Recently, the Oyo state House of Assembly extended the tenure of the 33 Local Government and 35 LCDA Chairmen by another six months, Ametrocopy.com caught up with the Caretaker Chairman Ibadan South West Local Government, Hon Kehinde Adeyemi Akande and he revealed what the council has been up to in the past months.
In the past months that you’ve resumed this office, what are the things you can point at as major achievements?
Thank you. Although we are expecting to do more than we have done but by God’s grace and the help of our amiable governor; Engineer Seyi Makinde, we’ve been able to touch a lot of areas and the lives of many people concerning their health by providing health care centers and equipping them, giving them drugs and every other necessary things pertaining to well being and sound health.
Secondly, public toilet projects which are also related to the health sector because we are looking at a zero defecation area in the whole of Ibadan especially the South West local government area by the end of the year 2025 so we are taking the bulls by the horn by making sure that all these areas are provided with public toilets and at the same time we are sensitizing the people around the local government area to know the importance of keeping a healthy environment and we didn’t stop at that, we could see that whenever it comes to the rainy season, there are several issues of water logs, filled up drainage channels with dirt, we’ve been cleaning the drainage successfully in this local government area as a part of healthy living measures. Just last week, we went around the Ibadan South West local government to treat all the local boreholes and wells dug by our neighbors by adding chlorine, also testing the water to make sure it is drinkable and free from any waterborne disease. I believe with this new tenure we have now, we are going to continue from where we started out.
So, what are you looking to focus on?
We are going to be focusing on a whole lot of things; one is about the health sector as health is wealth. There’s still much to be done in terms of health care and proper health delivery. We are not going to stop where we are because in our local government alone, virtually all our twelve wards have health centers and with the little resources we have, we are going to continue from there which also goes to the erection of more boreholes to provide drinkable water for the people. But in this second term, we are going to be looking into bringing water corporations on board because I could remember when we were young, there used to be public water places but now things are changing to digging of boreholes and all but you’ll also be surprised that if you go around now since our amiable governor emerged, water has been coming out of pipelines but the issue we have is that most of these pipes are being tampered with so we are trying to re-lay the pipes so that our people could enjoy public tap water that we enjoyed when we were young. So we are going to be focusing on that, on health, clean environment, public awareness,, and sensitization as regards refuse disposition and how to keep the areas neat as well as looking into the access roads to avoid incessant traffic we have on the highway by opening up the access roads.
Aleshinloye market happens to be one of your major markets in this vicinity, what are you doing to ensure the market gets better in terms of the inflow of people, space, security and the health of the people?
Thank you very much. Aleshinloye market does not belong to Ibadan South local government; it now belongs to Ibadan West LCDA. You see, since the creation of the LCDA from Ibadan South local government, Aleshinloye was ceded to Ibadan West and the chairman heading Ibadan West, Hon. Tajudeen Adigun, he’s been trying, as a matter of fact,, he was at Aleshinloye market this morning to put some things in place. We don’t see ourselves as two separate local governments. Whenever he goes around, and he sees something that has to do with the main local government that I am the chairman, he calls me and the same thing is what I do, we work hand in hand. He was at Aleshinloye this morning, we know the plights of people shopping at Aleshinloye and these ones are our people. We should note that habits die hard so it’s something we have to check every time and that’s why his first point of inspection this morning was at Aleshinloye market before coming to the office just to make sure there is free movement and strict compliance to sanitation laws of the market as the administration of our governor, Seyi Makinde wants it to be kept.
If you go to the Aleshinloye market and all our markets in this area, that is Ibadan South and West local government, we provided hand washbasins for them with water, sanitizers, nose masks, and handwashing soaps. So we give them what we need to give to them.
Tell us about the state of security in this local government.
Once again I would seize this opportunity to thank our God-sent governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde about the state of security in Oyo state. We can also say that he has done beyond the expectations of people of this state especially in Ibadan when it comes to security; we are doing everything humanly possible to maintain peace and serenity in the state. The vigilante group, Agbekoya group and other security interfaces in this local government are always in contact with us because being the chief security officer of the local government; we are always going around to see where we have security challenges or suspected places where we can have security challenges to take proactive measures. We thank God that ever since the start of this tenure; we’ve never had insecurity issues in this local government.
What’s your local government doing with regards to the fight against COVID-19?
As a matter of fact, it is still an ongoing exercise but like I said, when it started out we went round the community and market squares to sensitize our people, secondly, we were always on the radio and television to tell people the importance of keeping social distance, maintain a healthy lifestyle and other related measures apart from us distributing nose mask, hand wash, and basins, sanitizers, educating our people, we did not stop at that as it is a continuous issue and as you can see in my office, we still have a pack of nose masks here and nobody comes into our premises through the gate without a nose mask as the security guards are always on the watch with our health officers at the gate to test people and we go around the areas in our local government to make sure our people comply. We make sure they follow the directives of the state government on the issue of COVID-19.
What is your take on the IGR status of the local government?
The IGR status to be honest with you, is not what we expected and what we are expecting because if you look at the community we are from, we always like to ask the government to do so much for us while we don’t want to pay the meager amount we are meant to pay and it is hard to collect taxes and other rates from our people to the government and we always expect the government to do much but we are taking all necessary steps to make sure our local government generates enough revenue to cater for our people.
Has the IGR status been dwindling or increasing since you started your tenure?
I will not be able to say if it is going up or down because when we got here, it was like having a zero IGR so we stepped up our game to ensure the smooth running of activities but I’ll say there is a bit of improvement in collecting revenue but it’s not close to fifty percent of where it ought to be at all but we need to bear it and like I said earlier, bad habits don’t die easily and our people are not used to paying tax and things like that except you are working with the government, it’s only the government officials that pay more taxes. We have billionaires and millionaires but when we ask them about taxes they don’t have records and they are always first to criticize the governments both on state, federal, or local levels forgetting that government can only do the things they are clamoring for with the IGR.
Is your party looking forward to the next local government elections?
Sure, don’t forget that my party is a democratic party and we like things that are democratic for on it is where our party principles are built. We are looking forward to the election; we know that being a local government caretaker is drawing us closer from just supervising the local government to another dimension. Being a caretaker does not mean that we do not have the input of our people but we look forward to more.
Will you be contesting in the next elections?
If God says I’ll still be alive because my objective in life is to serve humanity and if they want me to continue as the chairman of the local government then I’m here to serve them God willing.
