2027: Alli promises N10bn youth fund, N150bn Oyo IGR

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Oyo State in the 2027 election, Sharafadeen Alli, has promised to make the state one of the top three state economies in Nigeria if elected in 2027.

Alli made the promise while unveiling his manifesto, christened “My Pact,” in Ibadan, the state capital, on Tuesday.

He further promised to commit N10bn to funding youths and increase the state’s Internally Generated Revenue to N150bn without placing a burden on the people and businesses across the state.

Alli unveiled the seven pillars of the manifesto as follows: local government autonomy, advancement of infrastructure, health reform, education and employment, agriculture and export, digital economy, and security.

He said the manifesto, tagged “OYO AHEAD,” was aimed at transforming the state’s economy and delivering superior public services to ensure residents felt the impact of government in every corner of the state.

Alli said, “Oyo State is the largest piece of land in southern Nigeria. We have 351 wards in 33 councils, and about eight million people. A state like ours should be feeding the South-West and selling to the world. Last year, this state raised less than N100bn as IGR. Ogun, our neighbour, raised nearly three times that figure.

“Nearly half of our people, about 3.8 million, live in poverty, by the measure of our own National Statistics Office. Our people work hard every day. With the right support, they can do far better.

“So, here is where we are going. We will make Oyo one of the top three state economies in Nigeria. Our first target is N150bn a year of our own revenue, and the market woman will pay no more than she pays today.

“In each of our 351 wards, there will be a clinic that works, a school that teaches, and a road that leads somewhere. The path there is simple. Power brings the factory. The factory brings the job. The job brings money into the home and the market, and that revenue builds the school and the clinic,” he promised.

Speaking on infrastructure, the APC governorship candidate promised to complete ongoing road projects and construct access roads to farmlands to facilitate the movement of people and farm produce, adding that every new road would carry a 20-year warranty.

He promised to constitute the state electricity regulator to enable the state to generate electricity to power industrial and farm corridors.

“On power, we will fully constitute the state electricity regulator, generate power here in Oyo, and send dedicated supply to our industrial and farm corridors.

“Faulty transformers will be audited and replaced every six months so that no street sits in darkness for a year.

“Today, barely one person in 75 in this state drinks water from a public pipe. Nine in 10 of our families depend on boreholes, wells and sachet water. We will restore potable water in 100 communities and connect at least 100 rural communities to power for the first time. We will increase the number of our buses and modernise the Pacesetter Transport Company to better serve the people of Oyo State.

“A teacher, a nurse, a young couple starting out should be able to own a decent home in the state they serve. So, we will work with the Federal Government, and with investors from here at home and abroad, to build good homes that working families can afford. We will cut the time and the cost of getting building approvals, and we will grow our housing schemes for low- and middle-income earners so that every family in Oyo has a safe place to call home.”

On health, Alli promised to build a general hospital in each of the six remaining local governments in the state and recruit more doctors and other health workers to address the current situation in which 10 hospitals have no medical doctor.

Alli, who currently represents Oyo South Senatorial District in the National Assembly, said his government would consistently fill vacancies for health workers as they arose, including in primary healthcare centres.

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He also promised free health insurance for infants, pregnant women and adults aged 70 and above, with the target of doubling enrolment from the current 271,000 to 500,000 in his first two years in office as governor.

On education, Alli reiterated his earlier promise to limit class sizes to 30 pupils, recruit more teachers, build more school facilities, establish skills centres in every zone and pass an apprenticeship law.

On the economy, investment and job creation, he promised to build industrial parks, revive the Oluyole Free Trade Zone and set up a guarantee fund to enable small businesses to access loans, as well as establish the Oyo Youth Fund, which would start with N10bn.

According to him, a digital hub would be built in each of the five geopolitical zones of the state.

The governorship candidate also promised to revive farm settlements, insure 10,000 farmers and establish a produce board through the Oyo Export Council to support farmers.

He added that Oyo AHEAD also included a promise to rejig the state’s security architecture to ensure the safety of lives and property, adding that “civil servants will get their salaries and entitlements as and when due. They will also be empowered with work tools and get better work environments to stimulate improved productivity,” the APC governorship candidate assured.

But the Allied Peoples’ Movement Campaign Council in Oyo State on Tuesday criticised the manifesto, describing it as “lacking originality and offering little in terms of innovative solutions to the state’s development challenges.”

The council said the Oyo AHEAD manifesto, unveiled amid considerable political fanfare, was largely a collection of familiar promises and policies already being implemented by the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde.

The council, in a statement issued in Ibadan, the state capital, by its Co-Director (Media and Publicity), Sulaimon Olanrewaju, questioned the substance of the document, arguing that “it failed to present a clearly distinguishable alternative to the incumbent government.”

Olanrewaju said the manifesto was expected to offer fresh ideas and transformative proposals but instead appeared to repackage existing government initiatives and conventional campaign promises.

He said, “Considering the fanfare that accompanied the unveiling of the manifesto of Senator Alli, the governorship candidate of APC in Oyo, one would have expected the Oyo AHEAD document to offer fresh ideas and innovative solutions to the state’s challenges. Instead, what emerged is a manifesto remarkably short on originality and long on recycled promises.

“For all its projections and ambitious commitments, the document struggles to identify a single transformative idea that can be uniquely associated with Alli or the APC.

“Rather than presenting a distinct vision for Oyo, much of what it offers appears to be a repackaging of policies already being pursued by the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde, alongside familiar promises that have featured in countless political campaigns over the years.

“Take healthcare, for example. One of the manifesto’s headline promises is the establishment of a fully equipped primary healthcare centre in each of Oyo State’s 351 wards. This is precisely where the originality problem becomes apparent.

“The current administration has, for years, pursued a one-PHC-per-ward policy, rehabilitating and upgrading primary healthcare centres across the state. If the same objective is now being presented as a flagship campaign promise, the obvious question is: where is the innovation?

“If a candidate’s major healthcare proposal mirrors an existing government policy, voters are entitled to ask what exactly he intends to do differently. The same pattern is evident across other sectors.