The second presidential debate, which took place on Tuesday, October 28, 1980, at the Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, was the defining moment for the United States of America’s presidential campaign of that year. The debate, watched by 80.6 million viewers, had two participants; President Jimmy Carter and his Republican Party challenger, Mr Ronald Reagan.
In his response to one of the 12 questions from the panelists, Reagan posed a question to Americans: ‘Are you better off today than you were four years ago?’ That question changed the campaign narrative because it allowed the voters to intentionally assess their government and see how the Carter presidency had affected their lives. Their verdict was damning, as Reagan went ahead to win the November 4 election, polling 43,899,248 votes, representing 50.8 per cent of the popular vote, and an Electoral College victory of 489 to 49.
The Reagan Question brings to the fore the essence of democracy. Democracy, the process through which the people vest the power to manage the socioeconomic resources of the state in their elected representatives, is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to an end. The end of democracy is the improvement of the people’s living standard. A democratic system that does not improve the lot of the people is a sham and a scam because the allure of democracy is that with the people deciding those who govern them, their welfare and wellbeing are guaranteed. Many countries opted for the Athenian democratic system because of the belief that the people can neither be shortchanged nor left in the lurch since they hold the key to the choice of those who lead them.
This position is corroborated by Section 14(2) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, which states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. This section of the constitution presents the security and welfare of the people conjunctively as the sole purpose of government. The import of this is that no matter what else a government accomplishes, if it fails to provide security for its people and does not place premium on their wellbeing, it has failed the people.
In 2019, Engineer ‘Seyi Makinde made a pitch for the votes of Oyo State people with a document christened Oyo State Roadmap for Accelerated Development 2019-2023. His presentation impressed the people of the state so much that they entrusted their future to him by casting their votes for him. When the people had a chance to either retain or reject him four years later, they considered the promises offered by him in the Oyo State Roadmap for Sustainable Development 2023-2025 and, again, cast their lot with him.
Six years after his assumption of office, how have the people of Oyo State fared under the Makinde administration. How will Oyo State residents answer the Reagan Question? Are the people better off than they were before they elected him or are they worse off? Is Oyo State better on Makinde’s watch than it was before his assumption of office?
Dr Muideen Babatunde Olatunji, the Executive Secretary of the Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, speaking in an interview, said before the advent of the current administration, “most of our medical facilities were an eye sore; nobody even wished to go there for medical care.”
He added, “When we started in 2019, we did a gap analysis to say ‘where are we, where are we supposed to be and what is the gap?’ In that gap analysis we did, we came up with a document that we called the Minimum Service Package Document. In that document, we were able to itemise areas of needs in the healthcare services of the state.”
Based on the identified gap, the Makinde administration resolved to strengthen the primary healthcare system to bring healthcare services as close to the people as possible. So, the government decided to upgrade or build Primary Healthcare Centre in each of the 351 wards in the state. Consequently, over 209 PHCs were upgraded during the governor’s first term. Currently, 106 PHCs across the 33 local government areas are being upgraded. In the same vein, 264 of the PHCs are being equipped.
Although there are three types of PHCs, Oyo State opted for the best which is Level 3, which can render comprehensive healthcare services. Level 3 PHCs have ancillary facilities such as accommodation for healthcare providers that need to be within that facility, a perimeter fence, potable water and electricity. To ensure constant power supply, the state government has not only connected the PHCs to the national grid, it has also installed solar panels in them while also supplying them with generating sets.
So effective has the delivery of healthcare to the people of Oyo State through the ‘one PHC per ward model’ been that the Federal Government has adopted it.
In the same vein, a number of secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities have been upgraded, equipped and staffed. These include Adeoyo Maternity Hospital, Yemetu, Ibadan; Ring Road State Hospital, Adeoyo, Ibadan; Jericho Nursing Home, Jericho, Ibadan; LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso; General Hospital, Aremo, Ibadan; General Hospital, Eruwa; General Hospital, Tede and Secretariat Staff Clinic, Agodi, Ibadan.
Similarly, the government has extended health insurance coverage to hundreds of thousands of Oyo State residents, including pensioners, students of tertiary institutions, primary and secondary school pupils as well as pregnant women through the Oyo State Health Insurance Agency (OYSHIA). Under the health insurance scheme, the government pays the premium for 100,000 of the most vulnerable citizens. It also pays the premium for all pensioners.
The administration has equally provided free medical services to over 2million people in the state through the annual Omituntun Free Health Mission, which is taken to all the 33 local government areas in the state.
