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In this interview, the Caretaker Chairman, Boluwaduro East Local Council Development Area in Osun, Hon. John Biodun Fatoki speaks to Oni Gbenga on his achievement and experience in office so far.
• As a former councillor, we know you are familiar with how local government was then. Can you please place a comparison about how it was then and now?
That your question in fact is, I can say it’s
a rhetorical question because one can easily see it that comparing this government with the past administration, in fact, it’s far, far, far. I mean, Governor Ademola Adeleke’s own governance is quite different from the
previous government of Oyetola.
The local government administration then
was nothing to write home about. In fact, I can categorically tell you that the government of those days you know, they have retrogressed the system of the local government entirely. There is nothing
to write on about, in the sense that if you go to the local government, hardly will you see
the administrators doing well there, because they do not give them priority to give themselves priority at the state level.
The local government administration then were so peaceful, they don’t operate as they supposed to operate.
If you see the communities and the local government, you can not point to what they have done.They did nothing throughout. They didn’t take care of the community people so they later formed associations to take care of themselves.
Like now, you can see that the local governments are promptly attending to situations on ground at each local government.
Let me take, for instance, our community in Igbajo, when it rained, some electric poles were destroyed, some houses blown off, we took prompt action on these things. Unlike before, it will be community, it will be community people that will be taxing themselves in replacing the electric poles.
You see, now we are grading roads from the villages, we are grading roads in the communities. For the past 12 years, I don’t think those people brought a grader to our community here in Igbajo.
So, you cannot compare the past administration with this one. This one is people based or people oriented or let me say people loved government.
• With your current position as the Caretaker Chairman, tell us about Boluwaduro East LCDA and its peculiarity.
We have tourist attractions, we have so many places that can attract people from far and near. You see, in Igbajo, for instance.
We have this Kiriji war site and in iresi; We have Ojupoebekun. You see, that Ojupoebekun is a cave and there is a deep, a deep dam in that cave that is unending, there is nobody that enters into that cave. That can come out alive. There has never been anybody.
And there is one other little, stream like this. It’s not like a dam, it’s like a lake, okay, let me call it a lake.
That lake is just a little lake. And if you throw stone into that lake, you’ll be hearing the sound of that stone that will go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down. We have so many things. We have so many mineral resources that can attract people here. We have rocks across the communities here, we have some hills that, there is a particular hill in Igbajo, if you climb that mountain, you can easily see four states. You’ll be seeing Kwara state, part of ondo state, Ekiti state clearly from that mountain, so there are a lot of things that can attract people from far and near. we are so blessed here.
• As Chairman of Boluwaduro East LCDA, and with your wealth of knowledge and experience in this system of governance, what should people of Boluwaduro LCDA expect from you?
They should expect better and best governance. You know, I want to assure our people here, with what we have been able to do, little by little, we still do more for them.
At least we were able to pay some students WAEC fees, we were able to pay part of their NECO fees, we were able to obtain jamb forms too.
Let me assure our people, because our people here are agrarians. We plant, we are all farmers here, even as the local government, we have a banana plantation. We have planted maize. In fact, within about two months to this time, that is about eight weeks, we will be cultivating our maize. So, they should expect best from us.
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