I’ll probe, jail ex-govs who looted Ogun treasury, says PDP aspirant

A governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State, Segun Sowunmi, has said he would probe and prosecute those who had governed the state and plundered its resources if elected in next year’s election. Sowunmi who was the spokesperson for the 2019 presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, said this in his residence in Abeokuta, during an interactive session with journalists.

The governorship aspirant expressed worry that the state had been plunged into debt, saying, it would require a new administrator to renegotiate the debt. Sowunmi declared that he would ensure that looters of the state’s resources were jailed, adding that he should not be spared if found to have also stolen from the state.

“I’m chasing immortality by the policies and programs that we will run here. And if one day you find me a thief, jail me, because I will jail those who have stolen before me.

“Let nobody be deceived, I’m not asking to lead Ogun so that we can pamper ourselves. No. Government business is a sacred trust which you hold on behalf of all the collectives.

“This is Ogun. The vast majority of people living here are bonafide citizens of this place whose parents are the owners of this land. You can not be in charge of our land, assets, taxes, and goodwill, and all you will do is steal and they will not probe you? You must be joking,” he said.

He also declared that the governorship election in the state could never be for the highest bidder, rather there should be issue-based campaigns on how to fix the state and inspire the younger generation.

“Ogun can never be for the highest bidder. It has never been for the highest bidder. It will never be for the highest bidder.

“We are noble people. We just don’t think that you should be throwing your weight around. We are not people that are coming to you with money. We are people of parents who have given us pedigree who have shown us handwork, values and insisted on us that it can be done,” he said.

Sowunmi promised to run a government with a “complete paradigm shift from the status quo.”

He said, “I’m interested in leading Ogun so that we may do three things. If we win, go and start a new deal. Whatever it is that they are limping on, called Obafemi Awolowo’s model needs to be rewritten, extended, and redesigned.

“How do you explain that you can’t find Igbo people begging for money and it is Awolowo’s children littering the place doing ‘Bambi Allah’, a thing that was alien to our grandparents.

“Our grandparents didn’t really go to school, but do any of you have a recollection of your grandparents running up and down in the streets, begging for money? So, it means our model is not working. If our model is working, why are our people poor?”