Akeredolu (SAN) during the campaigns
Full text of inauguration speech by new Ondo
State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu.
Humbled by the uncommon kindness of the
Almighty God and an unequivocal expression
of preference by the good people of Ondo
State, exemplified by the victory of our great
party at the last gubernatorial election, I am
extremely delighted to share with you all the
joy of this day of glory.
We are grateful to Almighty God for granting
this state such a beautiful day and a beautiful
moment like this. I thank the President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria and leader of our
great party, President Muhammadu Buhari
GCFR, for his leadership and unwavering
stance to support what is just and noble.
Today’s celebration would, perhaps, have
been impossible without his steely disposition
to always stand against all acts not in
consonance with decency, probity and justice.
I thank the President of Senate, Dr. Bukola
Saraki and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives Hon. Yakubu Dogara.
I thank all APC Governors who stood to be
counted with us in our hour of need andother
eminent Nigerians too numerous to mention.
An especial reverence must be reserved for
our indefatigable party chairman, Chief John
Odigie Oyegun, whose strict adherence to
lofty principles and doggedness laid the
foundation for our resounding victory at the
polls.
This exemplary leader behaved like a true
elder, whose sagely presence in the village
square not only professed rectitude but acted
it, resolutely, affirming nobility of the human
spirit. Our party benefitted, tremendously,
from his vast experience in public service. We
are eternally grateful. The verdict of history
shall be kind to him. Akeredolu takes oath of
office as new Ondo state Governor We
express our profound appreciation to all the
leaders of the party, at the national, state,
local government, ward and unit levels, for
their untiring and selfless efforts during the
election.
May I also use this opportunity to pay tribute
to those who have served this state in this
capacity, both living and departed, for their
invaluable contributions to the development
of the state. On behalf of our State, I pay
tribute to Governor
OlusegunAbdulramanMimiko for his several
years of service toOndo State. I thank all our
guests and friends both far and near who
have taken it upon themselves to be here or
sent words.
I thank all citizens of Ondo state, particularly
our resilient youths and women. I come to
you this day, with a message of hope, a clear
agenda of prosperity and a vision of life
abundant. I believe the greatest expression of
faith in our ability is to be strong enough to
look upon our imperfections and decide that
it is in our power to remake our society to
align with our highest ideals.
We can rise out of this dust and build a new
Ondo state where honesty, prosperity and
confidence can once again be our self-
identity. We can pull ourselves by the
bootstraps and shake off our current
frustrations and disappointments. We must
recognise the need for a cohesive platform,
indispensable to an effective and efficient
implementation of policies and programmes
of both government and party, respectively.
Divergence of opinions is integral to party
politics.
We are bound to disagree as politicians but
we must cast aside bitter recriminations and
destructive predilections. Democracy thrives
on infinite multiplicity of ideas. Popular
participation is one of its fundamental norms.
The subordination of individual preferences
for the collective will is essential if we are to
avoid anarchy. Party supremacy should be
respected at all times.
This should not be difficult for us to accept if
we are truly desirous of bringing about
positive change in the lives of our people. We
listened to the voices of our people in the
course of our campaigns to all the nooks and
crannies of the state. We heard themloud and
clear through their votes. We witnessed, first
hand, the deplorable conditions under which
they exist. To those who cast their ballots in
favour of our programmes, your trust is not
misplaced.
We are determined to make the difference
with the specific mandate of redemption
liberally handed over to us. Those who
expressed other preferences are no less
patriotic. Before long their anxieties will be
addressed, realistically. All of us will be
involved in the reconstruction project. The
collective interest of the state must be our
paramount focus. Consequently,we stand
before you to pledge, with the guidance of
God and our resolve not to renege on our
promise, that your welfare shall form the
basis of all our activities.
To achieve this, the main mission of our
administration is therefore to lead a patriotic,
highly inspired and competent team to rescue
the ship of our state. We intend to help
rebuild our economy, resuscitate damaged
infrastructure, restore hope and return our
state to a prosperous land. We are
determined as an administration to break
down the barriers that have made stagnation
possible.
