Fatai Akinade Akinbade

Alhaji Fatai Akinade Akinbade (born April 1955) is a Nigerian politician and the former Secretary to the State Government in Osun State. He was a contender to become the People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for governorship of Osun State in the April 2011 elections. Quotes When you have a mission of making a positive change in the lives of the people and you are passionate about it and such mission has not been accomplished, there is nothing stopping you from trying. I have that strong conviction that I can a make a difference in Osun and that is why I am contesting again. I believe this time round, it has come to my turn to govern Osun State. When you look at my pedigree and what I have in mind to do, regarding all those good things that I have for Osun people, I don’t see anything stopping me or that can deter me from coming out. For whatever it is, I want to fulfil my ambition of governing this state. I decided to dump the PDP because I believe in my mission and vision. I felt that if I continued to stay in the PDP where somebody else has emerged as the party’s governorship candidate, there was no way I could achieve my mission in that party again. I don’t blame anybody because the best way the PDP believe it can choose its standard-bearer, it has used such way and somebody has emerged. If I should wait, what do I wait for? To be what or to be SGG or commissioner? I needed to move on. The party is new, but those of us that are the operators are not new. We are all known and we are household names in Osun State. Like the former governor of Osun, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, I and so many that believe in us are not new. We have stepped up our mobilisation and awareness drives and a large number of people have been spreading the agenda of the ADC to the people and I believe by the grace of God, before the election the party would have become a household name among our people. With my experience and what comes into the coffers of the state monthly, including what is being generated as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), this state is not supposed to be poor if our resources are properly managed. What we would do to address the challenge you raised is what we call financial re-engineering. We need to make sure that we plug all the loopholes and we also tie up the loose ends by making sure that wastage is reduced. My research revealed to me that more than 80 per cent of Osun State revenue is wasting away, regarding that money that we are using for things that are not really important. If we are able to plug all these loopholes, prudent with the management of our resources and allow transparency and due process, definitely, we would have more than enough to run the government. When you talk of education, it is a vital sector that needs to be thoroughly addressed; we are going to declare an emergency in the education sector. We have to strive and bring back the glory of this state educationally. We are to carry out far-reaching measures in the education sector, from the primary level to the tertiary institution. Secondly, we are resolutely committed to prioritising the health sector too. Since Oyinlola left government, free and qualitative health service has become zero. The medical service in public hospital is nothing to write home about and there are no drugs in public hospitals again. In a nutshell, these are essential services we will not toy with. Our programmes would be premised on two or three major platforms, because we want to create employment opportunities through our programmes. First of all, we are going to embark on a very massive agricultural development through effective mechanised farming. That’s their impression, but I am telling you that they are wrong. Governorship election or any election should not be cash and carry. That is why we have not been able to get our footing in Nigeria, because anybody with money will just come and say how much would it cost him or her to get elected into public office. I have seen a situation where somebody just came and they gave him a list of how much to spend, including the purchase of vehicles and giving various sums of cash to political leaders. They instructed him on how much to give to leaders and delegates. They summed it together and said if he has the money, he has already gotten what he wanted, even without having any knowledge of governance or good thing to offer. But I want to appeal to our people to desist from selling their votes. Incidentally, nobody is coming to buy it cash and carry, even if they give you money, you can use your discretion to vote for the candidate of your choice and that is why all of us have to come out and let the electorate assess us. The assessment should not be limited to what we intend to do, they need to ask for the profiles of everybody, including our antecedents and weaknesses. There is the need to educate our people on the need to de-emphasise money by not selling our future for pittance. In life, I don’t believe I have any choice rather than what God chooses for me. To me, Justice Oloyede as my running mate or deputy governorship candidate is God’s choice. God knows who I need and he knows what I want to do and the way I want to do it and the type of person that would assist me to do it. Everybody knows that I am an incorruptible and no nonsense person, who doesn’t give room for compromise. As chairman of tenders’ boards, I did my job thoroughly on merits. Look at my deputy; everybody knows her pedigree as an upright woman with exemplary virtues. The case of Osun and the civil servants, regarding anybody that is coming to govern this state is like a woman who has a baby and the baby is crying endlessly and somebody wants the mother of the baby to do something for him. What do you think the woman would take care of first? Definitely, the woman would take care of her crying baby first. Our civil servants in Osun are crying babies that need first attention. For whatever success we want to achieve in terms of programmes and policy implementation in Osun State, we have to take care of the civil servants first. We would make sure that come December this year, the payment of half salaries will end. We would start paying full salaries to all categories of workers. The arrears would also be paid within six months and one year of our government. Both the serving civil servants and pensioners would be paid in bulk or in lump sum. We wouldn’t pay them their arrears in piecemeal so that they would be able to do something tangible with the payment. They have suffered a lot.