Ogun State: Eight years of eventful service – A retrospect

Visionary leadership drives Ogun through inclusive governance, local capacity, and bold reforms that redefined infrastructure, economy, and public service

Looking back, I would say my 2,922 days as the Governor and sitting on top of the political administration of Ogun State is one of the most eventful of my political and professional career.

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It couldn’t have been less challenging especially because managing people of diverse culture and temperaments cutting across the various professions and idiosyncrasies, and balancing the various interests of the political class and men and women of the civil service can be quite tasking.

We had to invent ingenious ways to keep the ship afloat and deliver on most of the promises that we made to our people during the electioneering campaigns.
We had our jobs well cut out for us, because from the outset, we were determined to make the difference in the polity and the way things are done.

Before venturing into the politics of Ogun State, we did our Needs Assessment of what we think are the expectations of our and what really people want from their government and what can make our administration stand out when we eventually win the contest.

Together with my team we held several hold out sessions and retreats to design policies, programs and projects that could make this happen.

We introduced strategic retreats and a bonding process to integrate both the civil service and the political appointees for seamless working operations, and synergy.

One of the creative initiatives in our bonding process include a chain exchange of gifts where every one attending the retreat will come with a gift secretly wrapped and enclosed their contact details.

It is such a web of networking such that whoever picks each other’s gifts becomes work environment friends and must call and interact with one another regularly.

This way, we ensured transparency and the free flow of information across the political and administrative spectrum. Almost everyone, anywhere in the System knows what we are doing through strategic information sharing.

We also introduced the Central Administration of Salaries and Pensions (CASP) to streamline and automate the process of payments.

Leveraging the talents and professional competence of the dynamic forces in the Ogun State civil service by creating several new agencies like the Ogun State Road Management Agency (OGROMA), the Ogun State Electricity Project (OGSEP), the Traffic Compliance and Emergency Agency (TRACE), the Ogun State Agriculture and Microcredit Agency (OSAMCA), Gateway Holdings Limited, Bureau of Transportation (BoT) and a host of others.

Several civil and public servants went through various capacity development programs through several local and international trainings.

The 2000-seater Valley View Auditorium was designed by an Architect Vaughn in the Ogun State civil service, supervised by Engineers Adekoya and Onabanjo all within the Ogun State civil service.

We were determined not to award any of our construction works to any foreign contractors and most of the Roads constructed under our administration were done by OGROMA, and by extension staff of the civil service of Ogun State. One of such roads was the Oke Ilewo Lalubu road in the State capital, Abeokuta.

I am not aware that a single repair has been carried out on that road which turned Oke Ilewo into Ogun State’s equivalent of Broad Street or Allen Avenue.

Where local competences were discovered to be lacking or in short fall, we trained.

No sooner that we were sworn in on May 29th and I took an inspection tour of some of the Ministries, Agencies and Departments of Government that I noticed antiquated office equipment and typewriters still in use as of 2003. In some offices of course a few of them have migrated to electric typewriters.

We therefore embarked on phased training of our men and women in the Civil service.

We activated a training program at the South West Resource Centre in conjunction with a United States government through its Consulate in Nigeria and also started a phased Computerisation of government offices once the right proficiencies have been acquired.

We set to industrialise Ogun State and we conceived the ideas of economic Drivers, major projects spread across all the four regions of Ogun State.

We started with the dualisation of the Abeokuta-Siun-Sagamu road to connect some of our major towns and then conceptualized the idea of having an Agro-Cargo Airport in the Ilishan/Iperu area of Remoland.

We got all necessary statutory approvals for NiMet, FAAN and the Ministry of Aviation for the airport construction, carried out all the Feasibility Studies, acquired the Land, did the crop enumeration, paid compensation, produced the Architectural Design and even turned the sod for the take off of the project (those in project management agree that these processes constitute 70% of efforts in any projects of such magnitude) before the end of our tenure in 2011.

