I’ll base my appointments on merit, says Dapo Abiodun

The new Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun, has declared that he will base the constitution of his cabinet on merit. According to him, inclusion of qualified professionals were imperative to the execution of his plans for Ogun people. Abiodun spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday.

He was one of those elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who visited President Muhammadu Buhari earlier on Tuesday. His experience in the private sector, he said, would guide him in appointing competent persons to work with him in Ogun State.

He said “You know my background is the private sector and in the private sector we believe in what is called merit before anything else. “So, everything we are going to be doing in Ogun henceforth would be based on merit. Our cabinet will reflect people who deserve to be in office. They will show competence.” he added.

He said the composition of his transmission team, which “comprised of the best brains in Ogun from the private sector”, was an indication to the direction his administration is headed to. “If you look at what we have done so far, the choice of my CPS; I’m sure you know who my CPS is, Kunle Somorin, one of the best minds in the media industry in Ogun; my Chief of Staff is also a very brilliant Ogun man; my SSG is a very successful entrepreneur from Ogun as well.

“So, this is how we are going to be defined to achieve our potentials, which we have earmarked and called our pillars. “We must ensure that things are gotten right, which we call our enablers. The first of our enablers is good governance. “We cannot talk about good governance when the team itself that wants to execute good governance is faulty.”

Governor Abiodun said he would pick those that would prosecute the pillars of his administration “from the lenses of good governance. “Good governance starts with as simple as ensuring that workers’ salaries are paid on time. I assumed office on the 30th May, having been sworn on 29th of May. 31st of May, my second day in office, was the day salaries were due for payment. “My pact with Ogun people was that salaries would be paid as at when due and to the glory of God, that day, 31st of May, Ogun civil servants began to receive their alerts of payment of their salaries. That exemplifies good governance. So people can begin to take you seriously.”

He said that one other area that is critical to his administration is the need to ensure that people who invest in the state have the right environment to do their businesses. According to him, the proximity of Ogun State to Lagos has necessitated that deliberate policies, designed by competent person be executed to provide ease of doing business environment in the state.

“Ogun today is like New Jersey to New York. We benefitted from what you call the push factor from Lagos. “We want to turn that to a pull factor, but you cannot bring and endear people to you state if you don’t begin to think about how to increase the ranking of your state in the global ease of doing business index.

“So, if people see that you are serious about paying salaries on time, if they see you that are serious about empowering local government chairmen to ensure that they perform their duties as enshrined in the constitution, if they see you as paying pensions, clearing pensions and sending to PFAs, if they see you as paying gratuities and clearing arrears, then people would be endeared.

“They will say this government is a serious government. Ogun is geared for greater heights and we do that by ensuring that good governance is in accordance with our vision.’’Let me repeat it, our vision is to provide a focused and qualitative governance, while creating an enabling environment for private, public sector partnership, which we believe is fundamental to the economic growth of the state and individual prosperity.”

He said he met with the vice president, who was not at the meeting between the governors and President Buhari earlier in the day, to share with him some of the ideas he has for Ogun State.“Being his governor, I decided to pay a courtesy call on him and then find out why he wasn’t there and of course share with him some of the ideas that we have on what we are doing in Ogun State and also get his buy-in and also discuss a few other things that off record,” he said.