MY MEETING WITH BUHARI FOCUSED ON LATE ABIOLA, JUNE 12, MY ADMINISTRATION, SAYS OGUN GOVERNOR

accounts, one to thank him for making June 12 democracy Day on the account of Abiola who is one of the pride sons of Ogun State’. ‘I felt I should personally come on behalf of the good people of Ogun State for pronouncing June 12 democracy Day. And recognizing that indeed is MKO Abiola is a uniting factor in the political history of Nigeria’. “MKO Abiola was someone who won an election, ran a Muslim- Muslim ticket meaning that he demystified the issue of religion and that would have been a turning point in the history of Nigeria’, the Governor stated. ‘ So Baba recognized that and he firmly believed in Abiola’s mandate and he didn’t have to be convinced, that it was something he believed in and he keyed into and he felt that Abiola would have been a very good President’. ‘I thanked him for naming the stadium after him as well which was unexpected. He said he didn’t even share with anyone, it was something he wanted to do, to underscore the fact that Abiola was indeed a great man.” Penpushing reports further that, the Governor said, he equally discussed his plan for Ogun State, explaining that, “I also wanted to share with him my vision for Ogun. Like you know my vision is to provide good and qualitative governance for the people of the State while creating an enabling environment for a public/private sector partnership which we believe is fundamental to economic growth and prosperity’. ‘Our mantra is building our together. Our vision starts with what we called an enabler factors top of which is good governance factor. We believe that nothing can be achieved unless you are committed to good governance’. ‘And good governance starts with paying salaries, I was sworn in on the 29th of May and the 30th was my first day in office and my second day in office I realized that salary was due and we didn’t have money to pay’. ‘However, that day we ensured that salaries were paid. It was important for that message to be sent because the pact we had with the people of the state. There is something called the speed of trust, the citizens have to begin to trust you and you have to earn that trust equally’. “We said we want to endear people to come to the state, there will be indicators like that, a government that pays pensions on time, forward pensions to PFAs gratuity, clear salaries is a government that will be taken seriously.” The Governor also disclosed that he discussed security and Agriculture with the President, stating that, “second item on our enabler is security. Ogun State is called Gateway for a reason. We are Gateway to Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Cotonou, to so many other places’. ‘So it is important that for us to create an enabling environment for investment we must have a secured State. Myself and the Governor of Lagos State, we have discussed, we are going to ensure we have a robust security trust fund so that we can have patrol vehicles along the connecting roads, tracking devices, communications equipment’. ‘Because, if we want to take advance of what we call the pull factor, today Ogun state has the largest industrial hub of the country but there are there because Ogun is close to Lagos. So all these I shared with Mr President.” “But top on the list is Agriculture; we are placing Premium on Agriculture. We see it as opportunity to directly impact on peoples lives and so we are tapping into CBN’s anchor borrowers’ programme” ,he added