Consequent on the various interventions of the state government in the area of healthcare delivery, three local government areas in the state; Ogo Oluwa, Irepo and Ibarapa East have been declared free from Onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis). The state also won the award for the Best Neglected Tropical Disease State Coordinator in Nigeria.
So, for millions of Oyo State residents, who have enjoyed the services of the PHCs, the secondary and tertiary health institutions, the Omituntun Health Mission as well as about one million beneficiaries of the Oyo State health insurance scheme, their answer to the Reagan Question is: We are better off today on Governor Makinde’s watch than we were six years ago.
In education, Makinde hit the ground running.
Making his first pronouncement shortly after taking the oath of office on May 29, 2019, the governor abrogated the payment of N3,000 fee per child, thus making education at both the primary and secondary school levels free in the state. That pronouncement has seen over 80,000 out-of-school children in the state return to school. Consequently, Oyo State which, according to a 2018 StatiSense report, had the highest number of out-of-school children in South West Nigeria has moved up the ladder of states with low out-of-school children rate in the country. With the cancellation of payment of fees in Oyo State public schools, 80,000 children, who might have grown up without any marketable skills and would probably have become political thugs, arsonists, bandits, armed robbers, kidnappers, pipeline vandals, drug traffickers, human traffickers and commercial sex workers have been rescued from a dreadful future; they can now look forward to a secure and prosperous future.
The governor followed this up with an upward review of the 2019 budgetary allocation to education from 3 per cent to 10 per cent even when the whole budget, which he had inherited from the previous administration, was reviewed downwards.
He then made a promise that he would endeavour to meet the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommendation of voting between 15 and 20 per cent of the budget to education. Makinde has lived up to this promise by raising the budgetary provision for education to N47billion (22.3 per cent) in 2020, N56.3billion (21 per cent) in 2021, N54.1billion (18.37 per cent) in 2022, N58.2billion (18.78 per cent) in 2023, N90billion (21 per cent) in 2024 and N145.25 billion (about 21.44 per cent).
To improve education delivery at both the primary and secondary school levels in the state, the Seyi Makinde administration has completed over 400 projects, including the construction of model schools, the construction of classrooms with toilets, the renovation of classroom blocks, the installation of boreholes and the construction of perimeter fences in many schools. The government recently embarked on the upgrade of 100 schools across the state, 36 of which are currently ongoing. In collaboration with the World Bank-supported Better Education Service Delivery for All Additional Finance; Transforming Education Systems at States Level (BESDA AF-TESS) programme, the government has upgraded classroom blocks in 105 schools in rural communities to close the urban-rural education gap.
However, the governor’s focus has not been only on primary and secondary schools, as he has also improved the lot of all the tertiary institutions in the state. One of the major steps taken by Makinde to steady the shaky state-owned institutions was the payment of the inherited salary arrears. He has also been supportive of Oyo State students in the Law School by providing them with N500,000 bursary awards since 2019. The government has also been giving bursaries to Oyo State students in medical schools, aviation schools and final year students of universities and HND across the country.
Similarly, the government has been awarding full scholarships to students from each of the 33 local government areas in the state to study at the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University, Ibadan. In the same vein, students across the 33 LGAs and 35 LCDAs have been awarded scholarships at the School of Nursing and Midwifery Eleyele, Ibadan.
Makinde has also demonstrated commitment to the improvement of facilities in state-owned tertiary institutions. In 2020, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, received N100 million for capital projects. This was followed up with the construction of a N458 million office complex for lecturers in 2021. The Oke Ogun Polytechnic was provided with a central laboratory complex, while the Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa got a 250-capacity lecture theatre.
In November 2020, the National Universities Commission (NUC) ceded the sole ownership of Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, to Oyo State Government. This followed a Memorandum of Understanding by Oyo and Osun State Governments to dissolve the joint ownership of the university, which was founded in 1991. That decision marked a turning point in the history of the university because after years of retarded growth, LAUTECH has come into its own and is now rated the best state university in the country.
Makinde decided to turn the university into a multi-campus institution and built from the scratch a College of Agricultural Sciences and Renewable Natural Resources in Iseyin, Oke Ogun axis of the state.
In December 2022, he got the approval of the NUC for the conversion of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education to a university. Thus, Makinde has increased the number of Oyo State-owned universities, as he usually puts it, “from one and a half to three.”
So, the 80,000 rescued out-of-school children, the parents who have been relieved of the burden of paying school fees, thousands of students of Abiola Ajimobi Technical University, who were awarded scholarships, thousands of stud