Also, as part of our Industrialisation Policy, we established the Flower gate Industrial Estate at the Abeokuta Sagamu Interchange with an overflow inwards to Abeokuta and outwards on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

Today, that corridor, I can proudly say is one of the fastest growing industrial corridors in Nigeria. The Agro-Cargo Airport which we conceived and created was actually to service this Industrial corridor with an Aerotropolis (an Airport City) and Agro-Processing industrial corridors.

Leveraging on the unique advantage of the sea in the Ogun Waterside area, we secured the license and established the Olokola Free Trade Zone (OKFTZ) in Ode Omi area.

As part of the Free Trade Zone were several other economic projects like the OKLNG, OK Deep Seaports projects.

We equally secured the license and established the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone in Igbeba as well as the Kajola Free Trade Zone in the Ifo Local Government Council Area of the State.

To support our industrialisation vision, we procured a 7MW Independent Power Project Power to supply energy to critical government infrastructure like waters facilities and government offices and institutions and to take all these institutions off the national power grid.

As part of our local content initiatives and to grow local competences, several engineers from the civil service were sent to China at the point of manufacturing of these Power plants to be trained on how to repair and maintain these equipment and save the state enormous resources instead of bringing foreigners each time they need some fixing.

Our education policy was widely acclaimed as one that was well thought out, because it was during our administration that we established the first University of Education in Nigeria, the Tai Solarin University of Education.

This was the second of such specialized University in the whole of Africa and the eight in the world.

Not only that, we relocated the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) from its temporary site at Ago Iwoye Secondary School to a permanent, purpose-built campus, and then went ahead to create four other specialized ICT institutions, the Gateway ICT Polytechnic, Saapade Remo; the DS Adegbenro Polytechnic in Itori, Abeokuta; the Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic, Ijebu Igbo; the Ayodeji Otegbola Polytechnic, Igbesa.

We equally established the Gateway Industrial Petro-Gas Institute in Oni, Ogun Waterside to train and deliver special skills in the Oil and Gas Industry.

We also established the School of Nursing & Midwifery, Ilaro as well as the Olabisi Onabanjo University College of Agriculture Aiyetoro campus and College of Engineering/Technology in Ibogun.

If there is an area where our administration has been scored highest in our 10,070 hours of service to Ogun State, I believe posterity will credit us fairly in the Welfare and Human Capital Development department.

Our administration for the first time, and perhaps the last instituted a scholarship scheme under the Human and Capital Development Program (HUCAP) where indigent First Class Graduates were sponsored for Post Graduate degrees in Ivy League institutions outside the country.

Several beneficiaries of this initiative are the loudest testimonies of our administration for which we will forever remain proud.

It is also on record that our administration created the office of Principal Generals (equivalent of the Permanent Secretaries) in our education system where teachers in the employment of the State can rise to the Pinnacle of their career like their counterparts in the mainstream civil service.

While we also employed no fewer than 16,000 new teachers into the Ogun State Teaching service through our Voluntary Teachers Scheme (VTS).

We remain proud to say that we changed the work ethics in the Ogun State civil service and revolutionise the Transition into modern Information and Communication Technology into the system.

We started with ICT Training at the South West Resource Centre and gradually introduced Computers as a work instrument and begin the gradual process of paperless office.

To provide a conducive working environment, we built a new Four-Block ultramodern Secretariat Complex with top notch facilities for workers comfort. While we also prioritized the prompt payment of workers salaries and emoluments.

The several new agencies that we created OGEGEP, OGROMA, TRACE, OSAMCA, (Parks and Garages Development Board (PAGADEB) were all part of our deliberate policy towards creating jobs and employment for many young citizens of Ogun State and also reduce workload on the existing overburdened staff already in the service.

It is to the credit of our administration that we built Workers Estate, not only in Laderin Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, but also in Itanrin Ijebu Ode, Ifo, Ilaro and GRA Sagamu/Simawa to balance the Ogun State’s Zonal configuration and simultaneous growth and development.

