Our goal at Omowa Club is to channel our efforts towards our corporate social responsibility – Barr. Samuel Ola Akinbo
– Steve Ovirih.
Barrister Samuel Olawale Akinbo , London trained graduate of International Relations and Diplomacy, Lawyer and business tycoon is the incumbent President of Omowa Club of Ikale Land. The club is a major brand to reckon with in Ikale as it boasts of very prominent and highly placed professionals and captains of industry. In this interview with Steve Ovirih, the President of Omowa Club expressed his desire for development in Ikale Land and the set agenda of the club among other issues.
Excerpts:
TP.net – What is your take on the economic development of Nigeria?
Barr. Akinbo : Well, people are complaining that things are not really moving. What the government is making us to realise is that before it gets better we must endure some pains. Where the challenge is, is that we have endured this pain for so long and we expect that by now we should start feeling the impact of the economic plan of the government . See, Nigerians are crying, everybody is crying! We don’t seem to know what is happening because it is neither here nor there. It is only those in government that can explain why things are like this . But generally speaking, people are not finding things easy at all!
TP.net – How will you describe the President Muhammadu Buhari administration? Do you align with the opinion that he is becoming autocratic?
Barr. Akinbo : Well, you can’t run away from that assumption. We can’t pretend that it is not like that. To me, it’s like that!
You see, I am in my sixties and I can conveniently tell you that I have been in this country for the past sixty something years. It has never been this bad in terms of appointment , in terms of giving out position and political patronage; everything seems to be tilting towards the north and the Muslim. What we were meant to believe is that Nigeria is a secular state. If it is indeed a secular state, things should not be the way it is today. It should not be! So, you see, you can hardly fault those who came up with that conclusion. You can’t fault them. Autocracy in a Democracy does not start one day. It takes a gradual step. Disobeying Court rulings , skewing political appointment to favour a certain part of the country at the expense of other parts, breaching fundamental human rights of free speech , you know all these indices when people begin to see them in an adminstration, people will talk. So if public opinion in the polity is of that view you can hardly fault it because people will say what they see and observe.
TP. net – What is your take on development in Ikale Land? Are you comfortable with the state of things in Ikale?
Barr. Akinbo : Certainly not! Certainly not. If you look at Ondo state , let’s take Ondo state as a yard stick , there are three senatorial districts: the north, the central and the south. Of these three, the south has been totally neglected. For some time now in Ondo state , we have seen what we term as development especially in the capitals of these senatorial districts. For example, if you go to Akure, agreed Akure is our state capital, look at what is evident there in terms of good road network; if you go to Owo same thing is happening there, same good and commendable measure of development. As I was coming from Abuja, I passed through Ikare , same thing is happening ; obvious and evident indicators of development are seen in all these places but when you get to Okitipupa , reverse is the case as there is no sign of development anywhere. It’s like we have been neglected totally. Most importantly and painfully too, for close to ten years now this area has been in complete darkness . It is sad and inexplicable. I don’t know how one can explain that. Incidentally and ironically too, our area is the goose that lays the golden egg. This is where we have the largest palm estate if not in the whole of Africa. This is the only senatorial district in Ondo state , vis a vis the entire western region where we have oil in commercial quantity and where oil is explored. What do we have to show for all these? We have not had electricity supply for close to a decade and everybody seems not to care. When you talk of development, the first thing you want to talk about is power. Electricity supply!
And that’s why things that had never happened before, things that were seen as taboos in our days as youths in Ikale Land happening now with relish before our very eyes : kidnapping, armed robbery , hooliganism, brigandage, fraud all these things were alien to Ikale Land. We used to hear them here as rumours but what do we have today? Youth violence, armed robbery, kidnapping, all these unfortunate things are happening around us. That’s why you see people are not persuaded to come home for Christmas for the fear of being kidnapped for ransom. All these criminal activities that were unheard of in the time past, Ikales are now participating in them. Crimes that are imported evil into our land; it’s very unfortunate. How did we come about this unfortunate development? Our youths are roaming the streets with no job or any known means of survival or livelihood. Even our schools around here are in bad condition in this District as classrooms are in bad shape and dilapidated. Some communities even have to resort to self help with each community trying to see what they can salvage of the bad situation. It should not be like that so there is nothing like development around here and I am not comfortable with the situation.
TP.net – So, what’s the way forward?
Barr. Akinbo: Well, the way forward is for things to change. Look, without being unnecessarily sentimental or being tribalistic, all the development in this area happened during Agagu’s regime. Agagu opened up all the connecting roads to the hinterland , build roads, Bridges and all these development stride here stopped when the man left office. It should not be like that!
