..Steve Oliyide insists Governor Dapo Abiodun is too deficient to be given a second Chance

An aide of former governor Gbenga Daniel and a Mass Communication expert , Mr Steve Oliyide has again warned Ogun State indigenes and residents not to toil with their lives by giving the incumbent governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun another chance to lead them as he strives to retain the number one seat in the State.

The media expert who has been blowing hot on a WhatsApp platform, in his fourth message urged the Governor to show transparency and accountability if truly he deserves another term. 

He also exonerated his boss, former Governor Gbenga Daniel who is presently an All Progressives Congress, APC Senator-elect from what he described as 'his personal opinion and unbiased assessment".

As you know, the Nigerian Newstrack will gladly bring to your notice any government reply when issued, since it has such right of response. 

In the meantime, below is the excerpt of the latest write up and the three messages written earlier  by Mr Oliyide even as the State government has not deemed it fit to reply. 

"For the umpteenth time, I repeat, the opinions I have expressed in the last few days are mine, and mine alone. The futile attempts to masquerade my views as that of my Principal is unjust and laced with mischief, except I have to take a new lesson to suggest that I am not entitled to an independent assessment of what is and should not be in accountability in public service. 

As an adult, with a family and adult children I think my opinions should be so respected and appreciated as entirely mine. I am a Nigerian, an indigene of Ogun State, I am a stakeholder in the Project Ogun and I can distinguish between a good government and a bad one.

The last I checked, I know that Otunba Gbenga Daniel is and remains in APC and I quite sympathize with him because I know that his ideals of good governance is not being appropriated by the administration he is constrained to support. I know he has been under extreme pressure by the National leadership of the APC and some friends and associates; and he could not have given instructions otherwise to the wishes of such party leadership who do not know the pains being suffered by the people under the administration they foist on them in Ogun State. I could as well in the circumstance just walk- out of my Consultancy job for him out of respect for the collateral damage he could suffer from my extreme views and opinions on the Prince Dapo Abiodun led administration.

In the last two days, I have raised several posers and questions that are begging for answers, yet the Governor and his handlers have failed to provide answers to them for the benefit of the people of Ogun State. I have questioned the obnoxious awards of contracts which are being shrouded in secrecy; I queried why workers entitlements, salary and cooperative deductions, pensions etc are being denied them while the Governor opened up a Bazaar of procurement of amphibious politicians and endorsements of all sorts at the last minutes to election right in front of the same workers as if to spite them. I insisted on behalf of the people of Ogun State, my extended family members inclusive, that the Government should explain the line items in the budget for the people's knowledge so that they can know how their money is being spent, they deserve and have the right to know; I pointed in the direction of the cost of the Airport Project and the need for transparency in the awards of contracts, who is doing what and at what cost? They ignored or pretended to be. Instead, just yesterday again, the Governor went on another circus show, taking some Undertakers to the same airport which was believed to have been awarded and called them "Foreign Investors". In the pictures, I could see Group MD of a bank etc. The question is, is the airport being sold at the twilight of the Dapo Abiodun's administration? Two days to the election, the Governor claims to be taking "foreign investors" to a supposedly ongoing project. This beats my logic. I thought planes have landed at the airport already as completed? Don't the people of Ogun State deserve to know what the Undertakers are buying or selling at the airport? Everything is just summarized as "foreign investors" and 'guyman' shows of map readers.

My quest is about good and transparent leadership, not one that looks like every citizen is up for sale. Buy their votes at election time, shut them out for the next three and half years and when it is election time, you come out to the political markets with money for another purchase of their franchise. We need to sanitize our politics and political administration, and bring transparency into government. That is what good governance is all about.

Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore, I live)

Steve Oliyide still is my name.

Steve Oliyide raises critical questions for the Government of Prince Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State (3rd write up)

In the last 48 hours I have raised some critical issues about the maladministration of the prince Dapo Abiodun led administration in Ogun State, I have done all I could to insulate my Principal from my personally held opinions,  but rather than attending to the real the Issues, Governor Dapo Abiodun's incompetent media handlers are making futile attempts at personal insults. That is the value of service you get when you make someone who started a career as a bar attendant at a backstreet bar opposite Faslak hotels in Apapa your party's information manager. Their dilemma is even more compounded because the product they have to sell to the people of Ogun State in itself is questionable in several areas; educational records, conducts and character. A man who can promise the people of Ogun State "Beer, Whiskey and Gin" to the youths instead of jobs, Employments and scholarships. Iru kaun kaun, obe gbegiri. Likes always attracts like though.

The reason why they cannot be bold enough to append their names on their write ups, they skirted around the issues to go after personality. I consider this as a deliberate diversion from  what the people of Ogun State want to hear, and I will not allow them to run away from this. I will campaign for DA if, and only if:

1. They could tell the people of Ogun State *the cost of Prince Dapo Abiodun's projects, how much he constructed a kilometre of roads.* We have asked this question over and over, but they have parried it.

