Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, says he is not perturbed by the recent attacks and criticism on him and his government over deplorable conditions of some roads across the state.
Early this month, the social media especially X (formerly twitter) was awashed with pictures and videos of bad roads across the state, as Abiodun topped the trending chart for about three days.
The users knocked Abiodun for failing to provide ‘motorable’ roads in the state.
But the government also responded to what it called a coordinated attack by rolling number of road projects executed by the administration which was put at about 600 kilometers in the last five years.
Few days after the social attacks, Abiodun also visited some of the troubled spots and gave contractors a marching order to expedite actions on the ongoing projects.
Abiodun, however, spoke on the attacks on Tuesday when he met with the coalition of youth organizations in the state at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
The meeting was hinged on the growing mobilisation for the #EndBadGovernance protest slated for August 1.
According to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Lekan Adeniran, on Wednesday, Abiodun while speaking on the recent attacks on his administration, said he was not bothered by the attacks from “faceless people on the social media.”
Abiodun said he became the governor “under the most torturous and most difficult circumstances”, and he could not afford to get to the office “and become complacent.”
His words: “I normally don’t get disturbed by such things because one of my mentors in politics told me that in politics, you must make sure that you are mentioned either for the right or wrong reasons, but be continuously mentioned because if you are not mentioned, you are just part of the crowd.
“For me, I am not bothered that I have been under attacks by faceless people on social media because I know what I am. I know who I am. I know what I did before I became governor. I know how long I have been in this journey. I became a senator before I was 35, the youngest at the time and I have been on this space in the State contesting on different platforms from that time until God decided that He was going to make me a governor and someone would imagine that after all that I had gone through to get to this position, all I will do is to be biting my fingernails. That person must be a joke.
“I became the governor under the most torturous and most difficult circumstances. I can’t go through that baptism of fire to get to the office and become complacent.
“Our Internally Generated Revenue was around N50 billion a year before. But in four years, we have grown it to almost N200 billion, and someone says Dapo Abiodun is just sitting in Ogun State and doing nothing. That has to be a joke.”
However, he appealed to Nigerian youths to constructively engage the government in finding lasting solutions to Nigeria’s problems rather than engaging in protests that could cause more harm to the country.
The governor, who recalled the destruction of lives and properties occasioned by the EndSARS protests across the country in 2020, said protests could only aggravate issues without necessarily finding solutions to them.
He said: “And yet again, there are calls for mass protests across the country, and the first thing that agitates one’s mind is, is that the way to present our case to government? Is that the way to constructively and objectively engage with government by advertising and planning mass protests? Is there something behind those who are calling for these protests? Is this another plan by those who have tried their luck and have lost? Is this their own way and shortcut to see how to frustrate the government?
“Young men and women, you have no other country than this country. Let me assure you that I have travelled far and wide. I am sure, like many of you, there is no country in the world where you can walk like your own, that country is Nigeria. There is no other place where nobody will accost you, and you would not challenge that person.
“You can not go to London and say do you know who I am and the people there will not look at you and say that you have an identity problem. But in Nigeria, you can look at somebody in the face and say “do you know who I am?”
“There is a Yoruba proverb that says ‘beheading is not the solution for an headache’. If there are issues, let us discuss them, let us find a way around them, let us manage and correct them. Let us not cut off the head or attempt to cut off the head because of a headache. That will amount to decapitation.”
