I Did Nothing Wrong With The Olubadan Chieftaincy Review, It Was Politicised – Ajimobi
Former Oyo Governor, Abiola Ajimobi has said he might not have been able to turn Ibadan to a modern city like Lagos but said he is proud of what he did during his tenure.
Speaking in an interview with The Nation, Ajimobi who recently clocked 70 said his dream was to make Ibadan be beautiful like Lagos and any other modern city.
“I told myself each time I went around the city that the first thing I want to do is to clean up Ibadan. It has always been a dirty place and I thought I would like to see it clean. I believed at that time we should have good road networks. Above all, I just thought Ibadan should be a modern city. They used to call it an ancient city but I felt it should be a modern city. The modernization of Ibadan city was very important to me. I limited myself to Ibadan at that time but by extension, Oyo State. I wanted Oyo State and all the major cities there to be modern cities. It’s always been my dream.
“I am very happy with myself that I was even able to do what I did. Because knowing the history of Ibadan, you couldn’t have done that. I did not do all the roads, but I am pleased with the ones I was able to do.
He further said that the greatest lesson he has learned in his eight years of governance was not to try to be a perfect man.
“My greatest lesson is: “Don’t try to be a perfect man in an imperfect world”. I like perfection, but I discovered it wasn’t possible.
“Realizing that you cannot please everybody, realizing that no matter what you do, you will have friends and you will have enemies. You will have those who like you and those who don’t. But I can say that those shortcomings of mine that people perceived were due to my desire to make things perfect.
“There are things I could have ignored but I felt we should be perfect about things. I also realised being too honest and being too blunt is something people don’t like. But my weakness is that I can’t control my being blunt. That summarises it because there are things I should have left but because I wanted perfection, I dabbled into them. So, those are the things people believe I did wrong but to me, I have not done anything wrong.
He also noted that The Olubadan chieftaincy review controversy was part of his desire to perfect things in an imperfect world.
READ: Ajimobi Frustrated My Plan of Constructing Road to My Village in 2014 – Makinde
“I didn’t just wake up one day and decided to change chieftaincy. It was out of the presentations made to me by different people: elders, young ones and so many people including people in the traditional council.
“I think they politicized it. That’s all. There is nothing wrong with what we’ve done, believe me. But at my age and level, I must keep certain secrets, otherwise, I could give you names of all the people that approached me. As a leader, you take the plus and minuses.
