Good governance has taken backseat in Ogun – ADC guber candidate

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) governorship candidate in Ogun State, Gboyega Nasiru Isiaka has presented his “7 Steps to Abundance” manifesto, declaring that the state’s “fortunes is reversed while good governance has taken a backseat.”

The two-time governorship candidate while speaking at the presentation in Abeokuta yesterday submitted that education and health sectors are in shambles, while the state’s debt servicing costs “will create big dent in future revenue prospects and may hamper future developmental plans.”

According to him, statistics from recent years have shown noticeable decline, adding that “truly the dreams of our founding fathers have not been fully realized, forty-two years after creation.”

He promised to revamp the education sector by creating special funding to tackle deplorable infrastructures in schools and equally returns missionary schools to the owners.

Isiaka added that all the model schools established by the outgoing government will be converted into vocational centres.

The ADC candidate’s manifesto equally covers water provision, sanitation, healthcare, agriculture and women empowerment.

“With an external debt overhang of $107.5million as at December 2017 (up from $103.4million in 2016), coupled with an increase in domestic debt that rose from N58.38billion in 2013 to N106.53billion in 2017 (totalling N140 billion as at 2018), Ogun state’s debt servicing costs will create big dent in future revenue prospects and may hamper future developmental plans because domestic debt servicing is accelerating at 18% every year. What this indicates is unsustainably high executive financial mismanagement.

“Away from the numbers that is at best precarious at the moment, their negative social and economic impact on the people is even more shocking. Running an economy should be about the people and where a state incurs debt, it ought to be tied to projects and programmes that significantly enhances the people’s welfare and also has capacity to regenerate income for the state,” he said.