Ayorinde Adedoyin is the Kwara State governorship candidate of Accord Party (AP). He speaks about his plans to restructure the state, which he says has been mismanaged by successive governments since 1999, into a model state that is more people and development-focused.
Daily Trust: Kwara State is still very rural outside of Ilorin and maybe Offa. What are your plans for infrastructural development?
Ayorinde Adedoyin: Infrastructural development is critical to the economic development and general wellbeing of people. We can't talk about infrastructure without talking about roads, water, electricity, airport, housing; even education and health care. Building schools and hospitals for example is infrastructure. AP has a plan to within four years ensure at least 1,000 kilometres of both rural and urban roads are repaired and constructed to give a new lease of life to our people. Our immediate task will be to ensure rural roads are upgraded to enable easy access for rural-urban transportation and to also make sure that our agricultural produce can get to the market easily. Road infrastructure is very important for Kwara’s economic development.
On housing, our government will partner with real estate developers to deliver at least 20,000 housing units per annum in Kwara. The kind of housing we will deliver will cater for different social economic classes.
Our urban renewal project will focus on how to regenerate our urban centres to make them liveable with social amenities. Our infrastructural development strategy will be to integrate the state’s economy along comparative advantage of each local government. Within two years of our administration, we will ensure that each local government headquarters in connects with Ilorin, the state capital, with quality roads.
To provide potable water for Kwara will require a lot of money. Kwara needs more than 300 million gallons of water per day. We will reform the water system in the state. The first way to start is to restructure the state water corporation and get competent people to run it, then embark on expansive programmes to connect every local government with public water. What we have discovered is that people will pay for any service they see and enjoy. To show what we are capable of doing, as a party we have embarked on state wide water provision through the repair of existing broken-down boreholes in many communities and drilling of new boreholes for communities that need clean water. We have done over 150 boreholes in the last six months.
DT: The diversification agenda is centred on agriculture. How do you intend Kwara to key into this, especially with dwindling oil revenue and for the state to generate alternative revenues outside federal allocation?
Adedoyin: Increasing agricultural production will be a key focus of our administration. We will reduce reliance on the rain-fed agriculture by encouraging all seasons land cultivation. We will introduce support investment in agricultural mechanisation to farmers. Animal husbandry will be key focus of our policy on agriculture. We have a plan to make Kwara the centre of poultry business in Nigeria. We are already in discussion with a company that will set up an integrated poultry farm that will produce about five million chickens per annum. The farm will have a feed mill, a hatchery and other allied businesses. Our plan is to be net supplier of chicken products in Nigeria.
We hope to create over 100,000 quality agro-allied jobs in Kwara. We will focus on producing crops like maize and cashew for industrial use. We will create an out-grower scheme where we target about 5,000 youths that will be formed into cooperatives. The youths will be formed into cluster farmers for the economy of scale and ease of agricultural extension services. Kwara in four years will be net producer of maize and cashew for export and local industrial use. Major industries will have an off-taker agreement with our farmers. Beyond primary production, we also plan to drive private sector value addition into our agricultural produce. That is how we will create jobs and opportunities for our people.
DT: Do you believe in women empowerment, and what will you do beyond giving few appointments to women?
Adedoyin: Our government will make sure we have a minimum of 30 per cent representation of women in leadership and decision-making positions in Kwara. Beyond appointment into government jobs; which is limited, our focus on women empowerment will be how to make our women agents of economic activities. Our administration will boost the capacity of our women to earn good income to support themselves and their families through macro and micro-credit schemes. More vocational centres will be created that will empower women in their chosen vocations. Our policy on education will focus on the girl child too. The way we can create strong women of the future who can stand on same pedestal with men and be competitive is to ensure we have our girls in school. There is nothing a man can become that a woman can’t become in life. We will go beyond tokenism of political appointments for women. Our women empowerment will be holistic and bring our women to the epicenter of economic and political process in Kwara.
DT: What will you do to make sure the youths are taken off the streets?
Adedoyin: Our youth empowerment programme is about how to make our young people productive. Youths will be engaged through formal and informal education. There is going to be value re-orientation that will make our youths who have trade skills like plumbing, masonry, carpentry and welding to return to those jobs. We also plan to make our polytechnics and university, apart from our technical colleges, to run certificate programmes in these vocational skills to elevate their social acceptance.
Most of our tradesmen and women now come from Togo and Benin Republic to build our houses in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ilorin and even in our villages. Our young people are running from the trade they learnt. There is money to be made. People are building houses daily and making furniture. These skills are needed to drive the productive base of our local and national economy. Welding, for example; there are welders earning over N1m per month, with some of the oil and oil service companies. There are thousands of marine jobs that our people can embrace through training and the right exposure. These are the ways we will empower our youths. Agriculture will again play a major role in our youth empowerment scheme. We will create millionaire youth farmers.
DT: Kwara is one of the states that can be called a civil service state. Do you have any plan for industrialisation?
Adedoyin: We shall partner with the private sector to set up cottage industries as up-takers in every local government area with a constant supply of electricity to jump-start industrial revolution. Our major policy thrust on industralisation will be how to partner with owners of dead factories in Kwara to revive them. Ninety per cent of factories in Kwara State are dead. 30 to 20 years ago, we had factories like Okin Biscuit and Global Soap that were family businesses employing thousands of our people. Part of the reason for unemployment in Kwara and low government revenue is because the industries are no more working and thousands of workers have been laid off. Even the few who are working are not at optimal level.
We will use government as an enabler to revive these factories so that they can roar back to life and begin production. Within 24 months as a government, we will ensure that at least 30 per cent of factories in Kwara are back to life. We can create at least 3,000 to 5,000 new jobs through this. Government can access some of the CBN, international development funds from AfDB and AFREXIM Bank to help these factories to get back to business. Government guarantee will be converted into equities in these companies to be managed by a state-created special purpose investment vehicle. We are keen on creating a strong industrial base for Kwara. In four years Kwara will boom with industries that are back into operation. Some of the factories still have their plants and equipment; some will only need to be refurbished and some upgraded with modern technology to keep them running.
