Senator Rashidi Ladoja
Former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja has decried the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, saying the Government has done little or nothing to improve on the quality of lives of the people.
The National leader of Accord Party (AP), in an interview also lamented the level of insecurity in the country which he described as “alarming”.
Ladoja said: “To me, economy is the major thing for us today so that we can feed our people; so that we can give them good health; so that we can make good roads; so that we can make our railways work and also make our airlines work; so that our people will feel that we are in the 21st Century.
“Most of our people don’t understand that the essence of politics is the people. It is not a matter of how many edifices one builds. It is about the welfare of the people.”
The AP leader criticized some of the policies of the present regime, accusing it of always doing the dictates of Bretton Woods institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Speaking further, the veteran politician noted that “Majority of the people of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez are today happier because of the policy their leader adopted. He said the oil is for all of them. Leaders should look at what is good for their people and do it; not what IMF says they should do. If IMF is successful, shall we have the economic crisis now all over Europe? Yet, we are not even having that one in China. We do not even have it in India. India has gotten a population that is four times that of Europe, yet they are managing themselves”
“We should look at what is good for us, for our people and get down to doing it and not looking for a quick-fix answer from either IMF or World Bank. They will never solve our problems,” he added.
The former Governor lambasted the dominance of technocrats in the Federal Executive Council, saying they were never part of the campaign while Jonathan was on tour of the country.
He said majority of the cabinet members do not know what the electorates are going through, since they are mainly based in Abuja.
“If a minister or a government appointee cannot go round the country campaigning, seeing what the people in each of the areas are facing, how can such person or appointee know how to solve the problem? “I am not in support of categorizing some people as technocrats and others non-technocrats.
“But maybe, that is part of the failure of government because the man who made promises to us was Ebele Goodluck Jonathan not Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, not Ashiru, not Sanusi, not Adesina. We didn’t see all these people during the campaigns. It was Jonathan who promised us and he had people who came with him.”
On insecurity, he stated that the menace has made life unbearable for the common man. He advised government to dialogue with Boko Haram like it was done in the case of Niger Delta militancy.
The move according to him, was now imperative as the present image of the country was scary to prospective local and foreign investors.
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