I’ve paid my dues, not moved by social media attacks — Abiodun

The Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, on Wednesday, said he had paid his dues in politics and was not moved by several social media posts and commentaries claiming he was not performing as a governor.

He said becoming a national lawmaker at 35 years meant that he was not a novice in the game and does not need to blow his own trumpet for people to feel his impact.

Abiodun stated this when he met with the coalition of youth organisations in the state at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

He said his administration had done well in health, education, infrastructure, and security, which, without them, no meaningful socio-economic development could take place.

Abiodun, who also spoke on the recent attacks on his person and administration on social media, said: “I normally don’t get disturbed by such things because one of my mentors in politics told me that in politics, you must make sure that you are mentioned either for the right or wrong reasons, but be continuously mentioned because if you are not mentioned, you are just part of the crowd.

“For me, I am not bothered that I have been under attack by faceless people on social media because I know what I am. I know who I am. I know what I did before I became governor. I know how long I have been on this journey.

“I became a senator before I was 35, the youngest at that time and I have been on this space in the state contesting on different platforms from that time until God decided that He was going to make me a governor and someone would imagine that after all that I had gone through to get to this position, all I will do is to be biting my fingernails. That person must be a joke.

“I became the governor under the most torturous and most difficult circumstances. I can’t go through that baptism of fire to get to the office and become complacent. Our Internally Generated Revenue was around N50 billion a year before. But in four years, we have grown it to almost N200 billion, and someone says Dapo Abiodun is just sitting in Ogun State and doing nothing. That has to be a joke.”

While taking time to explain some of the policy thrust and the direction of his administration in the last five years, Abiodun said emphasis was placed on Infrastructure, Social Welfare and Wellbeing, Education, Youth Empowerment and Job Creation, and Agriculture as encapsulated in the ISEYA mantra.

He appealed to Nigerian youths to constructively engage the government in finding lasting solutions to Nigeria’s problems rather than engaging in protests that could cause further harm to the country.

It will be recalled that some people under #EndbadgovernanceinNigeria# had threatened to embark on protest over the prevailing economic hardship from August 1 to 10, 2024.

The governor, who recalled the destruction of lives and properties occasioned by the EndSARS protests across the country in 2020, said protests could only aggravate issues without necessarily finding solutions to them.

He said: “There is a Yoruba proverb that says ‘beheading is not the solution for a headache’. If there are issues, let us discuss them, let us find a way around them, and let us manage and correct them. Let us not cut off the head or attempt to cut off the head because of a headache. That will amount to decapitation,” Abiodun advised.

He said Nigeria, like many countries across the world, was going through a difficult time, hence the need for the youths to bring in their vibrancy, zeal, ingenuity, and technical know-how to solve the problems.