FIREWORK! Dare Adeleke Schools Ojo Mutalib SAN On Governance

My Learned Brother Silk, Mutalubi Ojo, SAN. Happy Sunday, the pride of Ibadan South East.

But as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, I expected you to look beyond rhetorics. You know as a lawyer of wide experience, that Section 162(6) of the 1999 Constitution as amended created the State Joint Local Government Account, and it empowers the State to oversee Local Governments. The Supreme Court only gave its new interpretation on LG autonomy in July 2024.

So when GSM did his “O fa won lori, o si tun fi oda kun” for most Ibadan roads with virement of Oyo State Local Governments funds, he was acting within the Constitution and the practice as inherited from our late uncle and leader, Senator Abiola Ajimobi who also spent LG funds to run the state.

Now to your emotional question: Did he remember State Hospital Road, Adeoyo? The road has been awarded and we expected the contractors to move to site. That road and many others were in total ruins after 8 years of my uncle Ajimobi who we all praised. GSM met Oyo as a glorified village with unpaid salaries, unpaid pensions, and LGs that could not even pay primary school teachers.

Let me say this, Learned Silk and my own Ashiwaju of Ibadan South East.

Can Local Government funds construct 1 kilometre of road after payment of Primary School Teachers’ salaries, Local Government Staff salaries, Pensions, Traditional Council, Health workers, and Security support? The answer is NO. Capital NO. A kilometre of standard road is now over N1 Billion. The entire allocation of most LGs in Oyo State is not even up to N250 Million after salary deductions. If we left LG funds with your caretaker chairmen, Oyo State would still be where previous administration left it.

GSM used LG funds for what LG funds are meant for in a responsible Government – to impact the PEOPLE at the grassroots. That is why Ibadan roads, which were abandoned for 8 years, are now motorable.

1. On Cost: GSM’s roads have lasted 5 years, previous administration roads peeled after one rainy season because they were all audio roads commissioned for camera.
2. On Education:Ajimobi’s Governing Board you praised privatized public schools and parents were paying N3,000 per child. GSM cancelled it, brought back free education, recruited over 5,000 teachers and built over 200 Model Schools.
3. On ETF and Grants: You asked where are the Grants? Under GSM, World Bank came back to Oyo State because GSM paid counterpart funding Gov Ajimobi refused to pay. That is why we got RAAMP for rural roads, and IUFMP was finally executed.
4. On Circular Road: The Hastrup BOT you celebrated was a fraud. No financial closure for 3 years. GSM terminated it to protect Oyo State from future litigation and is now building the Circular Road with concrete evidence on ground 70km already cleared, not on PowerPoint like our referred Gov Ajimobi’s China trips.
5. On Health:Which pigsty? The same Adeoyo Hospital you mentioned GSM equipped it, built 264 upgraded PHCs across wards, bought oxygen plants, and employed over 1000 health workers Ajimobi sacked. Your era was when doctors went on 365 days strike.
6. On Airport, Stadium, Light-Up: Oyo Airport that previous administration could not even put a fire truck GSM has upgraded it to International status and it is now approved for 24-hour flights. Lekan Salami Stadium was a bush where snakes were playing GSM rebuilt it and Super Eagles played there. Light-Up Oyo has made Ibadan the night-life capital of Nigeria, not Ajimobi’s darkness.

Learned Silk, please don’t reduce your wig and gown to political support. As a SAN, you should argue with facts, figures and Supreme Court authorities.

GSM will be judged by the people who see his roads, his schools, his hospitals, his prompt salaries, not by 27 WhatsApp questions copied from a failed opposition secretariat.

APC FOUGHT GSM, they lost at the polls. They took him to Tribunal, they lost. They took him to Supreme Court, also lost. Now you have resorted to writing epistles.

Seyi Makinde is the cynosure of all eyes, highly respected and deeply spiritual, and even Governor Seyi Makinde will look at your write-up with amazement.

Oyo State has moved on.

DARE ADELEKE