My administration’s primary focus will be on providing Uninterrupted Electricity Supply, Modern Technology, Search for and Investment in Talents, Care for the Elderly and Disabled, Small Business Development, Modernizing Education Systems and Equal Opportunity for All Citizens.
As a result of the country’s economic quagmire, unemployment is rising and the unrecovered guns given to thugs to impose looters on us are being used to rob and assassinate ordinary citizens. In the last eight years, revenue from oil had hit its peak, but Ogun State has nothing to show for it. Electricity is epileptic. While multinationals are able to provide uninterrupted flow of electricity to their staff in their offices and homes in Nigeria, state governments are clueless about what to do in order to deliver public utilities at affordable prices to the common man.
I have taken the time to study the problem, and am happy to tell you: I have the answer. The issues facing Ogun State are human, social, governmental and constitutional. My focus will be on the following primary areas, although there are numerous other matters that we will not close our eyes on.
UNITERRUPTED ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
For such a long time now in Nigeria spanning several years, provision of electricity supply to the general public has been epileptic at best, while foreign interests have been able to provide uninterrupted flow of electricity for their businesses or staff in their offices and places of abode in the country. State governments have been essentially clueless about what to do to force the Federal government to wash its hand off the electricity industry in their respective states. Yet Nigeria claims to be practicing democracy in a federal system.
With states constantly in darkness, citizens without generating plants are unable to watch their television sets to at least learn about the ills of their society, and as such, those in government keep achieving their misguided aims in their seemingly perpetually imposed darkness upon the people. It is with this background that my government will work assiduously for uninterrupted flow of electric power generation. Electricity is the backbone and lifeblood of any meaningful steps toward economic realization in real terms, and it’s the energy upon which industrialization of any civilized society anchors.
With a Lanre Banjo team overseeing affairs of the executive branch of government in Ogun State, providing uninterrupted flow of electric power to all the inhabitants of the State will be first priority. Ogun State will have its own government regulated electric company. And as soon as constant supply of electricity arrests the hitherto permanent darkness, businesses would flourish in Ogun State with several employment opportunities generated. The budget of the state would also double in regards to the fulfilment of this objective. The goal is to successfully implement establishment of adequate electricity grids in strategic locations as part of a comprehensive integrated rural development program through electric power generation to meet critical residential, industrial and agricultural base demands. With a Lanre Banjo administration in Ogun State, the so-called NEPA turned PHCN would quickly become a relic of the past for citizens of the Gateway State.
TECHNOLOGY
My administration will invest in technology programs that will empower our youth; make them more attractive to Twenty First Century high-tech employers and investors to be attracted to the state both domestically within Nigeria and from overseas countries; induce them to contribute to the industrialization plan by engaging them to participate in government-sponsored technical and job skills training targeted towards the rural development, especially in the agricultural sector, thereby providing rare opportunities for creation of family nest eggs in retirement, disability care and survivorship in the event of death of a spouse. Certain area in each senatorial District will be zoned for Technology Training.
Our government will establish Nigeria’s first Data Center where critical computing infrastructure will be housed and maintained for our government, and also run as a profit-making investment for our people. We will employ technology initiatives in creating investment opportunities for the state, while employing modern technology as the basis for education at all levels by inviting and engaging investments from computer technology conglomerates and thereby revamping the education system in Ogun State.
We will also create and lay free broadband high-speed Internet hotspots (wi-fi) around major cities in Ogun State where citizens can go and use free, fast Internet access. Our vision is to establish a computer manufacturing company or an assembly plant at the onset that would manufacture or assemble and sell computers at very cheap rates to parents for the use of their children at school. Investing in and employing the use of modern computer technologies in revolutionizing Ogun State will change the face of electric power generation, transmission and distribution in both agriculture and transportation sectors. Today, talents are being wasted in Nigeria and consequently, young Nigerians are channelling their talents towards negativity because that is the examples laid down by those governing them. We will use this technology to harness the talents of our youth and positively help redirect their focus towards good citizenship for the public good. Our government would therefore search for and invest in talents across the Gateway State and beyond.
SEARCH FOR AND INVESTMENT IN TALENT
The bane of our developments in Nigeria is our failure to appreciate the talents it pleases God to endow the country with. I have read so many stories about how talented Nigerians were frustrated out of the country and out of existence. During my previous campaigns in Ogun State, I listened to horror stories of many young Nigerians whose talents were not only ignored, but also stifled, and Nigerians whose government policies simply massacred their opportunities of getting wealthy.