2. Civil Servants have been owed 22 months of Cooperative deductions. The excuse has always been there is no money. But we need to ask, *where does the governor get the money for the emergency Procurement of amphibious politicians and endorsement of various kinds of people in the twilight of elections.*

3. Local Government staff (including Councilors) have been owed, pensioners are crying to be paid, gratuities are in arrears default, *but the amount of money the governor is spending on procurement of endorsements can take care of all these statutory entitlements of those people suffering to serve Ogun State.*

4. The Airport Project is the flagship of this administration, a wonderful initiative of the OGD Administration. But the people of Ogun State need to be told *the total costs already spent or should I say looted by this outgoing administration for the international cargo airport*. The Agro Cargo Airport is a lofty initiative, well conceived by those who have vision, but Prince Dapo Abiodun has hurriedly turned it into a glorified highway with no control tower, arrival/departure halls; it has simply become a 4- lane highway presented as a runway. Ogun State people are being insulted, even 'yoruwood' movies are better packaged. But we need to know the amount expended on this so far? All ancestral lands, tens of thousands of hectares adjoining the airport projects have been connered by the Troika Government-in-Council (DA+Talabi+Dapo Okubadejo) for themselves. They got a Land Speculator to stand in as a foreign investor, to be selling lands already acquired since 2008 by the government for an Airport city.

5. Budget: *Why have line items of the state's budget been shrouded in secrecy, so much that even members of the Ogun State House of Assembly don't have the details of the budget passed in the last four years?*

These, and many more are the real issues that are begging for answers. This is not about me as a person, the rule should be about "eni ti o ba ruu re, l'o maa soo 're". If you do well while in the office, you can be rewarded with a return, but if the people of Ogun State can make a statement with their votes and refuse to reward failures with a re-election, then anyone who emerges as Governor will not take the people for granted anymore. This is about liberating Ogun State from the clutches of bad governance; a system where you rule the people as it pleases you, ignore them when it mattered to them, keep their entitlements in your personal vaults, then bring out same out on the eve of elections to buy supports. This is an act of wickedness.

Steve Oliyide is still my name..

'Don't reward non-performance', Steve Oliyide indicts Governor Dapo Abiodun (The 2nd Statement)

Since yesterday when I posted on this platform my personal views about the desire of Prince Dapo Abiodun to seek a re-election from the people of Ogun State, a people that he had clearly abandoned for close to four years now, I have been inundated with several calls. My opinion remains unchanged and I pray that the good people of Ogun State should not suffer a second misfortune and calamity of rewarding non performance and abandonment. And I repeat, should he by any means be rigged back into the office, good luck to him. It probably could be that we have sinned and God is punishing the people of the state.

I was less bothered about most of the calls, some of which came as conciliatory as they could be, and I am not God, I have only just a vote, which in good conscience I could not invest in Dapo Abiodun again. People are at liberty of the choice(s) they make.

My attention however was drawn to a lazy response by someone who is so scared to append his own name just like I did in my own post. That clearly is cowardice. Yourbas have a name for those who are unwilling to answer their father's name and often use the left finger to point the direction of their homes. On further enquiry I was told that the piece was written by a former head waiter in a backstreet peppersoup and beer parlor joint in Apapa who is struggling to justify his undeserved pay when I was practicing as a journalist in Lagos and all over Nigeria. 

I like to speak to issues and not the mundane. The faceless writer said I am not a "trained journalist". Of course he was right because that is truly what I am not, rather I was trained in Mass Communication, which is about talking to a large number of people of diverse origin and most of whom I don't even know.  They are heterogeneous and usually anonymous. Journalism is just a subset of my entire and composite training. I could not be reduced to a part when I have liberty to function in diverse areas of my profession; which includes Perception Management, Public Relations, Advertising and even Marketing. If this knowledge is lost on the writer of the piece, I can't help his ignorance and a little bit of education might suffice.

I have school and course mates, many of whom are doing very well in their areas of calling. I have professional colleagues who have identities and are well known. And that clearly distinguishes me from Prince Dapo Abiodun with odious history and questionable identity. I do not have records of fraud and identity theft like Shawn Michael-Davis. I never claimed certificates that are not mine; I finally collected my first graduate certificate in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, clear 27 years after I graduated and it was there sitting in the school's archive. I am a certified professional of different organisations and my academic records never sat in the courts and I can well speak about them. I hope Prince Dapo Abiodun can openly reel out his own short CV as I have done. My names (both given and Baptismal) have never changed since I was born. I have records of political activism, an unpaid but conscientious vocation that I willingly and voluntarily subscribed to. If I could choose a path of unpaid services, even spending my hard earned resources, it speaks to the idea of my contentment. The mischievous reference to desperation for appointment is unrelated to my persona. 

By my training, I was taught that Bad Products can't sell twice, unless repackaged like some are trying to sell Governor Dapo Abiodun to Ogun State people again. The content and rottenness remain the same, it is only the package they are struggling to change, that will be a great disservice to the good people of Ogun State. I will find it difficult to sell DA a second time, so looking for an appointment under someone with such questionable character is like deliberately applying for a difficult task which leads to no good end.

