Osun 2018: Ex-envoy cautions aspirants against divisive campaign

A former Ambassador of Nigeria to the Republic of Sierra lone, Ambassador. Abdulyekin Abilagbo has chided gubernatorial aspirants in the forthcoming September 22nd of Osun state especially those of the APC extraction over their divisive statements polarizing the brotherhood strings and unity that held together the 27year old state.

The Iwo born envoy made this known in a chat he had with our correspondent on phone on the state of the nation, he said “it is so worrisome that most of those aspiring to govern the state have not come up with the blueprints and programmes of vision for the state; instead most of those aspirants are busy championing the issue of sectionalism and zoning. Is it not laughable in this time and age that people are still fanning the ember of religion and ethnicity.”

He further noted that “We were alive and can bear testament to the 1993 presidential election where MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe, both Muslims contested on the same platform and enjoyed wide acceptability in all zones of Nigeria purposely because he ran qualitative and people friendly manifesto, what has become of us today, are we retarding or what?”

Abilagbo who was at different times Nigeria`s diplomatic representative to Egypt, Chad, Saudi Arabia and Russia lamented that most of his kinsmen from the Osun west zone of the state are crusaders of zoning, they have completely neglected the basic ingredients of democratic principles which involve consultation and robust selling of programmes and policies to the populace, till date, it is only the Chief of Staff to Aregbesola, Mr Gboyega Oyetola whom I watched on television that has communicated expressly his designs and plans for our state.

“The imaginable difference and deduction from this is that he seems to be the only who understands the strengths, opportunities and challenges of the state and more prepared to administer Osun, he stressed further.

“At the moment, the State Government is unable to meet her full statutory obligations to civil servants, none of my kinsmen are talking about improvement in IGR for sustainability and sufficiency, what should be paramount in the mind of every right thinking aspirants is how to further project our state into greater heights, formulate policies that will make our state the food basket of the south west, that will industrialize the state and bring improved turnaround in our internally generated revenue so as to drive our economy .

“Osun is no longer at a pedestrian level, Aregbesola has raised the bar of governance beyond ordinary, and only people who have the mental, intellectual capacity can continue and consolidate with the already laid foundation, he concluded.