Olusegun Rahman Abayomi Mimiko, medical doctor, grass root political mobilize two time commissioner for health, one time Secretary to State Government (SSG) and former Federal Minister of Housing and Urban Development is the judiciary installed Governor of Ondo State, South-West Nigeria.

He campaigned strongly for the position and maintained he won in fiercely contested state-wide election which he said he won. He said he was robbed of a deserved victory. He mobilized his supporters and successfully re-claimed his “popular” mandate. His formidable and strongly entrenched popular political machinery earned him the nickname, Iroko derived from the best known “king” of tropical woods.

His critics feel he promised too much than could be realistically delivered within the limit of time allotted himself. He has also been criticized for hub-nubbing with the same party that once desperately stole his mandate.. He recently went through our scrutiny at his office in Akure. He took questions from our Editor-In-Chief, OLADIMEJI ABITOGUN.

In your campaign promises you said you would, within one hundred days of resuming office “unleash an avalanche of developments in Ondo State”. How would you rate your performance so far? 

Let me thank you for the opportunity of this interaction. It is true that I promised to deploy the resources of this state in such a way that people would have no doubt in their mind as to the direction we are going. I promised we would engineer governance to the extent that people themselves would get to see us eliminate the disconnection between the governed and the government. We also said and it is already clear that government is about people. It is about what value we can add to the lives of our people.

Since we came on board, inspite of the initial challenged that we encountered, we have confronted the issue of development head on. We had to start with new orientation in new value creation. Our people had to believe in themselves again. Our people had to believe that they are capable of taking charge of their own development. Our people had to see themselves as part of government. And since we came on board we have seen to that.

We also have committed in powerful way by unveiling a new identification logo for our State. It is the crest, the emblem, the symbol of new possibilities for the state.

Now we have looked at the workforce as one of the catalytic instruments of development, we have embarked on training, and retraining of manpower starting from the top echelon of the service. We sent the Permanent Secretaries to Lagos Business School, changed their concept about development, to see how they can relate what they do to the ultimate output which is to create development for the people. Leading to feel able satisfaction in terms of service delivery.

This has been well received and it impacted positively on the entire state. We have also looked at the blue print programme with which we came on board. Human capital development, especially education and health - care. And we looked at health-care, for example, the critical are of intervention has great multiplier effect on the health of the people and economy of the people. We have zeroed in on maternal and infant health. We have high infant and maternal mortality rate and we are tackling that.  It is at the root of our Abiye programme, creating a relationship between pregnant women and the health care programme. We are using ICT tools. We use people we call Health Rangers they are trained and they have cognate experience in Health Care delivery and they visit the pregnant women at home. To ensure that ante-natal formalities are observed, ensuring check-ups and making sure that they give care and instruct and account for every life and child.

We are using doctors, midwives, and nurses. We are purchasing sophisticated equipment and drastically reducing infant mortality rate and that of the mothers too. We are doing great in our integrated approach to obstetrics mother and child care. And it is clear that everybody is excited about this policy objective.

More women are coming to government facilities to deliver. We would have reduced the menace of infant and maternal mortality considerably in the next two years. We shall be releasing a lot of useful economic time, a tool for our home to work and improve their economic wherewithal.

We have looked at education and we know that if we motivate, three would be a multiplier effect on societal developmental agenda. We are making the inspectorate division of our education department a semi-autonomous agency which we call Quality Education Assurance Agency. It is to ensure that we inspect our schools. We ensure that teachers who are supposed to teach students and pupils are in school regularly. They must love their jobs as it used to be in years past because we have found out that one missing gap in our public education is qualitative inspection system for our public schools. We are making up for that gap. We expect to see an improved performance in a year or two amongst our students.

Of course, we are also embarking on restoration of infrastructures for the schools. WE have started building new generation primary schools. With this we hope to rebuild the educational system from the scratch.

The people see already, where we are going. You can feel the burst of energy. You can see the serious connection between government and the people.

You also notice that in agriculture several percent of our people are involved in that sphere. We promised that we would make input. We make agricultural inputs available to our people in timely fashion, in right and adequate quality and at the right time. Since we came on board, in the history of this state, never as such quantum of money, ever been spent, ₦ 200 million within first few months to procure agricultural inputs and they are given these at subsidized rates. At times the subsidies range from thirty percent to fifty percent.

We are doing other things in related areas. We are trying to re-energize industries in the state. We are getting engaged with Shell and Chevron to try and bring gas to our industrial park.

We are giving micro credits to our men and women. One thing is clear, every one knows that we are headed in a clear direction and real people and lives are positively getting impacted. I can say it that the average Ondo State person is happier in the few months that we have spent than they were in the couple of years before we came into leadership.

Mr. Governor, you occupy a seat that many of us would never be privileged to, you actively campaigned for this office, between the dream and the actualization, what do you now know better? What didn’t you know?

