Dr. Olusegun Mimiko

Critical issues in Ondo politics. By Niyi Akinnaso

IT is campaign season. The political culture of thuggery and violence is once again being reproduced across the country. It is unfortunate that this disturbing national trend is also evident in Ondo state, where highly educated and skilled professionals control the political machinery.

For example, the two frontrunners in the state’s gubernatorial race are Dr. Olusegun Agagu of the PDP (a geologist) and Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (a physician). Dr. Agagu is the incumbent Governor while Dr. Mimiko leads the pack of challengers. Yet, their campaign organizations are mired in accusations of thuggery and violence. This can only mean one thing: Each campaign organization is trying hard to get ahead of the other. It is unfortunate that violence is one of the means being employed.

Yet, experience shows that thuggery and violence have always been counter-productive measures in the election process. First, they damage lives, property, and the integrity of politicians. Second, they tend to grab the headlines and displace the candidates’ ideas and programmes, thereby making it difficult to distinguish between “good” and “bad” candidates. Third, thuggery and violence portend a bad omen. Instead of preparing citizens to accept election results peacefully, they tend to prepare them for violence, particularly if they feel that their votes were stolen. This happened in 1983 when violence erupted throughout the state, following the falsification of election results. There is no need to reproduce and entrench thuggery and violence as the state’s political legacy.

This is why indigenes of Ondo State in America, who have been following the ongoing campaign, would prefer that Ondo politicians and their supporters eschew thuggery and associated violence during the remainder of the campaign season and during voting, collation of results, and their final announcements. Rather than make the ongoing campaign a “do or die affair,” they should view it as an opportunity to convince the people to vote for them by selling their policies and programmes. The quality education and professionalism of the top participants demand no less.

Accordingly, the candidates should focus on how they plan to manage the state’s resources in order to improve their people’s life chances. There are far too many sectors that need improvement, notably, education, health, agriculture, industry, transportation, tourism, and infrastructure (roads, bridges, electricity, water, telephony, and recreational facilities). Politicians should be busy trading their priorities and policies rather than trading insults, fists, machetes, and guns.

Take education, for example. It used to be the primary industry in the state but was clearly in jeopardy when Agagu became Governor in 2003. His administration was encumbered with teachers’ salary arrears, which it paid off after consolidating the state’s capital base. It also started building the education sector from bottom up by constructing model classroom blocks in primary and secondary schools throughout the state.

But much more remains to be done. For example, the young state university has not been able to meet its projected development target owing to shortage of funds. This is why Dr. Bode Olajumoke, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, suggested recently that local governments should be mandated through legislation to contribute as much as 10% of their statutory allocations to fund the state university. But local governments need an incentive for such contribution. This is why I suggested elsewhere that the university should adopt a multi-campus system in order to promote a sense of ownership by the contributing local governments. These are proposals worth debating by politicians.

Another project in need of urgent attention is how to harness the state’s raw materials and develop them to produce wealth and employment opportunities. Fortunately enough, the state is endowed with high yielding mineral raw materials, notably, crude oil, bitumen, granite, marble, gold, gemstone, diorite, lignite, and clay. In addition, the state is also endowed with various agro raw materials of the cash crop variety, notably, cocoa, timber, cotton, and oil palm. Moreover, the state’s arable land is home to yam, cocoyam, plantain, banana, cassava, maize, rice, kolanut, coconut, and assorted fruits, all of which grow luxuriously even without fertilizer. Similarly, the state’s waters and coastline host assorted fish, crayfish, crabs, and other amphibians. It is no wonder then that Ondo State is dubbed “Nigeria’s investment haven of the 21st century”. There is no doubt that the control of these resources is worth fighting over. But it is more worthwhile to debate how they should be managed by the next state executive.

The tourism and entertainment industries should also be developed to increase the state’s capital base and employment opportunities. Ondo State is endowed with natural sites of historical significance, which have been identified by the Agagu administration as major heritage and tourist centres. They include Idanre Hills, Ebomi Lake, Igbo Olodumare, Igbokoda Waterfront, and Owo Museum of Antiquities. There are also many local festivals that could be packaged along with the tourism industry, notably, Ogun, Orosun, Obitun, Olokun, and Igogo festivals. With this array of natural and cultural endowments, Ondo State has more tourist attractions than some Caribbean islands that make up to 50 per cent of their national income from tourism. Besides, there is no reason why Cross-River state should take precedence over Ondo in grabbing the limelight on tourism.

During its first convocation recently, the state university graduated nearly 9,000 students. Unless quick measures are taken to harness the state’s resources to create employment opportunities, the state’s labour market would be glutted and the expenditure on the university would yield limited or no returns to the state. It is clear that Ondo politicians are not oblivious to the issues raised in this essay. This is particularly evident in Agagu’s Road Map to Progress and Mimiko’s 12-Point Agenda. However, the quality of their campaigns is diminished by thuggery and violence. This has to change. Dr. Agagu has every reason to walk tall selling his record and plans for the next four years, while Dr. Mimiko has every right to challenge him, by convincing the electorate that he has a better deal. This is a much better path to a good campaign than thuggery and violence.

* Professor Akinnaso teaches Anthropology and Linguistics in the United States

Source: http://odili.net/news/source/2007/mar/28/10.html