Dr. Makanjuola Akindele Owolabi, a retired Senior Nigerian Air Force Officer/Chief Flight Surgeon and Chief Aerospace Medical Consultant is a governorship aspirant in Ekiti State under the All Progressives Congress. In this interview, the West Africa’s first Specialist Fellow in Aerospace Medicine/Aviation Medicine & Human Factors of West African College of Physicians and the USA speaks on his plans to govern Ekiti State and sundry issues. Excepts:
There are multiple candidates gunning for the Ekiti State governorship election under your party, APC. What gives you the assurance that you have an edge over others?
It is not surprising to me. In fact, I expected more candidates because of the failure of leadership at that state level. The definition of light is meaningless without darkness. Because of the darkness we have there; obviously even those who are average or just barely above average think they can do better and they are right. Quite frankly, in a knowledge based economy of the 21st century, a State like Ekiti State, which is the fountain of knowledge and land of honour should be playing with the first eleven. They are expected to play with the best of their materials. People can look at my profile. I have been a doctor for over 41 years, have been in the military and civil sector and have also achieved the pinnacle of my career. I have been training leadership with character for over 40 years to pilots to doctors, to engineers, to professionals all over the world. I have decided to sacrifice the remaining parts of my life to make a difference and rescue Ekiti State; rescue its honour, and prosperity and dignity of the state. I do believe I am capable and ready. People can look at my profile and it will be clear that I am the best of the candidates available.
Furthermore, and most importantly, God has prepared me and I believe I have answered the call of God to rescue my people. After all, God is love and one cannot say he loves God without showing love to his people; my commitment and determination to come and serve is born out of genuine love to serve them, not just for power.
Recently, former president Olusegun Obasanjo wrote to President Buhari. What are your views about the letter?
As a loyal party member of All Progressives Congress, I think I will firstly emphasis that, yes under the Nigeria constitution, he is guaranteed with freedom of expression like any other Nigerian and anybody is allowed to be free to offer or procure any piece of advice to the ruling party. In fact, to those who are not ruling; it is left for those whom the advice was directed to accept or not to accept. I did not see any big deal about that. Both the former president and the current president incidentally are my senior colleagues in the military and our honor and esprit de corps doesn’t allow us to talk negatively in the public.
The issue of salaries and gratuity are major issues in Ekiti State. Many are complaining seriously about that. How would you tackle this when you eventually win?
This is one of the tragedies that stare us in the face. All of must remember a great philosopher, Plato who said that “the penalty for good people refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Actually, payment of salaries, gratuity and pensions are not something that anybody should be talking about. These are rights that should be taken for granted. They are not campaign items, they should be automatic, they should not be counted as an achievement for any government, it just shows how far we have degenerated as a nation and as a State. I think with good leadership with character and good governance, we will make Ekiti self-sustaining and increase the Internally Generated Revenue, that the federal allocation will just be an addition. Not only that, Ekiti State will be the role model state in knowledge based economy of the 21st century. And this is why in my website we have set 5 points agenda which will ensure that happens and Ekiti will be one of the leading states in Nigeria..
Apart from tackling the issue of salaries and gratuity, which other developmental projects are you going to focus on?
I am happy that you are really concerned about the reason for coming into politics. Many people have been shouting about getting power but nobody has ever addressed the manin objective why we should be talking about politics in any nation. To me, the main reason we should be talking about politics in the nation; that is how you are going to actualize the dreams of the betterment of the people. We have maped out a 5-point agenda in the last 6 months
One of my agenda is quality education. Remember, late Mandela said education is the most powerful water in which you can use to change the state or improve the society of the people. Education is number one.
Two is quality health care, as you know I have been a doctor for the past 41 years; that is my own area of specialisation and am very familiar with the obstacle and challenges that we are facing. We are going to make Ekiti State a model state when it comes quality health care.
