before now. They were so depressed, not motivated and they had absence of facilities to contend with. Our teachers now appear corporate and well-motivated. It is not that there won’t be some of them who for whatever reason don’t like us but they are in the minority.

Don’t buy the talk you hear that teachers don’t like him, I don’t believe that. We did independent, scientific opinion poll, which does not support all these talks. You need to see how people respond to us everywhere. People just swarm around me. I have never been in a place where my presence does not generate euphoria. You don’t get such reception if people have problem with you. I don’t really believe I have any problem with any critical sector. There is nothing that the opposition has not done to deride us.

There is no household in this state that does not feel our impact. We are talking about how to make education the central focus of our administration because I am no longer thinking of now but we want to create a new set of Nigerians to build a new society. Mine is the first government in Nigeria to give free uniform to all students.

The first government that will say that you don’t need to buy textbooks for your children in the high school, Opon Imo and it is targeted at 150,000 students. One of the attractions is that it reduces the cost of books. With that number and with what it cost us to procure the e-book, N200 million for 53 books. If you divide N200 million by 53, you will get the cost per book on that basis.

If you now divide the outcome with 150,000, do you know that the cost of the book will be N2? Opon Imo should be celebrated by all because it reduces the capital outlay on books. Tell me any government anywhere in the world that can provide eight textbooks free of charge to students. How many parents can buy all books required by their children, but we have changed this by putting into the hands of all our students in high school a library of 53 textbooks.

Our students here keep it with them, go home with them, and sleep with them for as long as they are in school. That was why I said that we have saved our state N8 billion to procure these books for the students. Immediately they heard that I said we have saved the state N8 billion naira, they said Aregbesola has stolen N8 billion. That was the genesis of the money they said my son took from Opon Imo. Let’s ask them where the N8 billion is.

What is your perception about the term stomach infrastructure?

To those who people who are elite and are therefore separated from the people, this term may make a new meaning to them. I am a product of the popular forces. I am part and parcel of the people. I emanated from them and a product of their struggles. What is now known as stomach infrastructure is what we know as interaction, engagement, living with the people and meeting their aspirations and needs. That is what we have been doing from the very beginning of this administration; I feed their children everyday meal. The Akara seller knows that I feed her child everyday. I identify with them on a daily basis in their struggle to live and they understand that everything we do is to make live easy for them. My administration does not suffer alienation from the people. It is one and same with the people and that is the basis of our confidence in their ever ready support at all times.

Is there any aspect of the state that you think you have not touched?

There is no trade, commercial or social group in the state of Osun that we have not impacted. There is no aspect. Apart from Lagos, we are the only state government that has an emergency call centre but has been made dysfunctional because the federal government just refused to give us short code to make it work.

I am telling how totally insensitive some of us are to the critical issues of our people. Whether you are APC or PDP, is your commitment not to improve the lot of your people? And when you get to these offices you must shun partisanship because you have sworn to an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and service to the people. I challenge anybody to say that my programmes are discriminatory. Why should it be anyway, are they not our citizens? We have a nation to build and a people to serve.