By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo
Dr Charles Akinola is the Chief of Staff to Osun State Governor, Mr Adegboyega Oyetola. Prior to his present position, he had served as the Director-General, Office of Partnership and Economic Development under Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. In this interview, he speaks on next Saturday’s election in Osun among other issues. Excerpts:
As a child of a clergyman and educationist, what was growing up like for you?
Growing up for me was a lot of fun. I am privileged to have grown up in an environment where every child is allowed to express him or herself, albeit in an environment of very strict discipline. My father was an educationist and a clergyman, and my mother was an educationist as well. They had worked in different parts of the country and that in itself has been a lot of education for me. To meet a lot of people with different ethnic backgrounds,religious persuasions, and all of that so for me, that really has been a plus.
My primary school education was at a place where we stayed for not more than a year and a half or two and nonetheless, I was able to do all I could in five years and then went to secondary school with a bit of homeschooling as well. So, I grew up with the best values that you want to offer a child. Strict Christian values of love and respect and also my father was very strict so you also have to go on this straight and narrow path and that kept you in check.
So really, we grew up happy, lots of laughter around the house but you have to keep a good focus on education so that’s actually what I’m really grateful to God that I had that kind of startup in life.
Does that influence your education?
Oh, absolutely it did. I went on to earn a PhD degree all on account of the fact that my father wanted me to do that. He had that kind of influence on me and also because I loved it. The background did help me and all my siblings.We’re happy that we’ve all turned out very well.
After your PhD, you lectured at the University of Ibadan, then ventured into private practice with a speciality in strategic development, what attracted you to politics?
For my PhD, I actually worked on one of the first enclave agricultural development projects in Northern Nigeria, which is the Funtua Agric Development Projects. I was lucky to have generous funding from Ford Foundation, and from both the State and the Federal Government, so it was easy. And when I was working on the World Bank project, it got me exposed to a lot of interesting people some of who really have combined very rich multilayered experience in academics and in practice.
So, very early in the day, I knew even as a young lecturer at the University of Ibadan that my own career path would be one in which I will be heavily involved in the field of public policy. I always had that interest and I’ve always had an interest in politics. As I should tell you, back in the University, (University of Ibadan, 1987/1988) we formed a political party. Myself, my good friend, Architect Kunle Bolarinwa, Demas Nwoko, and a few others.
Considering the financial crisis at the inception of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola’s administration in 2018, how have you been managing to pilot the state affairs without an industrial crisis?
The secret is about being focused. It’s been a great privilege and opportunity to work with Governor Oyetola who I work with as the current Chief of Staff. It took him quite a bit of time to be persuaded to throw his heart in the ring and to contest as governor but the moment he did that, he was very deliberate about choosing a team of people who will work with him in charting the development agenda that he was going to pursue. We had, for example, a robust manifesto that clearly defined his Development Agenda.
You remember we were owing salaries and there were a lot of discontents, though we started out well with the administration of Governor Aregbesola that the current governor and I were part of. For the record, I was very much involved right from drafting the Green Book, which really was a development agenda that we came to implement under the Rauf Aregbesola administration. So, we started out well.
There will be some time, that some of the experiences I had over this period actually will be coming out in a book shortly that will discuss what worked, and what didn’t work. We started out well, but when Governor Oyetola was coming in, we had to look at all of these and so we came in very prepared.
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