Dr. Kunle Akindele is the Special Adviser to Osun State governor on Health Matters, and a former Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. In his interview, he speaks about the state of the nation and its impact on Osun.
How do you see the composition of the recently constituted federal cabinet? I am very sure that you would not agree with me that the cabinet parades the usual old faces. There is nothing new in the cabinet because these are people who have been around in Nigeria for some decades now and have served in different capacities.
You have a lot of former governors who were given strategic ministries without recourse to their suitability for such positions. But the most surprising part of it was the appointment of a former governor of Rivers State as a minister in this administration. Maybe it was a kind of reward for him for the job he did by undermining our presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in the last elections.
Would you say the PDP is effectively playing the role of an opposition? We are trying as much as possible to put our house in order. But as much as we want to do that, we must be a little bit circumspect because, by the time the court delivers its judgment, we will be more decisive. A lot of our members are quite unhappy over what has happened, but PDP is still one family.
You supervised the emergence of the current governor in Osun State… He has done exceedingly well. He has surpassed our expectations in terms of performance and has kept faith with his five-point agenda for the people of Osun State. Osun economy has been revitalized. The people are happy and the crime rate has dropped drastically. Salaries and pensions are paid and some Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) have started coming into the state. He is doing well on infrastructure. The education sector is looking up and hopes are high in other sectors. To be specific in the area of FDI, some investors are coming to have a roundtable with the governor on how to bring in medical equipment to rejuvenate our hospitals. Some partners are coming in to invest in agriculture, solid minerals, and aviation. We have been interfacing with them and this will go a long way to raise the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.
As a medical doctor, what kind of improvement do you want for the health sector? It was Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti as Minister of Health who conceived the primary health scheme in Nigeria. It was a very lofty idea, but in most cases, the implementation of the policy has not been meticulously followed both at the state and federal levels. But for us in Osun State, we have mapped out strategies to ensure that our primary healthcare is up to standard. You will recall that the last administration of Governor Gboyega Oyetola in Osun State got a grant of about $20 million or so to upgrade and rehabilitate the primary health centers, but to our dismay, what we saw on the ground was not encouraging. We aim to ensure that we turn things around for the good of our people. For secondary healthcare, that is the general hospitals, it is the same old story. The previous government practically abandoned that level of health institutions. It is also the same for tertiary.
