Architect Jide Adejuyigbe hails from Akure, in Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo state. He had served as the Chairman of his local government and was the immediate past commissioner for Education in Ondo State. He spoke with Online Media Editors from Ojuasha.com and RichieNews.com at his residence in Akure where he bears his mind on many national issues.
Can you tell us your name and who you are?
Well, I am Jide Adejuyigbe; an architect from Ondo state.
You came from a private background and along the line, you joined politics which of course is a public sector. Can you just juxtapose between private and public sectors?
Well, it’s good if one is called to practice as a professional. It is good for you to excel in that your practice, that’s your calling. I trained to be an architect and before I ventured into politics, to the glory of God, I practiced as an architect for so many years. And today, I am happy; I have worked up to the level of being a fellow of my institute which is the highest practicing level for architects. You need all these backgrounds to build yourself, to train yourself, to excel, to be a master of your practice before you can offer yourself to the service of the people. I decided to go into politics having realized to the level I wanted as an architect of the need to help the society to develop, on the need to ensure that your people lack nothing if possible. We need to have people in power.
We need to have people in authority that will be able to ensure efficiency, to ensure quality life for our people. We don’t have to leave politics for every dick and harry; we need professionals in politics. So at a point in life I decided to combine the two: the practice and the public sector. And to the glory of God, have been lucky. Immediately I entered the public, I didn’t waste time; God just made me the chairman of my local government which is the grassroots concept of any government in administration. By that background, I was exposed to the naked needs of our people; I was exposed to the poverty in the land; I was exposed to the needs of our people at that level. This now empowered me, developed my mind and my orientation for my people. I now need to champion the needs of our people. They need quality life, they need better life; and with this, I have offered myself to be a servant of my people, of Akure kingdom; and to ensure until their welfare is enhanced, I don’t think I will stop. So I have been trying to now merge public sector with private sector to add quality to administration of our governance in Nigeria.
Let’s take a look at your profession. How will you access your profession in Nigeria?
Architecture is not too old in Nigeria. If you look at the background of architecture, it’s a foreign thing. It has to do with technological development. It has to do with aesthetics; it has to do with engineering and technology. So to me is a foreign thing imported into our society which must embrace for us to have a balanced, quality environment. Architecture in essence is just utilization of space, enclosure of spaces to ensure that people habit in a decent environment. To do this, you must be vast in size which is engineering and you must be vase in arts which has to do with aesthetics-looks. That is architecture. And for you to do well, you must practice it to that level; create unique forms that will make sure we have a decent environment. And over my years of practice, I thank God we have been able to contribute our quota to the architectural development of Akure, of Ondo state and Nigeria.
Let’s take a look at your office as chairman of local government. What are those things would you say you actually introduced at the local government level when you were there as the chairman?
As a chairman of a local government, without being immodest, I think we did so well; my team did so well. We brought radical changes; we brought different perceptions into governance. When I was coming, I remember vividly 2011, I told my God and I told myself that I would be going there to show leadership and to work with a different style. Thank god for my governor then; we had a freedom. With government money or no government money, we created opportunities, areas, ventures where we created money to achieve our set goals. And these we were able to do for our people; and I thank god they appreciated what we did for them.
In my first assignment I was lucky when they informed me that I was coming on board as chairman of council, I had about three weeks to prepare myself. Those three weeks, I quickly contacted people that could help me because I worked on the basis that may be would be zero allocation. It had happened before; it could happen. So I prepare myself to going there and hoping for nothing. If they now bring something it would be a pleasant surprise. So I was able to reach out to one of the banks then who agreed-I think Standbic, to partner with us, to empower our people with the sum of N100 million. No collateral; all we needed was that the chairman of the council would just sign, recommending them and that is it; and they came. They trained my people for about two weeks because they want to make sure that they have the knowledge, the skill for that job they claimed they were doing. And at different levels they approved money for them to the maximum of N4 million per individual, the least was N100, 000; N100 million in all. Ad we recorded 98% efficiency. That’s my joy! My people didn’t disappoint me. I vouched for them, I guarantee them and they performer. I’m so happy. And it was a pilot scheme of IBTC stanbic bank. Today, those people that benefitted from that scheme, they are still customers of that bank and the low facilities continue. That’s my goodness.