We will break down the barriers to honest
leadership, to comprehensive development, to
physical growth and social security. These we
intend to do through the promotion of
transparent leadership, rule of law, extensive
consultation, quality and accessible public
utilities and social security; all in a
sustainable manner. We acknowledge the
enormous challenges faced by the state and
the severely limited resources available to
meet these ever-increasing and compelling
demands.
In readiness for this enormous task ahead, I
have two months ago inaugurated a Strategic
Development and Policy Implementation
Committee comprising of eminent and very
knowledgeable Nigerians to produce and
articulate a compressive change policy and
programme blueprint.
They have since submitted their preliminary
report. This blueprint is anchored on five
cardinal programmes, which are popularly
known as our Platforms for Change (JMPPR).
These are: Job creation through Agriculture,
Entrepreneurship and Industrialisation. 2.
Massive Infrastructural development and
maintenance. 3. Provision of functional
Education and Technological growth. 4.
Provision of Accessible and Qualitative Health
care and social service delivery. 5. Rural
Development and Community Extension
services.
This platform for Change is erected on strong
pillars, which consist of the core sectors of
government activities that our blueprint lays
emphasis on. These are Finance and
Management of state resources, Health and
Social Services, Infrastructure and Public
utilities, Agriculture and Natural resources,
Commerce and Industrial development,
Education and Technology, Land, Housing and
Environment, Women Affairs and Social
Development, Youth and Sports development,
Culture and Tourism as well as Information,
Civic orientation and Mobilisation among
others.
Our blueprint when unveiled shall explain in
details our philosophy, vision, sectoral policies
and comprehensive Programmes of action
clearly calendared over a period of a tenure
of four years. With this document our pact
with the people will be clear, our path well
defined and expectations clearly understood.
In building the structure to deliver on our
campaign promises, I come to you with a
clear mind and an honest heart, to serve and
give the very best of my ability to restore
Hope and Happiness to our people.
I urge you to see hope the way I see it. I see
hope with limitless boundaries for endless
opportunities for all of us. I see hope for
progress, stability and prosperity for all
people of goodwill who are willing to
contribute their quota to developing our state
to a land of honourable, contented, smart,
honest, diligent and patriotic people. I see
hope for self-confidence, job security and
increased commerce and economic
production.
I see hope for redemption and renewal of our
broken infrastructure, and social values. But
make no mistake about it; our journey to
redemption will not be without stress and
undulating curves. There are mountains
before us to climb. As we climb up these
steep mountains. Sometimes we may trip or
slip, we will get back up. We will focus on the
journey. We will never stop. We will never
stop. We will never stop. In the end we will
reach our goal, which is to bring back jobs to
our youths, food to families, safety,
confidence and prosperity to this land.
For all these to happen, I am humbly going to
ask ONLY one thing from you, good people of
Ondo state. What I ask for is Attitude. We
need to come with an attitude of belief and
transformation. Indeed, in all successful
cultures and societies, attitude is the spirit
and driver of victory. Ladies and gentlemen,
for us to see the change we all desire, we
must be ready to constitute ourselves into
change evangelists with exceptional
missionary zeal to succeed. We must know
that the man in the mirror is you and I.
We need to have faith and find courage in the
words of the good scripture thats ays, “Those
who hope in the Lord will renew their
strength. They will soar on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary. They will
walk and not be faint.” I believe if we
combine these abilities with the force of
Providence, a lot of great deeds will happen.
We shall not subject ourselves to any
specious and unproductive stereotypes, which
find expression in the usual egregious
celebration of the passage of time spent in
office as achievement.
