My own definition of elitism means those in society that are equipped to lift society out of its rough patch. It is only in that sense that the term elitism has meaning to me; it is not in the pejorative sense that some tend to use it. If I am elite because I don’t go on streets to eat ‘boli’, and I don’t associate with ‘owo meji fun baba’, yes, I am.

But that does not stop me from speaking with okada riders and saying, Let us talk about your future, how can I make life better for you? How can you get health insurance with this work you are doing? How do we ensure your safety and security?

How do we ensure that the money you make from this business is not frittered? For me that is what leadership demands. It is not to keep you perpetually down, distributing crumbs out of the commonwealth to them by way of N200 which will not sustain them over the long term. I don’t come from that school of politics and I have no apology to say that. I am a product of this community and if I could turn out this way, then you don’t have to be an okada rider, you can also be me.

How sustainable is the ‘Computer per Child’ project in the state?

The vision that informed what we did was access to information technology education. Obviously, we have piloted it, we have tested the whole range of approaches, and we have seen gaps. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We are reviewing it because we discovered that both the teachers and the students will seem to prefer computer laboratory to individually held computers. We may well go in this direction as we try to factor in many of the criticisms that have come from parents who are worried that their wards use this computer for illicit activities. But then, do you blame the curious 15-year-old who wants to access all manner of sites?

It may be illegal or illicit to the parents but curiosity is also education. We need to be able to figure out how best to ensure that if possible, certain sites are made inaccessible because of their x-rated contents while, at the same time, ensuring that these kids focus on their education. The materials loaded on the laptop computer conform to the curriculum approved for their examination and there are enough teachers to impact knowledge of information technology in the recipients of these laptops. There are lessons we have learnt with this approach.

But the opposition is saying that in terms of rating, education was better in their time than now. How do you react to this, especially, the West African School Certificate Examination?

One of the books I read in my undergraduate level is called How to Lie with Statistics. You can manipulate certain things whichever way you want. To the best of my knowledge, WAEC has not come out with any state rating in the West African School Certificate Examination. We have seen tremendous improvement in the result of the examination that took place under our watch, which will be primarily the 2012/2013 WAEC examination. We were not the ones who registered the students of 2011. Don’t also forget that in the previous years, if you are to take the year 2004 to 2010, Ekiti was replete with what was known as miracle centres, which we went out of our way to wage war against. Miracle centres were centres used to pass examination illegally because it is not the person whose name you have on the certificate who actually sat for the examination.

We had so many of them round the state at a time and you can imagine the result you will get from these miracle centres and some mixed schools that perpetuate illegality. We stopped all that from 2010. We introduced a compulsory examination in SS2. If you don’t pass that compulsory examination, we don’t present you for WAEC. In place of miracle centres, we set up remedial colleges, one per local government for those that are yet to succeed in their WAEC or NECO exam.

We do this because we don’t think we should shut all your opportunities out simply because you have not passed your exam in one sitting. So we provided an opportunity for those who have not succeeded to go and re-register and retake the examination via the remedial college. Now, examinations take place under the strictest of supervision, papers can no longer be smuggled into examination hall, and no opportunity to write exam in miracle centres. So, what you are actually getting now in Ekiti is the actual level of our students.

Now, our students know that they have no choice than to study hard without depending on miracle centres or some kind of underhand measure, which was endorsed by some of the government in office at the time. And in areas where there are gaps, we are now paying particular attention – mathematics, English Language, sciences and that is why we pay allowances to teachers who teach core subjects.

That is also why we pay teachers who are in the rural areas because part of the problem is that we don’t have qualified teachers ready to go to teach in the rural areas. Everybody wants to be in Ado-Ekiti, Ikere or capital of local government headquarters. In addition, we also have special scheme for additional lessons for our students. These are the things that have been responsible for the improvement that we witness. It is not perfect. We are not where we want Ekiti State to be. I always use my school, Christ School, Ado-Ekiti, as an example.

When I became governor, my school had nine per cent pass rate in 2012. In 2013, 99 per cent of students who sat for WAEC in Christ’s School made five credits including English and Mathematics. If that is not an improvement, I wonder what it is. This also happened in several schools. But we can’t rest on our oars. When I was in Christ’s School, my set, 50 of us, made division one and it wasn’t really the best set. I know previous sets that did much better. We need to go back to that era when we were the leaders not the followers. Ekiti people know the value of education and they know that it is the best antidote to poverty.

Could you speak on other areas that you have recorded achievements, with emphasis on agriculture and job creation?

First, we were very clear about what we wanted to achieve in office. On roads, for example, we were very clear that we are going to connect all Ekiti roads and make them motorable. Again, human beings have short memory. Many people can’t remember what Ekiti roads used to be like in 2010 October when I became governor. There are communities in Ekiti having not more than 10 kilometres that will take three hours to get to. When we came, we have done what any objective assessor would almost have imagined as far as road construction is concerned. Go around Ado-Ekiti today, people marveled at what has happened in Ado-Ekiti in three and half years.

All the roads that were not accessible, they have all been fixed. The local economy has changed because this is the city that used to sleep 7pm. Now when you leave here and going back to your hotel, count the number of people you see on the street selling recharge cards, the numbers of okadas that are still plying the roads, the numbers of joints that are still open due to what? Good roads and streetlights. We are not just talking about infrastructure, we are talking economic generator.

That much we have achieved as far as infrastructure concerning road are concerned. Health care, just like education, we started with a clear assessment of what we wanted to do. We said we were going to focus on prevention and primary health care. That has been the basic front of our work. Although, we have not neglected the tertiary section just like we focus on tertiary section in education. In healthcare, we make sure that access was the number one thing particularly among the vulnerable segment of our population: the elderly, children, pregnant women and the physically challenged. But in addition to this category of people that benefit from our free health programme, we then added what we called the quarterly health mission that goes round and it is not tied to any age bracket. If you can find yourself in any of the free health mission centres, you will be treated for whatever ailment.