Mr Taiwo Adisa, The Chief Press Secretary, CPS to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has highlighted the pros and cons associated with the current government of pacesetter state.
Adisa revealed this in a recent interview anchored by the popular On-Air Personality fondly called Double A in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
Adisa talked about the problems facing the state and the way forward.
He spoke on the gridlock as one of the major problems which is caused by disorderliness of the commercial road users and how government is working to tackle it.
He said that the disorderliness was because of the reckless driving of the cab (Micra), tricycle and bike drivers.
Saying, “it is vivid that countries with such reckless driving is minute and the reason behind that is as a result of the little knowledge they have about the rules of the road”.
“The government has the duty to checkmate them and brace them up for the job. One of the steps the government intends to solve it is to create where the bike riders will stay which is called Okada park”.
He added that the pilot scheme is already in progress, the government already endorsed it, and the project has started at “Gate”. Once it is commissioned, training will begin for the riders highlighting the do(s) and don’t(s).
“Parks like that will be done in every area that is needed and that will put an end to bike riders blocking or waiting for passengers at junctions that will impede the movements of vehicles”.
“As soon as that is done, the registration of tricycle follows. This will help knowing the numbers of people riding it and by so doing, those who are constituting nuisance or being used to cause mayhem will be figured out in the state/city”, he professed.
“Also the cab men(micra) won’t be left out because we already know that most of them started with bike and knowing that biking is not in the transportation system in Nigeria, it was just suddenly brought in”.
However, he addressed the critics who have been saying the only work they see him do, is to pay salary, ” those saying the present government has done nothing other than to pay salaries should ask other states who don’t pay salaries. The payment of minimum wage makes a year in January and the government had been consistent in the payment in which some other states have not started paying at all talk not of being consistent in the payment”.
Moreso, talking about infrastructure, checking the records, it is discovered that what the past government did for 8years (road construction) putting together was just 40kilometer approximately whereas, the project at Moniya-Iseyin road that will be completed in Feb 2021 alone is 65kilometer.
He admitted that the past government approved the project before leaving office,
” The government of Abiola Ajimobi approved the road for 7billion and released 2billion for contractors but the said contractor was sub let. It was first given to a contractor called Trading company and knowing that road construction has nothing to do with trading company but rather about engineering. So the trading company later engaged another engineer for the job”.
And as a result of this, the money approved was no longer enough to continue”.
Immediately Gov. Seyi Makinde got to power, the road was inspected and we realized that nothing was done concerning the road and the money approved was shared among themselves and that caused the immediate termination of the contract and ordered the refund of the money.
“Although, they claimed that they already spent 850million for the movement of materials they wanted to use, they could not refund that but 1.2 billion was retrieved from them.
“And for the TESCOM which some people are already saying something different about, I want you to know that if the government do not have the capacity to employ teachers, they won’t call for the recruitment”.
” Everything we are doing is according to the book of governance on Governor Seyi Makinde”.
“Initially, the plan was to recruit teachers and let them begin work before the end of last year but the number of applicants were more than the expectation. I implore those who wrote the exam to calm down as their employment letter will be ready soon. There are some verification going on before letter can be given to anyone, the applicants must submit their original result to avoid the repetition of what happened during the last administration that original certificate of some were forged”, he notified.
“As for polytechnic Ibadan, investigation is on going to know the cause of their action that warrant them to go on strike because their action to embark on strike is baseless as far as I’m concerned” He opined.
“What they want is that the same amount added to make the minimum wage to be added to all level salaries, to level 17 which I don’t think there is any government who can afford that”, Adisa said
