Bisi Akande

“This is one historic reckoning that will make many uncomfortable. Many will be reminded of roles played by them which they would rather the nation, indeed the world, forgo.” – Professor Wole Soyinka

Despite the gathering cloud, I still felt that I had nothing to fear. I had gained nothing materially from holding public offices for four years. As SSG and Deputy Governor, my take home pay was much lower than what I was earning as an executive of BP. In the two offices I held, I had no authority to approve government expenditure. I never took bribe and never gave bribe to anyone. I felt I would soon be vindicated. I was owing BP, my former employers, for loans on my only landed property. I had only N2,400 of my own in all my bank accounts in the whole world. But as time went on, I found that it was not as simple as I was thinking.

It was not the last time I would have close encounter with death. As a travelling ambassador of BP, I had close shaves with death by air, on water and on land. I enjoyed my career with BP. The experience and the exposure were incomparable. They made me to know much about Nigeria, her diversity, her greatness and her vast resources.

In 1977, after fourteen productive and interesting years with BP, I told my employers that I would like to take a leave of absence to enable me participate in the Constituent Assembly. The leave was granted and I participated in producing the 1979 Constitution which recommended the presidential system of government that our country is still practising till date.

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Works was, meanwhile, trying to design a model block of classrooms of their dream. How do we reconcile the Ministry of Works’ recommendation of N90,000.00 to the Governor’s desire for N25,000.00?

We summoned all contract bidders to a meeting and I met them in the company of Mr Diti Oladapo, then the Principal Secretary to the State Executive Council who was later to serve as the SSG in the new Oyo State. I directed that whoever so desired to work with our government should, accordingly, go and sign the contract at the Cabinet Office.

Surprisingly, within three days, most of the contracts had been signed at our price of N24,500.00 per bungalow-block of six classrooms instead of the Ministry of Works’ price of N90,000.00.

I was thinking that I would build a Government House first according to the masterplan of Osogbo and when I had done that, I would vacate where I was living for the Chief Judge. Then, I would remove all my commissioners from Oke-Fia and direct the judiciary to occupy the present quarters at Oke-Fia since all the courts were in Oke-Fia. I wanted a link road from Ilesha Road to Gbongan Road. I had started the earth work on part of the Ring Road that Governor Aregbesola graciously completed later in his tenure. I wanted Iwo Road to be linked to Gbongan Road and Ilesha Road to be linked to Ikirun Road. I could not complete these roads because of the heavy costs on bridges since River Osun virtually encircles Osogbo.

I resumed in the Governor’s Office on Monday, May 31, 1999, and met a state government in an elaborate state of dysfunction. There was a practice that was prevalent during the military era where top government officials, from the governor down to the level of directors, paid themselves “critical allowances” every week.

I made further investigations and was told that Mrs. Lateefat Adiamoh, my Commissioner for Special Duties and Local Government Matters, was the person handling the allowances for the Governor. I directed that the so-called critical allowances should be stopped immediately and had a circular written to that effect.

I was soon to realise that the most difficult section of the Nigerian power elite was the leadership of the labour unions. I discovered that many of the labour leaders did not have, or preferred to pretend not to have, rudimentary knowledge of economics. It amazed me how any set of leaders would want all the resources of a state to be spent only on salaries and emoluments; nothing left for development. More so, this was in a poor state where the government was living virtually in rented apartments, had no living secretariat for its workers and no functioning infrastructure whatsoever with no radio and no television worth its name. We had an old redifusion house at Ita Akogun, Osogbo. When it was on air, you might not hear it in Ikirun some ten kilometres away from the broadcasting house.