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A former Kwara State governorship aspirant, Engineer Sunday Adebayo Babalola, has urged Kwara residents not to despair over the current hardship many of them are going through.
He decried that people were going through excruciating poverty and hardship.
In an interview with journalists, he advised the people to be hopeful on God, adding that God will provide them better governance.
He said: “It is very sad what we have been seeing in Kwara State.
“Kwara State deserved better governance. They deserved better visionary leaders. They deserve people who will plan before they take action and not just jump into it and say see what I am doing. That is not different from a masquerade jumping into the market square and dancing in the middle of the night. Nobody will be there to watch him. So we need people who have compassion for the populace. You need people who want to lead from the front and not from the back. By the front I mean people who will be there in the state and not be junketing around the country or living in Abuja. We need people who will truly show that they love the people.
“My people want a lot of things. They want security, an environment where businesses will thrive, and health care that is qualitative, accessible and efficient. People want a good education for their children. They want their children to study in a good environment.
People want to engage in agriculture and would not be killed in the process. You know that Kwara is blessed with arable land. People should be able to get the seedlings that they should use, have access to funds for agriculture, and hospitals that will take care of the people’s needs.
“If we had the opportunity, we would have created a system where Kwara would have been enrolled in health insurance and a pool of funds would have been established for recognized hospitals to access money and furnish their hospitals so that people can access the health insurance scheme. It would have been very easy to do. We would have also created a system whereby people can access fund for their agricultural activities. It is not about buying tractors.
“Would those tractors not have drivers? I see politicians line up tractors and other equipment that they have bought for the state and they say they engage in empowerment but the person you are empowering, does he have the knowledge for using the equipment you are giving him? You need to train them to do their work well. It appears some people in government do not think. They just take the easy way out.”
He said: “There is hope for them. Things can never continue this way. A time will come when it will stop and people will have the government they deserve.”
He also advised the Kwara State Governor, Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq to ensure the delivery of dividends of democracy to Kwara State residents.
He stated that the state residents deserve better governance.
Babalola said: “In the next three years, he should sit down, plan, look at what will directly impact the people and do it and not by giving people peanuts. He should make sure that the people can see the benefits of democracy so that they will remember him long after he is gone. There are many things to do for the people. He should plan.
“Kwara State deserved better governance. They deserved better visionary leaders. They deserve people who will plan before the take action and not just jump into it and say see what I am doing. That is not different from a masquerade jumping into the market square and dancing in the middle of the night. Nobody will be there to watch him. So we need people who have compassion for the populace. You need people who want to lead from the front and not from the back. By the front I mean people who will be there in the state and not be junketing around the country or living in Abuja. We need people who will truly show that they love the people.
“We need people who will know that the position they are holding is a position of trust. We need people who will truly know that they are answerable to the people who appointed them. When I mean people who appointed them, it does not mean the electorate who voted for them, it also includes those who did not vote for them. Everybody should be carried along. We need people who will think about how to enhance the lives of the people. People in Kwara are really suffering because daily I get sms, WhatsApp messages from people who need help. People who cannot pay for the school fees of their children, they could not pay house rent or they could not send their loved ones to hospital. There is too much hardship in the state, instead of us having people stand on their own,
“Many of the past and present governments have impoverished Kwarans. Each of them added their quota to the burden of the people.”
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