Outside that, we moved to know your health status-that’s what we called it; created opportunities for them for medical checkup. In Nigeria today, especially in this environment, it’s difficult to find individual going to hospital for medical checkups. Majority of our people, except the few elites go for medical checkup. So I now noticed that, let me do this for them so that they will know their health status and then, they follow up. Again we used public-private partnership for my experience in private life. We wrote letters to pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, governments to join us in doing this at the local government; and we succeeded in doing this for a week in six health centers in Akure south local government. A lot of people migrated to the place and at the end of the day; it was good we did it. There would have been a kind of epidemic Aponmu axis which was our ward 1. We nipped it in the bud, we saw it coming and we reported to the government; and our governor at that time promptly moved to that area to make sure that problem did not escalate beyond that level. It was because we did that that we were able to see that. People that had high BP that didn’t know, we discovered them, treated them and recommended follow up. So it was good we did that. We did so many programmes but since you asked the question, I will tell you a few.
When we were growing up in secondary school, we used to have Deji’s cup which was football completion among the primary schools, very brilliant thing. You would see us in jerseys-beautiful ones. When I came on board, for many years, it had stopped. I told myself, I would do this for this community because the youths that are our children, they are very important. I went to our Deji, we told him this is your cup; you have to fund it. Let’s galvanize resources from your friends to do it for the people and it was done. Beautiful scenarios, we bought jerseys for schools, kit them, sporting wears everything. And I remember that day when we had the final at the stadium; the stadium was full, full of people. We brought, to me joy to the system. People now know that there is government at the local level. So there are so many other things. Is it the empowerment we did for our people where we gave lots of materials to them to empower them? The women, those who were selling materials, we gave them freezers to do their system; a lot of things. My environment was turned around as the cleanness local government in Ondo state.
Let me quickly cut you shot because we still need to talk of other issues. It has been said that local government administration is characterized by corruption. How will you react to this?
There is corruption everywhere. To me it depends on who is the head of the place. It is your vision, reality to governance that determines if you want to be corrupt or not. When I was chairman of council of Akure south local government, we didn’t have resources to work with but the little we had w used it maximally. I remembered we graded all the streets, or the internal roads in Akure. The rural areas we opened them up. With N20 million, we achieved that. So it depends on the personality of the person at the helms of affairs. Corruption can be anywhere. Not only in local government, even in states, federal, any government, agencies. But it depends on the character of who is there.
You were once the commissioner for education in Ondo state. Then we had this idea of mega schools. Who was behind this mega schools and how many of them were built during your reign and for what purpose?
Before I answer that question, I will like to take you back to the genesis of mega schools. Mega school was a great philosophy; an idea of the government of the day that time led by Dr Olusegun Mimiko. Why mega schools? The primary schools we had before mega schools, if you look at their history, they were built by the government of Awolowo; probably that time they would have become mega schools. Who knows? They would be so beautiful at that time. You remember when Awolowo passed on? How many years ago? Those schools are still serving us. To us then, it was greatly unacceptable. It’s unacceptable. Things have changed beyond that level. We need to compare favourably with the developed world. We need to be at the same level with them. We can’t be renovating all those old structures. So the idea now came that okay; let’s take it step by step. Nobody can provide 500 mega schools at a time, which we would need. But Rome was not built in a day, we had to start something. That was why we started the mega schools. We started mega schools to provide facilities that would make our students compare favorably with their colleagues in other parts of the world. We can’t be in this kind of schools; that you call schools with mud structures established many years ago, windows are scattered. In fact, the elites, those who have the money will never even allow their children to go to such.
Would you say the initiative has actually achieved its purpose?
Yes! Yes! Great purpose! Now let me ask you, for example will you allow your kids to go to that kind of schools? They can’t be happy. There should be happiness on the faces of students when they go to school. Mummy I want to go to school, I want to go to school. It’s not the time when you say go to school and they will start crying because there is no attraction. There is nothing attracting them to the environment they want to go to school. So we must create a situation where the students on their own will be so much with excitement willing to go to school. That’s the way we have to develop ourselves. It’s a pity the government of the day is not looking in that direction. But who knows tomorrow? We stopped at 50 mega schools. Our target was to have 500 mega schools. We don’t need 1000 thousand schools; with 500 mega schools you will solve the problems of school accommodation. Enrolment, the whole thing will be occupied. We did 50; we had assumed that the government coming would do another 100 because the priority stage is no more. It’s just to move in with whatever we have on ground.
Towards the end, we decided how to even reduce cost using local materials which we did; using mud, stabilize mud. We did the pilot scheme; it’s so easy for me to move on. The cost was drastically reduced; then we expected to have multiplication of that in numbers. Well, to them now they are not doing it; no problems. They are trying to renovate the existing structures, making them convenient. That time too, it’s not that we abandoned the existing structures because we realized that there was no way we could get all them done. What we did was that 40% of our resources we devote to mega schools, 60% of the resources we used to renovate. So at the same time the old schools were there, so at the end of the day by the time we now, may be in another 20 years we now have 500 mega schools, the old schools will no longer exist; then we are there. Then we will graduate to secondary schools where the concept we had on paper was to fuse schools and then have a great number of enrolment in schools.
