The governorship candidate of Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 2019 elections in Oyo State, Engr. Oyedele Hakeem Alao, has raised an alarm that the Oyo State Government under Engr. Seyi Makinde will lose N76b World Bank (WB) project which will be beneficial to the people of the state in the area of environmental flood control, describing the present members of the state assembly as Lilliputians, inexperienced and incompetent.
Engr. Hakeem Alao said that after the contractors that would handle the project had been selected based on global procedures and practices of the WB, Governor Makinde reportedly insisted that if the project would not be handled by his preferred candidates, then the USD200m project could be taken to another state.
This and many others developments, has been going on under the present Oyo House of Assembly which is populated by Lilliputians, inexperienced, incompetent and incapable lots who were only lucky to find themselves in the chamber.
According to Alao, in statement by his media spokesman, Omotayo Iyanda, noted that perusing through the profiles of members of the current assembly, it was obvious that many of them lack the background, the prerequisite ability, intelligence, credentials and experience needed to be able to perform as expected in the state assembly. Running through their profiles, a lot of them did not have outstanding professional/career background and exposure to work with a governor whose vision is blurry.
He said that the present assembly has failed in their checks and balances duty on the executive contrary to what we had in the past, hence several errors and failures in the Makinde-led administration as he also remarked that the present APC members in the assembly who are supposed to be a vibrant opposition had been very disappointing, collaborating with their PDP counterparts to undo the state.
The ex-AD guber candidate stated that there were reports that the current Honourable Speaker, Rt Honourable Speaker Adebo Ogundoyin, did not have the required confidence, experience and sagacity to face Engr Seyi Makinde on any serious state matters as he always had his cap in hands behaving in the presence of the governor like a baby law maker as the governor, contrary to the experience when we had members like Chief Gbolagunte (a former speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly) from Eruwa, Ibarapa land, in the 1980s.
Last year, we queried the decision to establish the PMS, stating that it was unconstitutional and arbitrary use of power to do so but in the usual characteristic of this government, they did not listen. Now that the establishment and their operations had been invalidated by the court of law, Engr Seyi Makinde owed the people of the state explanations how he would re-coup the state money and loans he had invested in the project. This government has become synonymous with errors, blunders and somersaults of decisions and policies which are clear indices that the governor and his team lack what it takes to lead Oyo State.
The state assembly should wake up to their responsibilities and stop this “boy boy” disposition otherwise they should regard themselves as undeserving of the votes of the people of Oyo State in 2023.
