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A former Oyo State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice
could not hold back tears on Monday while declaring his intention to contest
the governorship elections next year in the state.

Adebayo Shittu alleged that the politics of “godfatherism” has
denied the state good governance and vibrant representation in all elective
offices, and in the process, struggled for about 10 minutes to fight back tears
streaming down his face.

Mr Shittu recalled how a Peoples Democratic Party leader
allegedly denied him the ticket to contest for the Federal House of
Representatives in 2007, adding that the ticket was given to a candidate who
lacks the wherewithal to contribute in any form to the law-making process in
the chambers. “When one of our leaders then was settling for somebody else, who
I knew would not be able to utter a word in the House of Representatives, I
told him that the boy was not capable. But he said he was not expected to do
any job there, just to be there and earn his pay.

“The boy went there for four years and he did not utter a word.
Even now, the current representative of my constituency has been there for
three years and has not uttered a word,” he said.

Buhari, the attraction

Mr Shittu, one of the aides of a former governor, Rasidi Ladoja,
said he was contesting the governorship election on the platform of the
Congress for Progressive Change. He said he dumped the PDP for a new party
because of the high moral standard of Mohamadu Buhari, its national leader.
According to him, the PDP is in “perpetual crisis.”

“For people who desire change for the better, for those who are
restless to contribute to the development of Oyo State, for people who believe
in the providence of God, for people who believe that PDP is not necessarily
designed to continue to rule Nigeria forever, you must have the courage to veer
out and chart a new and certain course which is the destiny of Oyo State,” he
said. Mr Shittu, who has being in politics for over three decades, said the
state needs to be rescued from its current sorry situation, saying only a
progressive minded fellow like him could do that.

He said his areas of focus are: qualitative and functional education;
comprehensive health and medical care reform; integrated infrastructural
transformation; full employment for all; integrated agriculture, and rural
development and industrial transformation. He stated that the state has more
than enough resources to achieve the vision, adding that the bulk of the money
accruing to Oyo were being mismanaged.