For instance we thought we could have money to start with Akure and taken Akure study as a model. Our vision was that okay, Aquinas College you will have 500 students, may be five principals, may be 20 vice principals; let them be there with modern facilities and get the best result. But no problems; if they are doing it this way and they keep with the tempo we have achieved. Don’t forget, our performance in WAEC was greatly enhanced. We left that with 7th position at the national level and first in the south west. I pray that this will continue; we must be first in Nigeria and they should sustain that.
You are a politician, let’s quickly talk about politics. As a PDP member, you have also heard that some people are moving away from your party including the former governor of Ondo state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko is also rumoured to have left. Does this give you any concern?
We, as politicians, we don’t discuss rumours. We deal with facts. So I will rather wait that when we get to that level. But I will tell you, nobody is leaving PDP in Ondo state, rather people are coming to PDP in Ondo state.
Okay. We just have few months to general elections in February. What are the chances of your political party?
Well, PDP is on ground. PDP has come to stay. PDP has all the structures to win elections in Ondo state. In the last election people were talking about, we were caged. To the best of my knowledge there was no election. We didn’t participate in that election. We had a candidate that didn’t campaign. How do you want to win election without campaigning? We requested for just two weeks extension to campaign, it was not granted. With all sincerity, would you say there was any election? It was a one way thing. The coming election will determine whether we have PDP on ground or not. So let’s wait and see what will happen.
You are also going for the House of Reps, representing Akure south and north at the lower chamber. What are your chances?
I have not declared my intentions for any position. The only thing I know have done so far is to make myself available to my community. I have told them that whatever they want me to do, I will be their servant. I want to make sure that Akure gets back to the level we want. I want to make sure that we rise again in Akure city. I want to make sure that we get our best to perform maximally for us. I as a person I have not said that this is what I’m going for. But whatever the community wants me to do, I’m ready for them.
Invariably they ask you to represent them at the lower chamber….
I’m waiting for them; they have not said that. So let’s keep all the choices open. If they decide that you will know but for now, I’m just a servant of Akure kingdom. Whatever the community says, whatever the party says I should do, I will do. We are praying to live and see the better days; and it’s our prayer that we will see the better days in Nigeria. For now, my interest is in my people.
Okay let’s see what’s going to happen to your people in the next three, four, five years; where will you want Akure to be and your people?
Akure before ’83, to the best of my knowledge we were just number one in Ondo state. Politically we were there. When you talk of people like baba Fasonranti, when you talk of people like late chief Fagbaigbe, when you talk of people like Alex Adesida who was majority leader, when you talk of people like baba Adegbonmire, Akure occupied the political land at that time. Unfortunately, I say unfortunately, we lost our best brains at a particular point in 1983. And normally when you used your first eleven, there is no way there would be a setback. We had our setback. But gradually we are moving up, and I pray we will get there. Just a chance to be governor, we will try again, God willing we can be there. And then we will get to our level.
As we look forward to 2019 elections, what will now be your advice to the people of Akure, the two local governments: Akure south and Akure north?
My prayer for my people, Akure speaking areas, it goes beyond Akure north and south; we have Ifedore as part of us. The three local governments, if we work hand-in-hand, if we unite, there is nothing we want that we will not get. I’m sure of that. We are making efforts to bring them together, God willing we will succeed. And then we will become a very strong voice in Ondo state politics. And I’m sure by 2019, a lot of things will happen. God willing, we will be back.
Let’s talk about the community. I know you were also in-change of Oyemekun day for some years back. What would you say was the achievements of that committee during that period?
Yes, I told you I have offered myself to be the servant of my people. I remembered too that you are right. First I was the chairman of the coronation committee of our Deji. I was also the chairman of the first anniversary, and the last Oyemekun festival I was the Vice chairman. That’s service to the people. What did we achieve with all these? The first one I did, I will tell you, we have now realized that we are closer as a community. The elites are working towards one goal; forget what happen with the gubernatorial election of last time. There was no election, we were caged. We will see the new election. Akure people now are charged. They have seen that they must be together to achieve result; and we are all together, we are working towards that direction. If any election comes now, we have regretted the other one; we are going to be positive in next one. We have our children all over the place. We are not talking about issues now, party basis. We are talking as one. We want the best for Akure. And we are going to get it.
Thank you for sharing time with us.
Thank you for coming.
