Prof. Adeolu Durotoye, the Provost of College of the Social and Management Science, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, is a governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State. He spoke on his ambition and agenda for the State of Osun with Amiloaded correspondent on Saturday. For the erudite scholar, God has told him he will be the next governor of Osun and it will surely come to past.
Can we meet you sir?
I am a Professor of Political Science and International Relations and is presently the Provost of College of Social and Management Sciences, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD). I am also the Chairman of Quality Assurance for ABUAD. I studied Political Science at the University of Lagos where I graduated with a 2nd Class Upper in 1990. I got my Master’s degree from the same university in 1992. I was a German scholar, having studied at the University of Leipzig between 1997 and 2001 where I got my PhD, graduating with Magna Cum Laude. I worked as a journalist with the Guardian newspaper and African Concord magazine. I equally taught politics at different times at the University of Ibadan, University of Toronto and Afe Babalola University. I am a recipient of the prestigious University of Lagos Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005 and Meritorious Service Award of Men’s Missionary Union of Osun Baptist Conference in 2017. I am also a recipient of Utility Teacher Award of Afe Babalola University in 2017. I had the privilege of serving as Chairman, Local Organising Committee of the 2017 edition of Afe Babalola Agricultural Expo as well as Chairman, ABUAD Convocation Committee in quick succession.
Where do you hail from?
I am from Osogbo in Osogbo Local Government Area, but I was born in Ede, in Aanu Olu Hospital some 48 years ago. I am from Osogbo, precisely from Ile Amugba, Ibokun Road, Osogbo in Osun Central Senatorial District.
How would you tackle unemployment if you are elected governor of the state?
We want to establish industries that can employ at least 5,000 people and we have 30 local government areas in Osun plus one area office, that will give us nothing less than 155,000 jobs in the first couple of months of our administration. We are bringing industries back. We are going to look for alternative source of energy s that these industries can generate energy on their own to run their own business. We are going to give them the technical know-how on how to generate their own energy because how do you run industries where there is no electricity. I was somewhere in Canada, I visited an industry that was generating electricity from cattle dung.
Why can’t we do that? We have wind-aided energy. I was in Germany a few weeks ago and they were begging people to put on their light because they were generating energy through wind they cannot consume. So, they had to tell their people that, even if you used energy, you will not pay for using it during that period, but in Nigeria, we used the same method of generating energy and here, electricity is a problem. Lack of electricity and infrastructure are some of the reasons why the ease of doing business is not favourable to us. We must create an enabling environment; investment will come in when we provide an enabling environment and as governor, I will create an enabling environment in terms of infrastructure, in terms of electricity, in terms of security. So, investors will come, each local government area will have a industry that is built around the area in which it has comparative advantage so that each local government area will be able to generate jobs for its people. Equally, let us look at agriculture; I am a farmer. When you plant perishable things and if you can’t sell in one week, it is gone because there are no storage facilities. In each local government area, we will create processing facilities in which people
will preserve their products, facilities that can turn tomato to tomato paste, pepper to paste, turn orange to orange juice, turn banana to banana juice, turn mango to mango juice so that farmers will not lose their produce having worked so hard.
Equally, we will provide train services to assist our farmers to market whatever they cannot sell locally to sell in places like Lagos and other parts of the country where they can sell some of their products.
How would you address challenges facing education sector in the state?
In the area of education, unfortunately, Osun’s performance in WAEC, 29 out of 36 is unacceptable. I am an educationist and in that area, we must be able to ensure that we turn around the sector. If teachers are not motivated, schools will not be schools; we will motivate our teachers, we will train them and ensure that they are paid on time and exposed to international standards if doing things. We will have unified exams, our students will prepare for WAEC from SS2; we will know where they are lacking so that we prepare them to perform well in WAEC and other public examinations. Salaries will be paid on time, workers will be motivated, they will be promoted when they are due for promotion.
Those whose employment have not been regularised, we will regularise it.
Recently, pensioners have been at daggers drawn with the incumbent administration, what would you do to ensure that pensioners don’t protest until their pensions are paid?
I was trained by pensioners; my father retired in 1984 and I was not even in the university when he retired.
My elder siblings were in higher institutions, but if pensioners were not paid as and when due at that time, how would I be able to go to school? Pensions will be paid on time and workers’ welfare are given priority. Our workers deserve more than what they are getting at present. Equally, we will encourage small businesses’ in the western world, small businesses make those environments thick. We will encourage small businesses to thrive.
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