This politics of bitterness must stop in Ogun – Kawonise

SINA Kawonise was the Commissioner for Information and Orientation in the immediate past administration of Otunba Gbenga Daniel in Ogun State.

Today, he is a troubled man, particularly with the attitude of the incumbent Governor Ibikunle Amosun who he says is determined to rubbish  his predecessor’s achievements.

In his view, the politics being played in the state today is to say the least, ‘Politics of Bitterness’ He believes a state cannot move forward under such conditions.

LAND matter is now a major issue in Ogun State?

First and foremost, I want to start by quoting former President Olusegun Obasanjo who said, “No one can survive hostile investigation.” If you are being investigated in a hostile manner, there is no way you are going to survive it.

What ordinarily was not been an issue suddenly became an issue. The issue of land you are talking about, in Ogun State up to 2003, was not an issue. At that time if they offered you land in Abeokuta, it’s like you would ask them to give you money to build up the land because, Ogun State was basically a civil servant state pre-2003.

But with the business background of the former governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, he opened up the place. Sooner and gradually, Ogun State became one of the investment destinations of choice and then, of course, land became an issue. Something that didn’t have much value suddenly started to appreciate.

And it was the deliberate policy of government at that time to attract investors into the state because its major concern was to create jobs and the government was not in a position to do much of that.

At the last count, the governor signed in excess of 50,000 Certificates of Occupancy whereas the immediate governor that preceded him probably didn’t sign up 2,000. The records are there. So, land became an issue especially in the Lagos axis as you are getting out of Lagos and all of that and of course in Abeokuta.

Why give discount on land and in other cases even for free

That happened deliberately. For example, look at that Nestle company, which is the biggest facility that they have in the whole of sub-Sahara Africa. As they came to Ogun State, Ondo State was drawing them; Akala in Oyo State was drawing them.

We were asking ourselves, “How do we attract them?” We said, “Okay, come to this place and we will give you land free of charge. In addition to that you will get a tax holiday.” Before we took that decision, the place that they chose to cite the factory, we did the survey and of course we valued the land to worth N200 million and we gave it out to them free of charge.

Bringing them there has a lot of benefits and multiplying effects in the economy of that area of the state. They would begin to pay tax: the Pay As You Earn taxes come to state government whereas the Company Income Taxes go to the Federal Government. That is the normal arrangement.

The controversy surrounding the Abraham Tabernacle land

Concerning the Abraham Tabernacle, there were issues. No doubt. The trustees applied for land and the Bureau for Land allocated a parcel of land to them. As we speak, no controversy about that.

The church leaders now wanted to expand to where they now have buried the old man that died, father of the former governor, they applied and were allocated two more plots. It then turned out that those two plots had already been allocated to some two individuals who possessed Certificates of Occupancy on those plots of land.

Now what the law says is this: If you are having a title to a land and you do not develop that land within two years, it stands revoked. So, one of those plots of land was already more than five years and others four years or so. If the governor wanted to play game as it’s being made to look now, it could have hidden behind that law to revoke the land and re-allocate those parcels to himself.

But he didn’t do it and we won’t say that the Bureau of Land did what they did deliberately because, as I told you, the system was analog and we just started digitalising. If we had succeeded in the process; if you punch a name and the name has been existing it would just prop up on the system. But under analog you would have all of these errors and all of that.

Your regrets and consolation

The regret is in the politics that attended the last two years of our administration. We didn’t lose anything but the state lost. The bond that we wanted to take, the gigantic projects that we wanted to embark upon. Ibikunle Amosun ….. just because he wanted to get into office; we regret all of that.

About consolation, well, you have to take bulldozer to the secretariat that OGD built and demolish it; you have to demolish the 40 housing estates that OGD built because we met only three housing estates in 2003, we grew them to 40; you have to go there with your bulldozers and demolish them; you have to demolish the health centres; you have to disengage more than 50,000 indigenes employed by the OGD administration; even the investors that the OGD government attracted to boost the economy and employment in Ogun State you have to dismantle their factories and send them out of place.

If you can succeed in doing all that, then you can destroy OGD’s achievements. But if you can’t do just those things, then you should know that OGD’s achievements are landmarks that can’t just be wished away.

February 27, 2012