Taiwo Adisa, Seyi Makinde’s Chief Press Secretary, is supposed to be a consummate communicator, having said to have obtained his first and second degrees in Communication and Language Art at that University of exemplary scholarship, UI. He exhibited crass unexampled of what a professional communicator should be in his recent response to criticisms that trailed his principal’s disingenuous policy of converting the expanse of land housing BCOS Staff Quarters to GRA, denying the staffers of the corporation occupying the quarters the opportunity of their continued stay in the sprawling quarters.
In responding to the criticisms, Taiwo Adisa singled out the Oyo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress to launch vitriolic attacks to, saying the opposition party ‘demonstrated insensitivity and crass ignorance on matters of the state…’ Makinde’s CPS went on to describe ‘APC’s intervention on the planned conversion of an expanse of land and parts of the staff quarters of the BCOS to a Government Residential Area (GRA) as needless, uninformed, half baked and irresponsible’. One is, however, disappointingly surprised that a supposed manager of image could deploy such degrading words in responding to harmless criticisms of his paymaster’s porous policy of converting the quarters to GRA.
Continuing his crass display of journalistic rascality, Adisa said he could not understand the sudden interest APC had in the BCOS staffers, some of whom, according to Adisa, the immediate past APC government sacked, retired prematurely and nearly killed, with unpaid salaries and pensions. What Adisa said above was malicious and reek of lies. BCOS was at its lowest ebb by the time late Senator Abiola Ajimobi took over the reigns of governance in the state. There was a large army of redundant staffers at the corporation; the human capacity was almost nil while the station was overstaffed by almost a hundred personnel. The immediate past government of late Senator Abiola Ajimobi undertook due diligence in carrying out staff screenings and audits in BCOS during which some of the staffers were found to be redundant and ineffective. Those ones were moved to the Secretariat, Agodi while those who were milking the system dry were moved to MDAs. Then was when Yanju Adegbite and Yomi Layinka were appointed as Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer on BCOS matters respectively by late Governor Ajimobi to see to the total turnaround of the almost lifeless station. It was these gentlemen, in the course of resuscitating BCOS, that had to change to new logo, the news settings and new wardrobes for the newscasters so that the station could conform to modern broadcasting realities. As fate would have it, Mr Yanju Adegbite, the then CEO of BCOS, who was in the thick of the restructuring, is now a guest broadcaster at Fresh FM, Ibadan, a station prided as a hideous megaphone of the present government. The veteran broadcaster may be contacted to puncture the lies told unashamedly by Taiwo Adisa to the effect that the immediate past government of late Senator Abiola Ajimobi unleashed undeserved harsh treatments to some staffers of BCOS.
It’s laughable that CPS Adisa was advising APC to seek information from Makinde’s government which stock-in-trade is to hoard information concerning its policies since they have underhand dealings they don’t want uncovered. Adisa shouldn’t have forgotten that criticisms are part of democracy as long as they’re constructive, and in the case of the demolition, it wasn’t APC alone that criticised the action of the government, a section of the members of the public also joined their voices to the criticisms since the government was as reluctant as ever in releasing information to the public.
Sadly enough, CPS Adisa hinged the reason for the demolition on the government’s decision to turn the staff quarters to GRA. So, it isn’t about the ordinary masses! The demolition is about satisfying the knack for opulence and luxury of the cohorts and cronies of the government. It’s about robbing the less privileged staffers of BCOS to pay the privileged cronies of the present government! So much for insensitivity and irresponsibility! Oyo state has many GRAs spread across the state and many of the GRAs are in bad shape. Instead of the government to find ways to breathe life into the existing GRAs, it’s bent on creating another GRA so that its functionaries and acolytes could join the league of GRA residents.
In his grand folly, CPS Adisa made a mindless insinuation that APC had lost public trust, the reason it lost the last election. Adisa needs to be told, since he hadn’t joined his inept government during 2019 governorship election, that the governorship candidate of the APC, Chief Bayo Adelabu garnered over three hundred thousand votes despite the unholy alliance hurriedly convoked by the now disgruntled parties with the PDP. These unholy alliance has since broken down since it’s a house built with watery saliva.
Mr. Taiwo Adisa is not a model media aide. He needs to learn how to temper his responses to his paymaster’s criticisms with diplomacy, decorum and decency. As a former undergraduate in the Department of Communication and Language Art at UI, CPS Adisa must have learnt one or two things about rudiments of Public Relations. Does he need to revisit his PR notes to relearn how to be a consummate image maker? He can defend the policies of the government by combining a bit of PR with his journalistic temperament. He needs to begin to treat the APC as one of the publics of the government he serves with which he must establish cordial relationship. His qualification and competence are being called to question by the rascally, rash manners he responds to criticisms of his boss and his hushed policies. APC is playing its oppositional roles to put the present government on its toes so that by 2023 when APC will have reclaimed government and governance, the party will meet the state in one piece. The owner of the state won’t watch the state to dissemble!