The third is infrastructural development. When I am talking about infrastructure, I am not talking of decorating or deceitful project units, like dividing the road into two and calling it a dual carriage way. I am talking about quality infrastructural development, modern roads, bridges, power, potable water, sanitary, disposal system and other things that make a society decent. And we are even lucky that we have a president who promised during his campaings that he will give Ekiti State an airport which we are going to make an Agricultural Cargo airport,
Ekiti State, in fact will be the food basket, not only to Nigeria alone but for West African regions. This is because Ekiti State has the capacity to produce about 26 identifiable revenue yielding crops, Ekiti State just need a rural road to access those farming establishments so as to transform the rural areas to modern enterprise. We are not only going to use just agricultural for raw materials, we are going to ensure that the entire value chain system. For example, cocoa that we are known for is used for the production of chocolates. This is why we need infrastructure to support those value chains.
The fourth one is mechanised agriculture. Ekiti State is perhaps, one of the states that has best arable lands in Nigeria. As farmers, we have determined that mechanised agriculture is the way to go. It entails getting all the youths, train and also motivate them to know that the richest people in America and other parts of the world are farmers too. We should also let them know that this coming doctor started his hospital that is now a world class aviation hospital started from the process of farming. The last one is good governance without any corruption and with real leadership with character.
You have just mentioned cocoa out of those identifiable revenue generating agricultural produce in Ekiti state, could you please give us some other ones?
We have yam, coco yam, plantain, banana, citrus fruit in Ekiti State. There is hardly anything we don’t have. let me give you an example, sweet potatoes are produce in many part of the country. In the North it may take up to 4 months with fertilizer. Recently, we took some varieties to Ekiti and within 2 months they have already grown for harvesting and yield is about 3 times the average one in the north. So, there is hardly anything you plant in Ekiti that will not yield.
Recently, INEC rolled out election timetable for the upcoming elections. From the look of things, it is coming much earlier than it used to be. How do you see that development?
I see it as a nice positive and encouraging development. I have an institution called Men Training Institute where we train both doctors and pilots throughout the world in Kaduna and the motto for that institute is actually what we called the 5 Ps and it means proper preparation produces proper performance and on the other hand, poor preparation produces poor performance. What INEC has just done is to give enough time for proper preparation on the part of themselves and on the part of the politicians which is quite good.
Ekiti State has a lot of professionals home and abroad. How do you intend to make use of them when you eventually become the governor?
Actually this is a very important question, because the world has become a global village now. With information Technology, there is no place you stay in the world that you can’t make contributions to other places. I was in the UK when the Ministry of Defense sent a team of Nigeria Air Force to come and interview me to gain my services as a flight surgeon as specialist in aviation medicine and I came from Britain to come and establish in Kaduna the aviation medicine department of the Nigeria Air Force mostly with my personal equipment brought from the UK. I am in the best position to understand the challenges of those in the Diasporas, I was there before and this is why all of them are supporting me now because the purpose of governance is to produce a conducive environment for all our professionals, youths and families all over the world to come back, join us and develop our fatherland.
And also to be the best and to compete with other people in other parts of the world. After all, angels will not come from heaven; it is only human beings like those of us in Nigeria and those in the diaspora. I think I am prepared. I am actually in a vantage position, haven been there and now in Nigeria. And this is why I am coming out to galvanise both the people at home and those in the diaspora to come with unity and love for their fatherland to rescue the honour and prosperity of Ekiti State.
What are your messages to Ekiti people based on the coming election?
The very important message to the people is to know that the state that we find ourselves requires deep introspection, deep change of attitude, When people are telling them that because they have been there before and they need to come back, we should be asking ourselves what have they done that are sustainable that has led us to the predicament that we find ourselves. We are looking for world class leaders with good integrity and character to create a sustainable platform for the next generation. A platform that will not just be a fire brigade approach; a platform that other people can build upon and will be sustainable; not that somebody will come and stay four years, another person would come and start all over again. This I thinks has been the bane and I think it is what Ekiti people should start think about. The time has come for the change of attitude on behalf of both the leaders and the led. Both of them need to change their mindset, their attitude to know that leadership with character is what is necessary and that this buy and sell politics should stop. It must stop because when they sell our conscience, our voting rights to people who don’t have leadership potentials, who have no character, and then we are now complaining at the end of the day. This is the time for change and I want my people to know that we can make Ekiti State the example that things can be better because Knowledge is power and this is what we want to use Ekiti State to be the best example for Nigeria.
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