If government is a continuum , the good works of development across the three senatorial districts should continue not that a government leaves office and another comes in and development is put on a hold in a senatorial district. It should not be like that!
I think Ikale Land is deliberately sidelined as far as development is concerned. And sadly too, our elite do not seem to care . Those who should have help facilitate development do not care. They are comfortable in their comfort zone in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan forgetting their root. Rather than do anything positively, what they do is they cause more problem. They prefer to pursue mundane things than things that can bring development to Ikale Land. You see them setting the traditional rulers against one another by their pronouncements and actions . They are fostering conflict among our Royal Fathers rather than being mediators and problem solvers they are the ones causing confusion . Why they prefer that to making peace beats me. These are the things that can’t happen elsewhere; for an area not to have light for these no of years is an indictment on our elite class.
TP.net – You are the incumbent President of Omowa Club. What are your set goals for the club?
Barr. Akinbo: When I was elected as the President of Omowa Club , the first goal I set for the club was that henceforth, we will channel our efforts towards our corporate social responsibility by reaching out to all Ikales to ensure that things are moving positively in the Land. Part of our corporate social responsibility is our decision to reach out to Ondo state University of Science and Technology (Osustech) and supply the school with a good number of computer set.
See, at Omowa Club , we are not political and we don’t entertain politics in whatever guise. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be a formidable pressure group. All the challenges bedeviling our land highlighted earlier in the course of this discourse , if we have a leadership that is passionate about growth , you could press a button here and there . So, my set goal is to see to the fact that our orientation is changed; that we are Pro- Ikale and a pan Ikale organization and if there is anything happening in our environment, we are able to do something about it. We are able to influence things positively for this area because we have an array of highly placed individuals in Omowa Club of Ikale Land : we have Commissioners of police, Permanent secretaries, Directors general , professionals across discipline, highly placed and very important personalities. So, all I see as my goal is how to channel our energy towards the development of Ikale Land. We want to firmly establish our corporate social responsibility by seeing to things we can do to impact positively. All these our youths that are roaming the street aimlessly, schools that have collapsed school structure, what can we do about them?Then this protracted power outage , what can we do? Of course we have been treated year in year out to the same old story of work in progress on the vexed electricity issue. Stuffs like they have started erecting poles , they have started laying cable . That’s not the news we want to hear now. The issues is when will there be electricity supply again in the district. You will agree with me that where there is no light there can’t be progress . Even in the Bible it is clearly stated . Darkness is associated with evil . When you are coming from Abuja , all these villages with five houses , they enjoy flood lit electricity even in the afternoon but come to Ikale , there is no electricity supply, not even a low voltage! Whereas, the entire Ikale is bigger than the whole of Bayelsa state. Go and do your findings. What do we have here? Two Local Government Areas and an important social amenity, electricity supply , has been cut off. It’s so sad!
TP.net – What concerted effort has your club , being a corporate and socially responsible body, made towards solving the electricity challenge ?
Barr . Akinbo : I have not seen any step in that direction yet. There was a time that there was an organization BBOL that agitated for the return of electricity . That was three years ago . Since then we have not heard any agitation on that. I think what we will do is to continue to appeal to some of our members in high position of authority, those with good influence to see how they can help hasten the process of restoring electricity to Ikale nation. I understand and know that at a time , the Ikale Obas came to Abuja to see the then Minister of Power, works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola on this same issue. Ironically, these royal fathers were made to wait for hours before they could see the Minister and when they eventually had his audience all their discussion didn’t last thirty minutes . And I wonder if Emir of Kano would have been made to wait for hours if he had gone to see the Minister. These are the things we are talking about, which we must mount a campaign of change against.
TP.net – What impact would you say the club has been able to make in the past years?
Barr. Akinbo : The expectations of Ikale about Omowa club is very high. Unfortunately, we have some challenges in the recent past. At a time we had a Football competition among secondary Schools in Ikale Land and some other activities of that nature. We are trying to revive these activities . By the grace of God , things will start happening very positively with the new orientation.
TP.net – Your advice for the people of Ondo state in the new year and as another round of election approaches .
Barr. Akinbo : I am not a politician, but my advice is that none of these politicians whose position is worth the blood of any Ikale person. Our people should not go and kill themselves because of any politician whose children are based abroad. It is the children of the poor that are used as cannon fodder and expendable after election, so the children of the poor should be wise now. My candid advice is that people should go and vote quietly , perform their civic responsibility and return to the comfort of their home. If anyone vies for an elective position and loses, there will be a better opportunity next time, so no need to shed blood or instigate violence by any politician or political camp.
As the new year begins I want to appeal to Ondo state government to look closely at Ondo south senatorial district and see how development can be attracted here because we have suffered in this area for too long.