We will be too busy to notice the pace of the
itinerary of the administration. Our state is
particularly lucky. We have men and women
of quality. We set the pace for others in the
not too distant past. The country depended,
to a very great extent, on our
resourcefulness. We contributed, immensely,
to the GDP of the country at a time when
agriculture was the mainstay of the country’s
economy. Our people were exemplars in
virtually all fields of human endeavour.
The story is, painfully, different today. The
fault, as the saying goes, is not in our stars
but in ourselves that our fortunes have
dwindled, considerably, and we have become
underlings. We have transited, regrettably,
from a producing economy to a basically
consumptive society, which depends, almost
solely, on handouts to survive. The resultant
effect of this unproductive attitude is grinding
poverty, desperation and hopelessness among
our people.
It is a cruel irony that a state, richly endowed
in material and human resources, wallows in
inexplicable privation. Our unproductive taste
has sustained the dichotomy between the
rural areas and the urban centres. All
attempts at improving infrastructural deficits
seem concentrated at the capital of the
state. Government intervention, where
available, has been grossly inadequate in
addressing the socio-economic challenges
faced by the masses.
Our administration shall, decidedly, try to
close the gap between the hinterland and
urban centres. Real development can only be
actualized and accentuated through an active
symbiosis between the two, an understanding
predicated on collaboration and co-existence
designed for amity and progress. Our people
will be encouraged to participate in the
massive reconstruction contemplated by our
administration in this regard.
Any honest indigene of the state must be
disturbed by the crisis in the educational
sector at present. The philosophy of
education, conceived on the idea of
functionality for improved living by our
forbears, has been reduced to a routine
certification ritual, the culmination of which is
the award of certificates, diplomas and
degrees to graduates who are left more
confused than when they enrolled in school.
The unemployment crisis, apart from being a
global socio-economic phenomenon, is self-
inflicted. If education is the nurturing, training
and mobilization of those who live in a
society to confront the challenges of
development, faced, primarily, by the people
in that environment, the current situation
confirms that we have since departed from
that well-trodden path for a very long time
now.
It is a big shame that a state, which was a
clear leader in education in the country, now
lags behind. It appears that our curricula at
all levels of training have failed to produce
experts whose contributions to the growth of
the economy are needed. Our administration
will strive to reverse this unfortunate trend by
promoting functional education aimed at real
development. We shall also revisit the issue
of vocational training with a view to improving
the skills of our artisans.
We recognize that the issue of unemployment
is endemic. We equally understand that the
greatest employer of labour, at a time such as
this challenging period, is the private sector.
The government will ensure that the
environment remains peaceful and conducive
for economic activities. In addition, we shall
deploy considerable energy into agriculture.
Through this, we hope to generate
employment for the teeming youths. This
administration will do everything possible to
encourage investment in agriculture. Our
youths must be ready for training necessary
to kick-start this mission.
We must begin to deemphasize white-collar
jobs. The era of unproductive civil service is
winding to a close, gradually. The current
economic realities make the deployment of
the unemployed to other sectors, other than
agriculture and rural development,
unsustainable. We must train our youths to
acquire entrepreneurial skills as a corollary to
our programme on agriculture. The health
care delivery system currently operating in
the state will be sustained and improved
upon. We shall adopt a deliberate policy to
ensure that our people have access to health
care regardless of their social status.
We intend, within the available resources, to
provide qualitative primary health care
delivery system to the rural populace. Health
care centres in the rural areas will be
accessible and functional. Our policy on
massive infrastructural development will seek
to open up the hinterland through our roads
and waterways. Our state has the longest
coastline in the country. It is unthinkable that
all economic activities are restricted to land
while our waterways are abandoned.
Opening up the hinterland will reduce,
drastically, the perennial rural-urban drift and
encourage our sons and daughters who live
outside the state to consider returning home
to contribute their own quota. The economic
propensities of such a venture will be,
unimaginably, exponential. We are all
witnesses to the negative impact that our
local economy has been subjected to as a
result of over-reliance on federally allocated
funds for even the most basic recurrent
expenditure items.
