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Former Member, House of Representatives, Ladi Adebutu, recently emerged as the governorship candidate of the Ogun State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 gubernatorial election.

Adebutu spoke on how the party resolved the issue of parallel primary elections, and his chances of winning the election next year, among others.

With the conclusion of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) primaries, how could aggrieved members who lost out in the elections be brought back to form a formidable front ahead of the 2023 general election in the state?
It is my duty as a leader to continue to stabilise and expand the party, given the time we are in now. We also have the opportunity to receive converts from other political platforms and would do well in absorbing them. And this can only be done through an amiable and conducive environment.

Has the state chapter of PDP overcome the confusion generated after the parallel governorship primaries held recently?
The matter is fully resolved. From all intent and purposes, we should be able to move forward like one united family. For the first time in about 10 years, the PDP family was able to conduct one primary by one panel that was empowered by the National Working Committee (NWC) and I won. It is normal for some people to be aggrieved but the stage we are at now is to approach them and let them see the reason that we all need to come together and work as a family to rescue the Ogun state from the misrule of the incumbent administration.

I didn’t see any parallel primaries but only one that was conducted by the panel empowered by the National Working Committee (NWC) of our party, which I won.

Four aspirants were screened and certified okay by the party to participate in the primary. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) monitored the exercise and I won. So there is no going back.

However, we will continue to do an inclusive arrangement so that anybody that feels he lost out in the process would be included because the work at hand is going to be a very difficult one and we are believing God to get Ogun state out of the misrule of APC.

How would you react to the statement of Mr. Segun Sowunmi that the Ogun PDP might suffer what Rivers and Zamfara states APC experienced in the last elections?
Everybody has the right to express his or her opinion. We are certain that all is well in PDP. The best will happen to us in the coming 2023 gubernatorial polls.

What are your chances of defeating an incumbent governor in 2023?
Do you mean an incumbent governor or government of misrule? I don’t think we would have too much to worry about displacing the Dapo Abiodun-led government of APC next year. As it stands, we have a bad administration in Ogun. It won’t be difficult for us to sell our programmes to the people. Is it the insecurity we have to tell them about or the fact that the people are currently living under a seriously deteriorated condition where there is youth unemployment, and a lack of infrastructure except for patching of main roads? Are we going to be talking about the health services that have gone worse or the fact that we don’t have good public schools anymore and so on. This is a government of lies after lies.

Are you saying the ruling government has not done any developmental projects in the state since inception?
People who reside in the state are aware that in all the local councils, we only have one functional General Hospital, which is in Ijebu-Ode. This came into being as a result of community efforts, by investing heavily in health care services for their people.

As for the education system, you will find schools with up to 1000 students with just four teachers. However, in my recent tours, while visiting delegates for the primaries throughout the state, I came across schools in Yewa North with a ratio of 250 students with only one teacher. I also saw a school that has six classrooms with four totally dilapidated and only two functions. Even the two that were functioning were without furniture. This is the condition of our schools and the face of free education in Ogun State. Needless to say that all these schools are understaffed.

The state is also indebted as a result of loans borrowed for the purpose of building roads. This should have been left for the private sector to bear. In Lagos State, for instance, we saw the drive to build roads and toll them. This sort of system allows the private sector to provide infrastructure development and gradually get returns on their investment over time rather than commit the government to huge loans, which ties down scarce resources to fund infrastructural projects.

Government should not be in the business of doing business but creating of an enabling environment that makes businesses prosper.

Since in your opinion, the Governor has not performed expectedly, if you were in his shoes to serve the state, what would you have done differently?
First thing to do quickly is to create hope for our people; they are despondent now, afraid and not even sure if their life is secure anymore. The worst thing is the gradual loss of ideology by the APC in the state.

We will present to the private sector a clean slate that will enable them to partner with us in the development of the state. We would invite the private sector to invest. The era of government borrowing money would be gone. You must invite people to put money into the system. It is when people see a genuine system that is running smoothly that you can invite them to put money. When you have that and they have the trust in governance, that will free a little the Internal Generated Revenue (lGR) that will allow the government to do social services. Then we can have more revenue to attend to education and build other infrastructure. We need these things but when we spend the existing IGR supporting projects that are not so profitable to the state, we will not grow. We must allow the private sector to participate. You will recall that when PDP was in power, the private sector came in, intervened and invested heavily but since APC came into office, the private sector has disappeared. The only portions of our Teaching Hospitals that are working today are those areas that have been donated or are being financed or operated by the private sector. Look at the General Hospital in Ijebu Ode, it is working because the community has invested money and it is the private sector that drives it, the government has failed.

But President Muhammadu Buhari came to Ogun State to commission some projects and praised the governor for transforming the state?
Those roads had been commissioned three times in the recent time by the Buhari administration. This time, they only installed streetlights on the roads to be powered by diesel generators where the price of diesel has increased tremendously beyond people’s reach.

When we get into office, we are going to change the narrative. We are going to make people proud of working because you must be able to earn enough to have a good life.