Contracts won’t make Makinde and I Disagree — JOGOR

The disagreement between I and Makinde is not stemming for the issue of him not awarding me contracts, moreover, the said disagreement will soon be a matter of the past, because stakeholders are working round the clock to put a stop to it. Femi Babalola a.k.a “JOGOR”, a chieftain in PDP, who Fayose appointed as head of the reconciliation committee, that he set up, had these to say.

Reacting to him hearing that he has a face-off with the governor because the governor refuses to hand him contracts, he stated “I just laugh when I people say all these things. Success has many fathers and friends. Among those friends are good friends, among those friends are bad friends and among those friends are sycophants. When you are successful, many people come around you and you begin to hear different stories and one of the stories you hear is be careful of this person, oh, he can take-over government from you. Oh! He will do this, oh! he asked you to do this and when you start listening to rumours, it leads to so many other things. Some people have pride, I have pride and I can’t fall below my standard so, it is not likely that you engage people on street talks”.

“If anybody hears anything and he cannot put it on the table and you discuss it and issues are not resolved and rumours thrive, then you leave and walk away. I have heard a lot of things. The Governor and I have a frosty relationship now but that does not mean we cannot relate. If we do not agree on governance issues that do not mean he cannot invite me for a party or me invite him”.

Adding to his early statement he said ” my project at the federal level is bigger than the entire Oyo State budget. Kano-Maiduguri dualization project that my company is handling alone is over two hundred billion, the Sagamu-Ikorodu road that we are handling is one eighty billion so, what is it? When people talk, I just look at them and laugh. It is just that I have chosen to live in Ibadan and the day we took that decision, I have known I am going to take banters. Some people still ask me what I am doing in Ibadan but we have chosen to build this State”.

About thoughts saying he made a lot of financial gains during the administration of former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, he stated ‘‘I am going to say it on air now and if anybody likes, let them bring out the fact. Throughout the four years of Governor Alao-Akala, my Company was probably involved with three projects and I can put it on record that those three projects if you put them together, they are not up to one”.

“The projects we were given by the local governments and these projects because of my love for the party, I distributed the job among seven other Consulting firms. It is on record, its there and the total sum of the Contract was three hundred and fifty million nairas. So divide 350 by firms, how much will that be? The other project we did was the Kolapo Ishola Housing Estate given to three Contractors and it was a nine hundred million naira project given to three big Contractors in the State. The third one was the hospital project given to my Consulting firm. We were not the Contractor nor the Supplier and despite that, I distributed the contract to eight consulting firms. At the end of the day, what came to my Company was not even up to twenty million nairas’. I remember someone in the administration of late former Governor Ajimobi said Femi, why was name everywhere? We went through all the records and discovered that your name appeared just once.”

Babalola who described how he rejected many requests as a Politician not excluding the chance to become a young Commissioner at the age of thirty made mention of Ayodele Fayose not being against Makinde but emphasized that the question of who leads the party in the South West is not an essential issue. “Will the Chairman of my local government said he is my leader because he holds a position? Will the Councillor in my Ward describe himself as my Leader because he is the highest political Officeholder? We need to get this thing right. Even former Governor Oyinlola wondered if he could have called himself the Leader of late SM Afolabi”.

“But you see, it was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that introduced this system of a President being the Leader of a party and the Governor leading a party at the State level. But you cannot blame him considering his background as a General. During the UPN days as a Student, I know order flows to Dodan Barracks from Baba Akinloye”.

On his reasons why he teamed with Fayose, he said he felt degraded that he was not offered an invitation to sit at the South West Zonal meeting held in Ibadan. “Imagine Diran Odeyemi, a member of the national working Committee was not invited too”.
Despite all these, he stated that the crisis will be settled amicably within the next four months.