No smoke without fire, Chief of Staff attacks Oyo government

The Chief of Staff (CoS) to Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, Chief Bisi Ilaka, has described the rising criticisms of the administration as a part of mid-time period blues, saying individuals now anticipate the federal government to lift the bar as a result of they are already taking its big achievements without any consideration.

Ilaka, who acknowledged this in an interview with some reporters in Ibadan, the state capital, stated individuals at the moment are taking without any consideration the truth that youngsters go to high school without paying charges, hospitals are actually working, civil servants accumulate salaries directly and folks at the moment are asking what increased achievements the federal government desires to supply.

He stated the scenario is difficult by the expansion of faux information and the character of opposition which he described as an expert in propaganda and spinning.

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He mentioned: “I have been with the administration from the transition committee to have the privilege of being the primary appointee of the chief governor until we have been joined by different members of the administration staff. I feel the bar was set fairly too low for us. However, we set very exacting and really excessive requirements and now we have maintained that by and enormous. Identical to some other administration, there shall be midterm blues and folks will re-consider and we now pitch it loads greater. What now we have achieved has now turn into usually acceptable. The truth that kids go to high school at this time without paying any charges, they get free textbooks and free train books. Our hospitals are working, our economy is increasing and these are taken without any consideration. So, individuals are actually saying, what’s subsequent? That is conserving us on our toes and I am certain we will certainly meet up with the problem. We don’t anticipate it to be plain-cruising on a regular basis.

“And once more, we’re working in opposition to a backdrop of the place the opposite aspect is made up of a group of propagandists who’re keen to spin and spin. We additionally stay in an atmosphere the place there’s a variety of pretend information and this makes it difficult for all events involved to dissect what’s true from what shouldn’t be. However, what’s most vital to us is that we now have remained targeted. We’ve set the target all alongside that it received to be enterprise as standard.

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“We all know we are going to by no means be excellent, however, we’ll try for perfection nonetheless. We don’t count on it to be straightforward. We’re as much as the duty as to the assorted challenges. We anticipate a large number of challenges and our coronary heart is in the best place.
“We have men of a great intellect working with us and I am sure that with that combination, we will get the results that the good people of Oyo State deserve.”

His words: “In the area of education, when we came to Oyo State was languishing in terms of the ‘league table’ for NECO and WAEC. We were in the 26, 28 and 29 positions at various times in the last administration.

But the last examination, we came 11th because we really had our hands properly on the steering in terms of education since we came on board. The changes we have put in place will percolate through and will become permanent and I am sure next year we will be in a single-digit position and do even better. Oyo State has always been regarded as the centre of excellence for education and fount of knowledge in Africa.

We have also succeeded in getting the sole ownership of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) which has been pretty contentious. In terms of finding funding for the school, we will continue what we have been doing solely. I am sure our people are quite happy about that, that we brought the old tussle with Osun State to a permanent end. We kept and maintained the Technical University in Ibadan. The mandate of the school has expanded and they are also firing on all cylinders. We have looked after our tertiary education system. We came in when lecturers were being paid 25 per cent of their salaries. We have been paying them full salaries, and promptly too. We even promised to pay the arrears owed to them by the previous government and we are doing that. We are rolling out wi-fi in our schools. We are teaching and training teachers in ICT. We have a whole lot of teachers being trained at Saints Annes’ School and Government College.

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“Talking about infrastructure, our secretariat is the only one that has wi-fi in the country today, even Lagos State has not got that.

“On healthcare, through the eight years of the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi, no single primary healthcare centre was commissioned. We have commissioned about seven and we intend to do one in every one of the 351 wards in the state before the term of the administration. We know how to get the money for it and so funding it is not an issue. It is not a wish-list. It is what we will do. We have got to have a kind of an integrated healthcare system and with regard to the secondary healthcare system. Adeoyo Hospital, when we came in, had a patchy diagnostic system. We have put in place a lot of diagnostic and radiography equipment. We have established a strong MoU with the UCH to provide us with specialists in all our secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities. We will exchange the know-how that resides predominantly at the UCH in Ibadan. In Saki, we have set up a specialist hospital. We had the challenge of COVID-19 and I think we have done admirably well with it. The recovery rate has been quite decent.”

He added that the administration was building farm estates, adding that it has revitalised the state’s transport company with 109 new buses.