I had always known that given the opportunity of government, especially as the Chief Executive Officer of a state, with a clear vision and the general enabling environment and the right tone that one can actually do a lot to change the economic fortune of our people.

When we were declared the legitimate winner of the governorship mandate in the state, we are in with minority mandate in the legislative assembly. WE have now found accommodation for each other. We work together. There is fine synergy. I must confess that for the first few months, we didn’t really get those. We were not working together, because majority of the lawmakers belonged to the party whose executive member we dislodged as it were, judiciary. There was the initial mentality that we had to hold on and defend everything that was their party and whatever was not of their party must be blocked. There was not doubt about the fact that we were slowed down a bit. Perhaps, one of the realities I learnt in this game is that when you are planning and visioning you must also think of the processes you meet on ground. If for example I hit the ground with a very cooperative legislature I would have moved faster than this. But again we had our learning process, and we learnt a lot. In terms of the trajectory of our focus and development, we are on course.

You were the general in the struggle to claim your mandate. There is this fear amongst your party man that you may abandon your followers half way. Why have you been meeting with PDP Chairman Ogbulafor and what was your meeting with Obasanjo about?

Meeting with Obasanjo?

Yes. Recently……….

Oh. OK. Just an informal thing. The Ooni of Ife was celebrating his eightieth birthday significant as that and as prominent Yoruba novel, I was invited as the governor of one of the Yoruba States and the former President was there. And I saw him and exchanged greetings and pleasantries with him. We didn’t have any formal meeting other than the. Yes we had our disagreement. But when we still meet at social functions, of course, as Yoruba person I still greet him and give him all the courtesies that he deserves. As the Governor of a State, the position means there must be interactions across the board. It I have occasions to interact with Ogbulafor, why not. I interact with the President regularly by the way.

You mean President Yar’Adua?

Yes. President Yar’Adua. I interact with my colleagues as well, who are PDP governors in other States. I interact across board. But make no mistake about it. I belong to Labour Party, I got elected on the platform of Labour Party and we are re-inventing government. Don’t forget Labour is a mass movement. Infact it is even bigger than a party. It is a mass movement. All my political career, I have never, never abandoned the ship. Whatever decision I take in my political career has always been a joint decision of a core leadership group.

I’m surprised that you said you still have occasion to interact with President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. What do you know about his present predicament that we didn’t know? No useful intelligence on his situation.  Nigerians want to know. When last did you speak with him by the way?

This is an interesting question. Let me assure you that we pray every morning that Mr. President gets well, and get back to Nigeria safe and sound. But, perhaps, we could have managed the situation better in terms of the quality and timing of information. A lot of gap has been left for speculation. You know he spoke two or three days ago, he granted an interview to BBC, that he was recuperating, he was getting better and he would join us very soon. You see our prayer is that the President gets well. But in terms of packaging and information, we probably could have done better. But we’ll get there. Nigeria‘ll get there. In spite of all the uncertainties and all the vicissitudes, the shaking and the quaking, it is part of our learning process. There was the confusions and constitutional debacle on who would swear in the Chief Justice of Nigeria; it had never happened before that an outgoing CJN would swear-in the incoming one. It is part of our learning process. Somebody came up and said that the Oath Act is explicit on the fact that an out-going CJN could swear-in the new one, the fact that we have not done it before does not mean that we cannot do it. Democracy is growing. Our structures are growing. Our institutions are growing. We are being buffeted on every side, but we are growing stronger and I know, one thing is certain; Nigerians are more politically active, more politically sensitive. I am sure if we can continue this way, eventually we would get there.

Finally, Mr. Governor, you made a huge One Hundred and Eighteen billion naira budgetary proposal, seventy percent goes on capital expenditure. And you have paid above ₦1.4 billion in teachers’ pension arrears. I’m wondering if much is left to service corruption and fraud in your administration?

Government is about people. If people and their welfare are taken care of, there would be nothing left to service corruption and fraud. One of the things we have done, emphatically, is to remove the disconnect between the governed and the government.

We are trying to make the people see that government is about them. WE did a study and found out that about thirty six point two percent of teachers waited for almost twenty six years for their pensions and gratuities have died and without getting them. We were able to do serious financial engineering when we got on board. People criticized us for it, we closed and froze State account, we rationalize things, streamlined everything, made structural adjustments, we blocked loopholes and discovered that ₦1.4 billion was what was outstanding.

WE know we were in a position to pay and we paid because it is inexcusable that a people who spent the best, and in most cases, all their productive years should be abandoned to suffer. Government should be supporting them in their old age and should not default. Some of the teachers had gone blind, so we spent a whopping 1.4 billion to fulfill our responsibilities here. We are telling the people that government is about you. Government money is about promoting welfare. The special scale for teachers, 25.6 percent, we had no hesitation in spite of the economic situation. Government spending must be about choices because we don’t have limitless resources, we are supposed to make the right choices and the right choice is the decision on the right side of the people whatever would be in interest of the greatest number of our people would always be the decision that we would take.

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