Mallam Rafiu Ajakaye is the Chief Press Secretary to the Kwara State Governor, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. A well-exposed and versatile journalist, Ajakaye has left no one in doubt as to his competence to effectively and efficiently manage all media matters concerning his Principal since his appointment in 2019.
In this exclusive interview with AWA CONTENT’s Yusuf Suleiman, Moshood Yusuf, and Mercy Adeoye, he speaks extensively on his career as a journalist and how he emerged as the Governor’s spokesperson. The CPS also gives insights into how the Governor has fared since coming on board and why he believes he is the candidate to beat in the forthcoming Governorship Election in the state. Excerpts.
AWA CONTENT: To start with, who is Mallam Rafiu Ajakaye?
CPS: My name is Rafiu Ajakaye. I’m an indigene of Alabe – Alabe is a community in Ile-Ire district of Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State. I had my primary education in Alabe community and then proceeded to Lagos Baptist Secondary School in Lagos. I did OND Mass Communication at the Polytechnic Ibadan and my first degree at the Lagos State University. I also had Masters in History and Diplomacy from the same university. God willing, I’m also running my PhD at the same university.
I started my journalism career in 2004/2005. I said 2004/2005 because I concluded my OND in early 2004 then I started my one-year internship with Daily Independent; so that practically started my journalism career. After the one-year internship, I became a trainee reporter in 2005. The medium had a policy then of not giving full employment or employment at all to anyone who does not have at least first degree. But because of my track record with them, back and forth, editorial meetings and then the management took a decision that ‘ordinarily we would not like to break our policy at the same time this man can do what even a master’s holder cannot do, so let him just be our reporter’, and that was how I got employed as a trainee reporter in 2005. I remember very well my appointment letter reads 15th May, 2005.
I rose through the ranks to become a reporter, senior reporter and then I jumped to the level of news editor, Saturday Independent. Later on, I became foreign editor and came to Kwara in 2010 to become the spokesperson for Barrister Dele Belgore (SAN), who was then the ACN Governorship candidate in Kwara State. Of course, after that, I went back to the newsroom and I got employment to work for the Turkish Agency, the Anadolu Agency, which is the 5th Largest News Agency in the world. I worked with them between 2013-2019 before I got this employment to become the spokesman to the governor of Kwara State. I’m married to my wife and with kids. Alhamdulillah. That’s basically who I am.
AWA CONTENT: You spoke about being the spokesperson to Barrister Dele Belgore; did you at any point in time nurse the ambition of becoming the spokesperson to the incumbent governor of the State?
CPS: You see, that question is an interesting one and I will answer it this way. I want to be as truthful as possible. In 2010 when someone contacted me to become the media aide to Barrister Dele Belgore, the way he introduced the conversation was: ‘Hey! I’ve been asked to contact you to become the spokesperson of the next governor of Kwara State.’ That was the introduction. So like I said, I worked for Barrister Dele Belgore and the election was held and the rest is history. Of course, we were not lucky enough to have won the governorship election but I’ve always been passionate about my state, I’m a very passionate Nigerian and as a historian, because my first degree is in history, I am one of those people who are irrevocably and unapologetically opposed to the idea that some other civilizations are better than ours. I believe strongly that we are not inferior as a people to any other people in the world. I believe that we are not worse than any other person or any other country in the world, every other society has their own challenge. Alhamdulillah, I’ve been to several other countries of the world and I know for a fact that the idea of people being destitute, people not having money, people not being well off like every other person is not limited to Nigeria, so the pictures that some people want to paint about our country being the worst in the world is certainly out of the point and I seriously disagree with it.
I am also one person who feels strongly that in as much as our leaders owe us a lot in terms of delivering on democratic dividends, on their campaign promises, I also believe strongly that we should accord them the respect they deserve. Even when I was not on this seat, I remember very well that I wrote on my page in 2014 disagreeing with The Economist of London when they described the former president as ineffectual buffoon. I felt that was an insult on the country, that was an insult on my person as a Nigerian. In the US, in the UK, people abuse leaders, they do all sort of things but there are limitations even in those countries and I believe that we should show respect also to our leaders the same way our leaders should also show kindness to the citizenry. So, to go back to your questions, only God knows who will become what, you may dream about ABCD but it may not be the design of your creator for you. So, like I said, in 2019, I got the appointment, of course, I worked with the governor during the campaign issuing his press releases and some other media stuffs. Of course, he was just the candidate of APC then. So, Alhamdulillah for His mercy.
AWA CONTENT: How did you receive the news of your appointment as the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, His Excellency, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq?