As someone who appreciates talents, I will accord talents the latitude to produce anything they could and I will import talents from anywhere in the world to contribute to the glory of my state. Because of the way the ignored talents will be treated, God will be so happy that He would endow the country with more talents to use not only to make our state great but also to begin to change the saphead reputation our rulers have created for the Black race. With these talents, the state shall be quickly be industrialized because there are many of them yearning to be used for the greatness of our state and country. Unlike today, where our youth and elders are selling ice water, robo, bread, etc. at motor parks, with hopelessness in retirement, the Ministry of Economic and Business Development to be established by our government, will execute programs and give business development grants as part of the comprehensive integrated rural development initiative to bring hopes to young entrepreneurs. The elders who sold bread all their lives and could no longer do it because of old age and without retirement to fall back to will be given monthly allowance. Our government will make monthly payments to elders from 62 years and older and assure healthy future for the disabled among us.
PROGRAM FOR THE ELDERLY AND HANDICAPED
In Nigeria, the only known old-age insurance in the social system is the hope that children would become rich enough to be able to take care of their parents. Nowadays, the penury purposefully designed for the masses so that those in power would be unjustly hero-worshipped has become the basis for children to steal whatever they can steal from their aging parents to survive. Thus, our elders who are neglected, abused, and malnourished in their final days are eagerly waiting for death to come and snatch them away.
There are many barrens in our society who were petty traders when they were young, and are now old without the energy to trade in order to feed themselves. Sometimes, getting a meal is hopeless for them. Our government would come to their succor with monthly allowance and food. My administration would nip in the bud, this hopelessness and give life to elders who are 62 and older without pension. This program would also relieve children both at home and abroad who currently have to shoulder the burden to take care of their parents. Our elders have lived their lives with promises and promises from the looters who bribed them and used guns to get to power.
Our campaign reminds Nigerians that if any trader knows when his or her goods will sell, he would not need to go to the market everyday. We therefore must not lose hope that there is no trustworthy servant of the people in the country. One of the benefits of democracy is the ability to vote out every four years those who deceive and cajole to get into government. We know that those in government today have not earned your trust; our government will erect a trustworthy administration in a credible manner.
SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Small businesses are the quiet engine behind every economic growth. Our efforts will be geared towards a statewide economic development partnership between tertiary and international institutions, non-profit development groups and other stakeholder organizations dedicated to providing entrepreneurs and established businesses with the assistance needed to start, grow and succeed, contributing to the Ogun State economy.
MODERNISATION OF EDUCATION SYSTEMS
One of the main inadequacies in educational development is that planning is not firmly integrated with public administration. Following expert ideas, five basic processes will be established in my administration. The first is planning, or determining what shall be done. The second element is organizing, or defining the administrative structures and activities necessary to carry out the plan. The third is assembling the resources needed to execute the plan. The fourth element is administration, the day-to-day guidance of operations. The fifth element is related to the fouth – controlling, or seeing that operating results conform to the plan. A policy will be set once my administration is established with a general plan of action guiding the operation of education in our state. A generous budget will be set to ensure that what we plan to do is accomplished. Behind the policy will be a clear need to use technology at all levels of this eductational transformation. Modernisation of educational systems cannot be achieved without employing the best and appropriate methods and equipment.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL CITIZENS
We have come to attach development in Nigeria too often to infrastructural development. While physical development is essential, perhaps a more imporant transformation that is required is in attitude, behavior and the rule of law. If we look carefully, we will admit that a major problem in Ogun State and Nigeria as a whole is the failure of public law and lack of access to governmental benefits by all citizens on an equal basis. Godfatherism will pave way to equal opportunity.
It shall be the policy of my administration to provide equal access in all aspects of governance to all. Minority citizens and businesses shall be represented in all actions of the government, including, but not limited to, government employment, appointments and contract awards. My administration will be fully dedicated to the philosophy and practice of equal economic and employment opportunities for all citizens, prohibiting discrimination based on tribe, zoning, sex, religion, parenthood, age, disability, status or political affiliation, except when any of these factors is an existing bona fide occupational qualification.
We will remove all artificial barriers that have hindered qualified applicants from full consideration for positions and opportunities so that the riches of Ogun State can be enjoyed by all. Citizens will receive what they have the civil right to obtain, without exercising influence or paying bribes to state officials.
The Lanre Banjo administration will seek to enrich and facilitate programs designed to enhance the growth and development of minorities, the disadvantaged, the less-haves and women, to improve and enrich the quality of life for all citizens in the state.
We will make Ogun State one to behold in terms of human rights, to further attract prosperity and development.