Governor Of The Year Award: Vanguard Newspaper set to honour Akeredolu

The Vanguard Newspaper has presented a nomination letter to the Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu for the award of the Governor of the Year 2019, VAM News has learnt. 

Deputy Editor of the Newspaper, Mr. Adekunle Adekoya, Ondo Governor, Akeredolu(photo:Blessed Michael)

The Deputy Editor of the Newspaper, Mr. Adekunle Adekoya who led other members of Staff of the Newspaper to the Governor’s Office, Alagbaka, Akure, said the Board of Editors of the establishment sat and examined the performance of the Governor for the award. 

According to him, the Newspaper found that despite dwindling allocation and scarce resources, the Governor has been able to spread developmental projects across the three senatorial districts of the state.  

Adekoya said:

”We are here to formally present a letter nominating the governor for the Award of Governor of the Year 2019. We didn’t pull this out of the air. It’s an annual program of Vanguard Newspaper where the Board of Editors start examining the performances of key public figures and players in the private sector. 

“The 2019 was very challenging and the search for people deserving our award was very hard. But despite the challenges we were able to identify key performance. In the south western part of the country we noticed Arakunrin, we know the profile of Ondo State. It’s in the public domain. Despite the dwindling allocation and scarce resources, the Governor has been able to spread projects across the state. 

“Apart from that, we noticed that this present administration inherited backlog of salaries and pensions. What we are trying to achieve is to showcase the prudent management of scarce resources. This is not an open report, we are just highlighting a few of your achievements.

“Let me also say that no one from Ondo State influence us on this , it’s out of our own volition. Infact, if anyone has influenced us , we won’t be here at all. So, we have now come here for formally present the letter and also formally invite the Governor and his wife and the memebers of the executive coucil to the program holding on Friday, 20th March , 2020 at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos State.”

Responding, Governor Akeredolu thanked the Newspaper for taking time see the work his administration has done and also deem it fit to honour him with an award. 

Arakunrin Akeredolu said:

”When I got to know about this I was surprised. My team at the ministry of Information told me that there are some of your representatives that have gone round to assess our work. I knew from there that this is a serious thing. So many people bring letter for award that I reject them but I know Vanguard is a very serious publication.”I can assure you, if we have tried to influence you , you won’t be here. Whether in the confine here our outside in public, we will continue to praise God . The work that we have done, it’s God who have made this possible. There is no contractor that we have given money to start work. 

They must have done it up to 30percent before we would look for fund to pay them. Most of our contractors and most of the works we have done, we have done it that way. 

“When we got here , our IGR was between N700Million to N800million, today is over N1.5billion  monthly. You spoke about how we have paid workers’ salaries and cleared backlog of salaries and pensions. It will take me time to owe workers because I believe they are entitled to their wages. And if we have some crisis they will know and they will understand. 

In a statement released by Olabode Richard Olatunde, Special Assistant to the Governor (New Media) stated the NLC here has done so much and they are understanding. When they come, we show them, give them our books. We are still owing them one month and we will pay very soon. We should be able to do better , but we are limited. 

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The state will get more funds when we have more industries and that’s why we are having many industries at the Ondo-Linyi industrial hub.