CPS: Of course, I was glad but I was also skeptical. I was glad because it is natural for you when you receive good news to be glad about it, but I was also skeptical of what record I would make in that office and I still am, as I talk to you. I thank Allah (SWT) for His mercies, for the appointment, but let me say that on the day the appointment was made, I wasn’t really surprised because there was a background to it. The then governor-elect (the incumbent), I remember we were at his house in White House here in GRA and he whispered to me as he was going out: ‘how do you want to be addressed? What position do you want to be given?’ This is the first time I’m telling anybody this story. I didn’t want to be seeing as being too ambitious, and I said usually for a media office, I would outline three positions, it is either Senior Special Assistant Media, Chief Press Secretary or Special Adviser Media, but I remember saying that I would prefer the Office of the Chief Press Secretary and to the glory of God, the governor assented to that request. Of course he didn’t tell me that this is the day I’m going to make the appointment or something like that. Of course, a statement was drafted which I did myself alongside the appointment of the SSG and the Chief of Staff, may Allah be pleased with him because he is late now. So, that was how it happened, I knew since the day that he mentioned it but you see when it was announced it is another thing. Some people who do not understand the governor would say that he is this, he is that, but there is something I’ve come to realise from my interactions with him that he is a man of his words, he doesn’t like to say things that he would not be able to do and that did not start from my appointment; it started during the campaign. I remember we attended a campaign rally in 2019 in Patigi and there were some misunderstandings in what he said and what was reported. So, he wasn’t glad about what was attributed to him and he raised it with me and what was that? It was that he was going to construct the bridge linking Patigi to Minna or Bida, so he was now saying where would Kwara get that kind of money. So, looking back now, that shows a man who understands governance, he understands the burden of governance, I didn’t get to understand what he was saying then, but now I understand more what he was saying because the bridge would cost an average of 300 billion naira. Where would Kwara get that, the budget of Kwara in a year is not up to N200billion, so where would you get 300billion to construct such bridge? So, he clearly told me that he would not make a promise that he would not be able to fulfil. So, looking back now and given what I have seen about him, what he has done so far, he has done far more than what he promised. So yes, I felt happy when I got the news of the appointment. I felt it was going to come earlier but it didn’t come until June 6, 2019 and that was some seven days after the governor was inaugurated.
AWA CONTENT: Previously we used to know that Kwara State governor, aside the Chief Press Secretary, would also have senior special assistant, media and communications and all that, but this time around nothing like that happened. Also, since the demise of the Chief of Staff, we have not had any chief of staff?
CPS: We now have the office of Senior Special Assistant Media and Communications.
AWA CONTENT: But why did it take so long?
CPS: Well, you see it depends, ideally or let me say conventionally until recently, usually the media office of the governor is headed by the Chief Press Secretary; the idea of Special Adviser, media, senior special assistant and all of those titles came only recently and as a form of political patronage largely. Of course, the job of managing a chief executive or managing a government media apparatus has become more cumbersome, particularly with the advent of the new media. That is the truth; so, you need more than one person handling all of these roles. So, the idea of appointing more hands to do some of these jobs is a welcome one because it has helped me to focus on certain things, thinking strategy, and then execution, and having people to discuss ideas with. To sit back, to analyse what you’ve done so far, to also envisage or anticipate what your political opponents will come up with and also thinking through what your strategy would be, what your responses would be, but you never can tell what the next challenge would be on this seat, the next second may bring the next crisis, I need to manage it. With regard to the question about the Chief of Staff, now ask yourself the idea of having a chief of staff for a governor is neither here nor there, it’s at the discretion of the governor, particularly if he feels that he has a particular office that acts in that role. So, one thing people must understand about this governor is that he is a very simple person, he just wants to get the job done in a very modest way, he is not given to lousy behaviour, he is not given to noise we were used to in this part of the world, he is somebody who believes in efficiency, he believes that if he has a team of 10 people and they can act the way he wants them to act, he is fine with it, he doesn’t believe in a big government, to use that word. He doesn’t believe in big government, he believes in a government that is effective and responsive, he believes in managing public resources to ensure that the man in the remotest corner of Kwara State gets to feel the impact of government and when you have a government that is too big, that takes away resources and you know that means that you may not be able to do as much as you may want to do. Like I said the idea of governor having a chief of staff and all of those things is at his discretion, if he feels he still needs it at some point, I’m sure he is going to come up with it, but at the moment, I feel that he is fine with what he has and I think the constitution of the country allows him that window.