It is high time that we looked inwards and
come up with a solution that ensures we are
sustainable and viable as a collective entity.
We shall develop a comprehensive
Development Plan that focuses on leveraging
our collective resources and areas of
comparative advantage for the benefit of our
people. The plan will detail our philosophy
and response to surviving in this harsh
economic climate.
In addition to this, it will also take a medium
term view to our economic development on
an overall basis, and more importantly ensure
that we remain consistently above board
during economic booms and bursts. We will
adopt a collaborative approach to get this
done by ensuring that we engage with the
other segments of the public sector, as well
as the private sector in developing and
implementing our ideas of transforming the
economy of our great State within the
shortest possible period.
All these lofty aspirations will remain a mirage
if those saddled with the responsibility of
implementing the decisions of the
government do not support with dedication,
honesty and patriotism. I acknowledge the
very important role that the Civil Service has
played, and continues to play in the
development of our beloved State.
I understand the challenges, and these are
quite apparent to those within and outside
the system. We will work towards addressing
these challenges in delivering on our mandate
to our people. We particularly seek the
support and cooperation of the Civil Service
and all organs of labour. We will drive
efficiency through capacity building and
training needs assessment targeted at
retooling our civil servants. Be rest assured
that your welfare, training, capacity building
and the overall interests of our people will be
one of the highest pillars of our mandate.
We acknowledge the constraints that our
current financial situation will place on our
ability to deliver on our mandate. We
however, believe that an adequate focus on
transforming the current socio-economic
status of our State will lead to substantial
internally generated revenue for our State. We
believe that Ondo State has the required
resources – human and material to ensure
our sustainability in the short, medium and
long term.
We are looking at building on our existing
relationships with local and international
development partners. Many of them have
been there for us in the time past, and we
reach out to them, especially at the new
dawn in the administration of our State.I am
therefore using this opportunity to reach out
to businesses, manufacturers, private
investors as well as potential international
partners. You are welcome to Ondo State.
We commit to partner with you in developing
the economic potentials of our State for the
benefit of all our stakeholders. The collective
deployment of our resources, combined with
those of our neighboring and sister States
cannot be over-emphasized. Our
administration believes that we can achieve a
lot more if we work with a number of our
sister State Governments to ensure that
certain development efforts (infrastructure or
otherwise) are channeled in such a way as to
deliver maximum benefits for the participating
States. We believe we don’t have to build or
develop everything ourselves.
There is a lot we can gain if we harmonise
efforts and resources to build enduring assets
that can cater for the needs of every one of
us. Security of lives and property shall be
guaranteed. Our administration will protect all
and sundry. We will act in the interest of
everyone. We will be there for all. All those
who will add value to governance in the state
shall be engaged. We believe that the inputs
and participation of every stakeholder is
required for us to succeed and deliver our
mandate.
We will provide numerous avenues for direct
engagement with our people. Whether you are
civil servants, market women, students,
vulnerable groups, artisans, professionals, we
will have specific means of reaching out to
you to feel your pulse, and more importantly
to seek inputs into programs and policies that
will directly impact your lives. Ladies and
gentlemen, it is indeed a brand new day!
With the assistance of the Almighty God and
the good people of Ondo State, we hope to
take the state out of the morass of privation,
hopelessness and desperation. The welfare of
our people shall be the fundamental objective
and directive principle of governance in Ondo
State. Your Excellencies, My lords, ladies and
gentlemen and my good people of Ondo state,
the hour is here and our Journey to
Redemption commences now.
And to God Almighty, the creator of heaven
and earth, the author and finisher of all things
perfect and excellent I say: “Forth in thy
name oh Lord I go, my daily labour to pursue,
thee only thee resolved to know, in all I think
or speak or do. The task thy wisdom has
assigned o’ let me cheerfully fulfil in all my
works thy presence find and prove thy
acceptable will”. Long live Ondo State, Long
Federal Republic of Nigeria. I thank you very
much for listening. God bless.
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