The Chairman of Abeokuta North Local Government, Hon. Lanre Oyegbola-Sodipo on Monday received high commendation from the Ogun State House of Assembly during a recent oversight visit, with lawmakers applauding the local government’s performance, organization, and adherence to due process.
The Minority Leader of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Hon. Lukman Adeleye, who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), described the local government as “exceptionally outstanding” and “the most organized” he had visited.
“I must say this local government is exceptionally outstanding. This is the most organized local government I have visited,” Adeleye said.
“From the presentation of projects to proper documentation, the little I have seen shows this should be a model for other local governments.”
He emphasized the importance of legislative oversight in fostering improvement but acknowledged that good work must be recognized regardless of political affiliations.
“ I am an opposition member, but when we see the truth, we must say it. This chairman has done well.”
Chairman of the House Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Hon. Jemili Akingbade, also expressed admiration for the developmental strides in Abeokuta North.
He noted that the local government had undergone a significant transformation in just a few months.
“We have visited 10 local governments, but Abeokuta North highly impressed us. I visited this local government four months ago, and what I’ve seen now is a brand-new Abeokuta North,” he said.
“We went through the documents, everything was well-organized, and due process was clearly observed. He has done well, we can give him like 90%.”
In response, Chairman of the local government Hon. Lanre Oyegbola-Sodipo attributed the achievements to the visionary directive given by Governor Dapo Abiodun at the point of their inauguration.
He emphasized that he was focused on delivering tangible impact across all 16 wards and four communities that make up the local government.
“what we have tried to do is to just follow specifically the mandate the Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun and the mandate was very clear on the day of our inauguration that we should not become administrative chairman we should go in and bring innovation and try to draw the legacy of the local government and I believe that’s what we are trying to do .
" We are just taking every pillar of the ISEYA blue print and we look at each of the pillers and try to make sure that we are executing along those lines and ensure that this is cutting across the 16 wards that we have and the four communities that make up Abeokuta North ".
Oyegbola stressed the importance of vision, leadership, and staff morale in achieving transformational change.
“We know that the first thing to do is anything that will be meaningful.
It will also begin from home. We need to improve our staff morale. We need an environment that inspires people.
“If you are trying to sell a vision to a people, it's difficult, you're the only one who can see the vision. The way they're able to connect to it is that when you start to inspire them from the immediate environment, and that's why the focus in ensuring that whatever we are doing, if you look at what we've done in the council secretariat in itself is about 20 to 30% of the work that we have done outside".
While acknowledging the progress made so far, he also noted that challenges remain, especially in changing long-standing attitudes.
“The challenges that we have to deal with again is the challenge of the orientation, every day is tough for you to transition from what the way we used to do it and asking the question, can we do it differently? I mean, that's a big challenge, and that's a challenge of mind shift.
"So we're dealing with that, and I think that we're making very good progress, with the mind shift that is happening”.