AWA CONTENT: Looking at the date now, it’s about four years down the line, how has it been serving as the spokesperson to the Governor of Kwara State, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq?
CPS: It’s been very interesting, very interesting because from day one I never deluded myself that it was going to be easy. I knew it was never going to be easy because, here is a government elected as people yearned for change, so change anywhere in the world comes with its own challenges. People had and still have so much expectations, including expectations that the resources available to the state cannot cater for at this moment or all at once. People are in a hurry for the government to fix all the challenges that had been there for decades in the space of four years. I will give you an example. In 2019 when we came on board, public waterworks was not running; they didn’t have access to public water anywhere in the state. I’m not saying we didn’t have waterworks, we had waterworks, including waterworks that were built by Sardauna. In fact, majority of waterworks we have in this state were built by Sardauna government, but when we came on board, none of those waterworks was working, the workers at the water corporation were on strike for not being paid. If you check Google, you will recall that in 2019, Kwara recorded a new polio at the time Nigeria was on the verge of being declared polio-free. This was because Kwara had long stopped routine immunization.
In 2019, when we came on board, the primary health development agency had just single nurse, they had other nurses but they were not on the pay role of primary healthcare development agency. So, the challenges were everywhere; since 2013/2014, Kwara had been on a National blacklist at UBEC, because they gave us some money to improve the infrastructure, and those at the helm of power then decided to divert the money because the idea is UBEC would give you maybe a billion naira and then you are supposed to come up with 1billion naira making 2billion naira, right? They expect you to invest that to improve the education infrastructure and to also train and retrain teacher, to buy books, do all kinds of things to improve the quality of basic education in the state, but Kwara, rather than investing the money, chose to, one, deceive UBEC by pretending to have brought one billion naira. They brought it when UBEC added its own but later took it out, and then spent UBEC’s money for the purpose for which the money was not meant. UBEC got angry; they blacklisted Kwara. So, there were a whole lot of problems; College of Education teachers had been on strike for close to a year if not more than that in 2019. The colleges had lost accreditation, SUBEB teachers were not being paid. At TESCOM here, they did not have a single computer to do anything. So, we were at ground zero and the expectations of our people are that the government would come on board and fix all of these things in one night. I never for a second deluded myself that we are able to fix all of those things in a space of four years.
The expectations of some of our people were different and that’s natural because that’s how social change works, particularly in a society with low literacy level and what we may call relatively good understanding of how government works. It is made worse by the political culture we had in the past. What was the political culture? Once you are appointed into public office, people expected that you have arrived, so you have good cars, you’ve become a multi-millionaire overnight. You travel to London today; you go to America tomorrow; you become the big thing to happen to your family. That was the culture and it was the reality of the state. So, for appointees of this government, you become the burden of expectations from your own family first. The governor told me one day, we were having a conversation and he said if anybody wants to be a multi-millionaire the person should not be in government; he should be in the business world, that’s where you can make good money. You are not expected to make good money in government, you are to serve the people, yes it doesn’t mean you are going to starve, no, but it also does not mean you are going to be a multi-millionaire. Reverse was the case in the political culture that we succeeded; the facts are there. Many of the people who are owning mansions in GRA today, they didn’t have any house in GRA before they got to government, when they got to government in a space of 4, 8, 12, 16 years, they have amassed so much wealth that they are the talk of the town. That was the culture, the culture made the public officials rich at the expense of the society itself. People became rich but the society became poor, I have given different examples and nobody has controverted me.
I will give you an example, when we were hiring teachers in 2021, we discovered that several of those teachers that were hired by the former administration, several of them did not have complete O’level, yes you can quote me I’ve said this on air, and I want people to say that I lied. I will give them example. I know a particular fellow who doesn’t have Mathematics and he was teaching in a junior secondary school, how do you describe that, how did we sink to that level? So, things got so bad and the expectation of our people is that all of those things would change overnight. I would say that the best is the enemy of the good, so in socio-change, people need to understand that that change has to be gradual. So ask me, have things changed? Oh yes! Have we arrived where we want to be? Oh no! But if you want to compare and contrast, the facts are there. Look at Ilorin, there are several places in Ilorin today when you go there, you are not going to know that this is the same place between 2019 and now in terms of physical development. Go to the hinterlands during rainy season; before last year you could not travel to my community during rainy season because the road had gone bad, the bridges linking communities had collapsed, all of these have been fixed. It is the same thing in some other areas, too.