I have borne all responsibilities to my family, before, in and outside government from my Consultancy firm which I incorporated since September 26, 1996. The writer should approach the Corporate Affairs Commission and relate to my company's Tax Identification Number (TIN) for my corporate, social and economic existence.

Steve Oliyide is my name.

Steve Oliyide passes a vote of no confidence on Governor Dapo Abiodun says "he does not deserve a second term".  (1st statement)

I have been off this platform for the past hours and on the social media generally as I felt I need to take a much needed introspection on the politics of our country and especially Ogun State. The signals and reactions that I am seeing  and observing are clearly worrisome as they are troubling.

I have read comments from both pro and anti DA members of the OGD Political family and the clear lines of views are defined by one, the pecuniary interests of those who think a DA loss might cause them and other varied perspectives on the overall ill-treatment and wickedness this political family suffered under the Dapo Abiodun led administration despite having supported him to emerge as the Governor of Ogun State.

For instance, I spoke with a younger brother of mine, himself also a member of this political family a few days ago, and his reasoned argument for supporting DA was the promise of becoming a Special Assistant to the Governor made to him by a former Commissioner for Information in Ondo State and now a de-jure Commissioner for Information under the Dapo Abiodun administration in Ogun State. He may be quite right, though short-circuited in logic that the same administration made a promise of being appointed an SA to the Chairman of a Local Government in the outgoing term which turned out to be a fluke and remained a Promissory Note up until this election time.

In all of this, the person that I honestly sympathize with is my boss who has been caught in a web of betrayals by the person he helped to enthrone in 2019 against all odds and options and the cul-sac of Statesmanship and having to serve as a loyal party man. I equally share his pains about his avowed commitment to the mandate of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who has been his political ally and friend since 1999 and he has no other option than to work for him; his commitments to his handful of loyalists who now run errands in the Dapo Abiodun's government. In the present circumstance, orders and directives are becoming too difficult to enforce. What justifications will he give to his teeming supporters spread across the State on the need to support a man who has once stabbed them in the back without risking a rebellion. I can mirror my Principal's dilemma from the prism of my own inability to convince members of my extended family in Ota who have been trapped for months and unable to attend any functions outside our narrow enclave, courtesy of a less than three kilometers of bad roads that needs only a palliative, even if the Government cannot tar same. How do I tell them that this government is working. 

How does OGD persuade his thousands of supporters and people of Ogun State, many of those who look up to him as an exemplary leader that Dapo Abiodun who has refused to speak nor pick the phone calls of traditional rulers, political leaders, including members of his own political party as well as the several civil servants who toil for the smooth running of the state will pick their calls if he ever returns as their chief executive once again.

On my own part, I am not God, neither am I that religious to foretell if Dapo Abiodun will win a re-election or not, notwithstanding the amount of solid rejection in public opinion, but my conscience does not give me the approval to add my thumping in his support. Not that my single vote will matter in support or rejection of Dapo Abiodun, but I will be much at peace with myself and my conscience that I did not contribute into enthroning a bad government in whom practically everything is suspect and vile. It is a Season of procurement, but coming from my background as an informed but conscientious objector, I remain a Non-consprirator to bad leadership. My whole years of political activism would have gone to nought if I submit to an endorsement of criminality, what lessons am I passing on to my children and the next generation of those who look up to me as a hero of good conduct.

I need to state for emphasis, that it is a political robbery for any Governor who had abandoned and neglected the civil servants for close to four years to start looking for their endorsements in the twilight of election, it speaks to the idea of deceit in public administration and governance. What would OGD tell them if after throwing his weight behind someone who had once deceived them and their expectations are once again dashed. My take and recommendation is that he should allow the people of Ogun State to decide their own fate, just as he should allow his followers and supporters to do the same. He is an elder Statesman now and he should live up to that calling and not to burn the bridges of his goodwill for an ungrateful person whose entire life has been lived in odious opulence.

Kukute kan ko gbodo fo ni l'epo ni eemeji. If the people of Ogun State will again suffer the misfortune and affliction of a second time, it should be on record that I speak out when it mattered. "The Man dies in him, who fails to speak in the face of tyranny". I care less about who wins on March 18, but it is a win and a victory for the people of Ogun State if Dapo Abiodun should lose the election because whoever emerges the Governor will no longer take the people for granted and hope to be rewarded with a re-election. Ogun State people, workers, market men and women would have reclaimed their deserved powers that anyone deceitful can no longer rule over them and that they can change any non performing leader.

Disclaimer:

I sign this in my own name as an adult who knows what he wants and can decipher between good and bad leadership, with all the responsibilities, respect, honour, frailties and infallibility that goes with it. Dapo Abiodun is not worth the trust investment that he seeks from the good people of Ogun State. And should he win, good luck to him. My boss and Principal should be insulated and excused from this view.

Steve Oliyide is my name.