TETFUND Will Address issue of Abandoned Projects in Tertiary institutions: Engr Adeyemi

interrogate the various higher institutions of how they can complete those abandoned projects. That is one of the questions that i have, How do we make that happen? So, as the board continue to meet, I will see how I can drive that initiative to ensure we have value for money in terms of getting results from the abandoned projects.

Another thing is to ensure that the quality of work done is there. Probably take more active role in ensuring that the government get results for what he has paid for in terms of good quality infrastructure. We are also building hostels for schools. Another area is how do we access the impact of ICT program and other various interventions. What have we done to measure the impact on the people that are suppose to be positively impacting on. They have initiative to go Hybrid manning mode especially after the COVID. They are trying to build capacity of all the universities to be able to do research on how well is the university utilizing ICT. Maybe some of this helps relieve the pressure in some of our classrooms. Maybe adding some remote action will relieve pressure on physical space that we have.

If we invest a lot of money in research, how do we follow up on the research and turn it into innovation. That way we can get this benefits. So, those are the areas that I hope to impact positively.

airport, a lot of the expected users of those facilities may be people flying in and out. Therefore they may need to be within the state capital. Outside of the state capital, just few months ago, over N10billion was allocated to various roads in Kwara south. Yes, we will continue to agitate for equity not equality because government wants to spent every naira to deliver dividends of democracy to every part of the state.The truth of the matter is most of our people are located in major metropolis when we are talking about Ilorin, Offa and other places. So, if I’m building 1km road in rural Ifelodun local government for example, and building 1km road in Ilorin with the number of people that will be using the 1km road in Ilorin and the rural road, those road will cause the same but the lives that will be impacted will be greater. So, government wants to ensure that majority of the people benefits from various interventions. That’s why they make some of these decisions but as an advocate of Kwara south, we will not keep quiet and about fighting for equity not necessarily equality. So, we will never stop agitating for equity. From the past administrations to this current administration, I will say that this administration has made a conscious decision and effort to ensure every ward in Kwara State has something to showcase. Everything may not be directly from the state government in terms of mega project but when you will look at the SUBEB program, water intervention, primary health care centers and others. No ward can say that they don’t have something but you can never have everything.

Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq led administration is the most equitable administration in terms of projects balancing, people balancing, ethnic balancing, senatorial district balancing, muslim-christian balancing and male-female balancing. The government keeps detailed record around all of this parameters and they try to make sure that is not heavily weighed in one way or the other. I will say the Governor is very conscious and doing his own very best to make build a better Kwara.

You are based in United States, their election will hold this year, what do you think Nigerians can learn from their democratic system?

In terms of practicing democracy. Our democracy is very young but we can continue to take bold steps in advancing it. The first thing about democracy is that we have to make sure that people’s voice are heard and count. The electoral act has made it known that people can not just sit in the corner of a living room and expect result, with this people vote actually count. The second part is to engage the citizens that have been over the years somewhat have an idea of what is going in terms of the electoral act. Like saying whether you we vote or not our vote doesn’t count that has been draining the people’s mind. So, people don’t want to come out and the turn out of the election is very poor when we are talking about 25%. United States also have poor turn out in mid election but for the presidential election typically is close to 60%. Some democracy have 90% but our when have about 25% of eligible voters come out during the election but when they release result everybody starts screaming how and fair it is but they will not participate. Hopefully, we have a good take away that our votes count and people show up. The third thing is you will see outside of all the craziness of American politics, you will see that they will always go back to the issues. In Nigeria, it is very difficult to know what party ideologies are or what it really means. That is what i think is take away for Nigerians. We are very susceptible to outside influence and outside interference but we don’t seems to be able to do anything about it. Facebook, TikTok and all social media channels are spreading fake news or misinformation but we as government basically surrender to some of these things and take it for granted.

You will see that United States is actively and aggressively going after countries that they felt are melding into the election influence, even if the previous one they have to send the high ranking of Russia Envoy away by sanctioning Russia for that interference. But even if we don’t have such power to be able the do that we should be able to tell people “back off”. We can make our own decision without you trying to put undue influence on the outcome of elections.

those are to government that care and think the people will know that.

I believe that APC will come out with flying colors because of the performance of the governor and because of all the various intervention across many communities in the state. People know who cares about them and people are not really forgetting why we decided to move away from the past. I don’t think 5 years down the line, people would have forgotten what it was then. I think our people are very wise enough to know about what is clear.

that you do your best by getting up to date and let them know how you feel and that you care about them. In politics, empathy matters, people need to know your care about them. So, when we have the issue of subsidy removal short, you have to reach out to people with whatever you have and also if you are somebody that believe in the word of the scripture that says “Be your brother’s keeper”. You can’t do that without not caring about them. You want to do more but you can only do what the Almighty Allah has blessed you with and with what Allah has blessed me with, i think I have been able to put it to maximum use and i will continue to bless more people.