The Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN gubernatorial candidate in Oyo State, Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye has described as unfortunate and worrisome the arson and looting reportedly carried out by various gangs of young boys in the early hours of Sunday, 6/1/19 at Idi-Arere, Sakapena, Oke-Ado, Kosodo, Oranyan, Asaka, and Ita Saku areas in Ibadan.
The development which reportedly left no fewer than 20 houses and 30 shops burnt asides other valuable properties worth millions of Naira destroyed has no doubt made a mockery of senator Ajimobi-led government claimed achievement on security as well as the over 300million public money the regime recently claimed it spent on the purchase and installation of CCTV at strategic places across the state.
Bamigboye in his statement signed by the SPN head of media committee, Comrade Isaac Ogunjinmi and made available to journalists in Ibadan describes the growing and escalating crisis of youth unrest, violence, criminality, communal clashes, cult and gang wars and killings going on across the length and breadth of the state as a reflection of the general collapse in education, high rate of unemployment and growing poverty in the state.
He said ” It is also an indication of how fast and rapid the state is sinking deeper into barbarism occasioned by the failure of successive governments in the state including the Ajimobi-led government to invest the resources at the disposal of the state in area of needs of the people.”
Bamigboye discloses that since the inception of civil rule 19 years ago, all the governments formed by pro-capitalist political parties in the State have been characterised with the neo-liberal and capitalist practice whereby the public fund is only invested in area where it can only guarantee an increase in looting and protection of profit interest of few individuals who are either in government or masquerading as contractors.
According to SPN gubernatorial candidate, the so called installation of the CCTV and ongoing dualisation of roads across the state, most of which are motorable while most streets’ roads are in deplorable condition and other social services like education continue to be neglected by the Ajimobi-led government are few classical examples of how successive governments in the state often hide under public projects to pilfer away public funds.
Bamigboye claims that it is the implementation and practice of all of these kinds of fraudulent arrangement and anti-people policies by successive governments in the state regardless of capitalist political parties under which they were formed that is responsible for the rising poverty and want, that have given rise to the huge sense of deprivation among the working people particularly the youths in the state. This is because funds that are meant for the adequate funding of public and essential social utilities like education, health are often looted by few members of the capitalist class.
Bamigboye insisted that the growing crises of rising youth violence and criminality in the state today is a manifestation of a general mood of frustration among youths and reaction to all of the unfortunate level of neglect and complete abandonment suffered by the society, in the hand of successive government over the years. Side by side of this are the rivalries among bourgeois politicians over spheres of influence and struggle for political power which often leads to violence and killings by thugs and cultists loyal to different factional politicians.
Going by this background, it is obvious that no amount of CCTV is capable of curbing the growing crises of rising youth violence and criminality in the state. Therefore, to overcome these growing crises Bamigboye insists that it will require a socialist government that will be fundamental committed to the massive investment of public resources in areas of needs of the working people through a public works program in order to build more public schools, hospitals, roads and affordable housing etc., for the working masses as a means of gainfully engaging our teeming youths and taking them away from social vices.
It is in bid to enthrone the desire socialist government in Oyo State that Bamigboye calls on all persons who are dissatisfied with the growing crisis of rising youth violence and criminality in the state and interested in a genuine measure to end it to vote all SPN candidates in the forthcoming elections
