Ondo 2016: In search of credible leader

DEAR Sunshine Students, As you already know, this year is an election year for us in Ondo State. It is another chance to right some wrongs as far as leadership is concerned in the state. When the head is bad, the body can never be whole. If we must get it right, it has to be from the choice of who heads our democratic government in the state come February 2017. But the path to getting it right begins from this year and shall climax by October or November when the Independent National Electoral Commission shall conduct gubernatorial election to usher in a new governor in the state.
 
Ondo State is not the most misgoverned among the 36 states that make up the country, Nigeria. In the same vein, Ondo State is far from the best-governed state in the last eight years. It is a sad reality that confounds us daily.
 
In terms of human capital, Ondo State is arguably the most blessed in this country. It has been referred to as the intellectual power house of Nigeria. Akoko in the Northern senatorial district of the state has the second largest concentration of professors in the country. The entertainment industry which I must say is the largest employer of labour right now in this country is dominated by young creative minds of Ondo State origin. HipTv, the most veritable platform for anyone in the Nigerian entertainment industry to blossom, is owned by an Ondo State indigene. Certified or not, an average Ondo man is intelligent and exposed. Ile Oluji in the Southern senatorial district of the state has the largest number of Nigerians in the United Kingdom. The best private beach resort in West Africa and second best in Africa is owned by an Ondo man.
 
Where we are now is a situation whereby even a national bailout fund becomes too inconsequential to salvage our economical incapacity. It is so bad that civil servants who form the core of our parents and guardians are continually owed in excesses of two or three months’ salary arrears. It is high time we stopped perishing for lack of knowledge.
 
Before the exploration of crude oil in commercial quantities, Nigeria was largely dependent on cocoa, oil palm, tin, rubber, etc for export. Ondo State is one of the largest producers of  oil palm in the country. Yet we can’t afford to pay our workers’ salaries. Cote d’Ivoire, our neighbouring West African nation, bases the survival of her economy on cocoa export.  Yet, a state that helps Nigeria to rank the fourth largest exporter of cocoa cannot afford to pay the salaries of her workers.
 
Nigeria is one of the largest banana and plantain growing countries in Africa. Nigeria produces 2.74 million tonnes of banana annually, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Ondo State is second only to Edo in the production of banana and plantain in this country.
 
Today, Nigeria is the second largest tin ore producing country in Africa, just above Russia globally. Aside Jos and Kano, Ondo State has the largest deposit of tin in Nigeria. Yet we can’t pay our workers’ salaries.
 
Bitumen is a tar-like form of petroleum that can be refined to produce commercial products such as gasoline, fuel, oil and  asphalt. The Nigerian bitumen deposit put at 42.74 billion metric tonnes is the second largest in the world. The largest chunk of it is reportedly located in Agbabu in Ondo State.
 
Ondo students! Have we forgotten so soon that a projected nine billion dollar refinery with a plan to have a capacity of around 400,000 barrels a day was to take off by late 2016 in Ondo State? For whatever reason, our state government couldn’t drive the process of agreement through. Do we even have the faintest idea how many of our destinies have been derailed owing to this glaring ineptitude?
 
The problem with Ondo State is of poor leadership. The state is in dire need of a sincere leader who is willing to harness the state’s resources for the purpose of lifting her indigenes from the state of penury to plenitude. We need a governor with a clean slate who has not been sullied by the murky waters of our brand of ‘jegudujera’ politics.
 
Our first appeal should perhaps go to the leading opposition political party in the state. We appeal to the leaders of APC to have compassion on the masses. The political party which is platform for gubernatorial hopefuls should not leave us with a governorship candidate that could be best described as a choice between the devil and the red sea. They should not give us the lesser of two evil conundrums at the polls. It all begins from that point of choosing the party’s flag bearers. Electorate can only decide between eventual political party candidates. As students and youths, we must demonstrate that a party that chooses a candidate that does not reflect our wishes has failed ab initio.
 
The thought of spending the next four years on the same administrative pedestal is discouraging enough. We must raise voice in unison to appeal for a statesman as a flag bearer in the forthcoming polls and not a regular politician.  If they have our interest at heart, they must not give us ‘one of them’ to choose from.

• Adedayo, Public Relations Officer of the National Association Of Nigerian Students (Southwest), wrote this (excerpt) as an open letter to the students of Ondo State.