The highpoint of our housing policies for workers welfare was such that we ensure that unit cost for each houses for members of our civil service must not be more than One million naira (N1m).

We insisted on this as a principle and many of our civil servants were allocated houses at the Laderin Workers Estate at the cost of Nine Hundred and Ninety Naira.

We emphasized a mortgage System whereby workers only needed to pay just a ten percent (10%) of this cost through their mortgage with the Gateway Savings and Loans Limited.

And to ensure easy access to this mortgage facilities we commissioned a brand new headquarters office complex of the Gateway Savings and Loans Limited in Abeokuta and opened branch offices in Ota, Sagamu and Ijebu Ode.

Senior civil/public officials were allocated official vehicles of different brands, from Commissioners down to the Director’s level.
Our judicial officers were not left out as most judges were given Prado Jeeps (SUVs) while duplexes were built as Judges Quarters befitting their statuses, security and the sensitive nature of their jobs.

In the areas ot Youth and Sports Development, we remodelled the MKO Stadium in Abeokuta fitted with AstroTurf or synthetic grass and an airconditioner State Box, we followed this up with the construction of three new stadia in Sagamu, Ilaro and Ijebu Ode.

The FIFA rated Gateway Stadium in Ijebu Ode has a purpose-built 100 capacity facility as a Games Village for athletes camping attached while right beside the stadium in Sagamu we constructed an ultramodern NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp which years after is still adjusted to be one of the best in the country till date.

We hosted the first and only National Sports Festival (Gateway Games 2006) where an account was rendered at the Closing Ceremony of the competition and the state also declared a profit underscoring the transparency and accountability that we espoused during the administration.

During the Games, the capacities of Ogun State dutiful Civil service was tested to the limit as all Permanent Secretaries and Directors were assigned as Games State Contingent Overseers in charge of each participating State. Every department of the government was fully and dutifully engaged to achieve success.

We initiated a 25-Year Economic and Development Master plan for Ogun State and put civil servants at the Drivers seat for continuity because they are the arm of government operations that will be around for longer time while the political class holds office temporarily and for brief periods.

The re-engineering of the State with solid road maps has become the template upon which successive administration runs.

And to ensure the economic prosperity of the State and its ability to sustain all the projects envisaged in our development Master plan, we instituted the Gateway Holdings as an investment arm of the State to coordinate and manage the State’s investment holdings, stocks and shares and yo initiate diverse opportunities.

The creation and statutory establishment of Ogun State Parks and Garages Board (PAGADEB), was described as unique and first in the history of the State. We conceived this idea to ensure the corporate management of all the parks and garages in the state.

The Commission was made up of experienced elder statesmen and women, in allied professions, as members of the Board, led by an Executive Chairman and a member of our civil service as the Director General., supporting with official bureaucracy and protocols.

We also established the State Elders Council, where advocacy and counselling Initiatives of leaders of thought in Ogun State.

The Elders (fomer Governors, former Commissioners, Special Advisers, former Council Chairmen, retired Head of Service/Permanent Secretaries, civil/public and private sectors) across all sectors, but we insisted that qualifications to be a member of this Council must be indigenes/residents from age 60 and above, provide resourceful advisory roles to the Government.

Since the inception of our administration in May 2003, we made it a point of duty to engage the citizens through regular weekly interactions, some at the Governor’s office in Abeokuta, and at other times via direct physical/telephone communication channels. Citizens were to ask varied questions no matter how unpleasant.

I must say, that it was through this feedback mechanism and initiate that led us to the establishmemt of Ministry of Community Development which was also described as the first in Ogun State and the entire South West of Nigeria.

To make our administration more partipatory, we also built an Oba’s complex at the Ogun State Secretariat in Abeokuta, technically making the traditional rulers the fourth arm of government after the Executive, legislature and the Judiciary.

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Our traditional rulers were encouraged to hold regular meetings to discuss matters of state and security and offered advice from their timelines wisdom in support of our administration.