We still have challenges here and there in several other places and we are trying to fix it but I’m saying that things have really changed in terms of what we have achieved in physical development. In terms of human capital development, oh yes! Go and check the health indices, don’t get government data, go and check the one from the Federal Ministry of Health, go and get from UNICEF, check other ones, too, you can see serious changes and improvements between 2019 and now. We were in the red in terms of maternal mortality when we came on board, today we are one of the best in the country, in terms of child mortality when we came on board, Kwara was bad, it has changed in terms of open defecation. When we came on board, Kwara was terrible, we were leading Nigeria actually but today it is no longer the case. mention it. In terms of equipment available in our health facilities, you cannot compare; there are several accreditations that our own general hospital now has, which this premier hospital in Kwara State never had before. For instance, that hospital did not have a single lifesaving gadget when we came on board; that is no longer the case today. Our state general hospital is probably one of the best in North Central today. The quality of infrastructure is better compared to how it was when we started from. We are miles apart. I will give you another example. The teachers at the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) last had promotion with cash backing around 2015, now we have resolved all of those till 2020. Now there is so much pressure on us to implement the one of 2021, 2022 and all of that. People are forgetting that they last had promotion with cash backing in 2016, so that’s socio-change for you.
People often forget where they are coming from because you have done so much for them or you have come across as someone who truly wants to solve the problems so there is so much expectation on the part of the people and government on its part has very little resources. I always say for every one naira that government expends on a particular thing, it is at the expense of another thing that’s the trade-off. If you spend on water today, you have to leave road to wait till another day, because that resources cannot go on all of these things at the same time. so, the challenge is so much and basically the burden of expectations from the people who expect so much, not knowing that we are actually coming from ground zero and I’ve given you different examples of where we were in 2019 and where we are now.
AWA CONTENT: As a public officeholder, especially the position you occupy as the spokesperson to the Governor, of course there will be criticisms, especially from the opposition, how do you handle such criticisms?
CPS: When I assumed office in 2019, I responded to virtually everything, but along the line I came to realise that you need to understand that certain things should be left, so that you don’t commit yourself unnecessarily. Let me give you an example. I’m granting an interview now, the three of you are not at risk of anything, but I am at risk; whatever I say here is being recorded, do you understand? Even if you choose to say anything now, you are also not at risk, but for everything I say, I look at it this way, what is the consequence for the government, what is the consequence for me as a person, so that guides how I respond to people. sometimes you decide to be deliberate in hitting some people, yes! Because if you don’t do it sometimes you are at the risk of letting people feel that they can say anything and get away with it. So, sometimes you need to take away the kids glove and and go for certain people deliberately. So, you also expect that people would say all sort of things but you know that you want to achieve certain things, so you go for what you want to achieve, but in all cases I choose to be as civil as possible. When you say I’m sick, I’m this, I won’t tell you that you are sick, I would rather keep quiet or I would divert attention to something else because if I say you are sick, that can make headlines. (Laughs…) So, I choose my words very carefully and like I said, I’m always conscious of what the consequences would be on my principal, on the government that I serve or on myself as a young person.
AWA CONTENT: Thank you very much. As a follow up to that, not every time you will be having positive stories from your fellow journalists; when it comes, how do you handle it, particularly on the part of the Government House correspondents?
CPS: Well, I’ve been lucky that many of our colleagues have shown appreciable understanding of the difficult job that I do, so and I appreciate them and I am also using this medium to appreciate them once again; many of them show understanding, most time when you ask me a very difficult question and I don’t want to answer, I will find a way of reaching out to you to say I’m unable to answer this question. I think the major challenge is the unregulated media space, that is the new media, social media people who don’t have respect for anyone or any rules of engagement so you just have to manage them. It’s part of the democratic development of our country. I don’t think I’ve ever had any altercation with the mainstream media. The people I recently took to court, I did not take them to court on the basis that they are working for mainstream media, as a matter of fact only one of them works for a radio station; the other guy is a new media person. But even when I was doing that, I was careful enough not to join their medium. I went for the issue and I’m sure that it’s something that will be a subject of research in the future because the question would always come up, is freedom of expression absolute? If it is not, then I was right to have taken the position that I took, so for me I’ve not really had so much problem managing the mainstream media. Like I said, they are all mature people. In most cases, they are professional, they understand the limit and then even when hard stories come up they come and one would just have to manage it, then ultimately I also try to tell the government that ‘look, we can’t have it 100%; we will have our bad days in the press and sometimes you ‘ll just keep quiet; you close your eyes and let it go. But by and large, I think the media has been very professional even if we have one or two who may choose to be mischievous, we just have to manage ourselves. It comes with the terrain.
AWA CONTENT: As for the legal battle with those two journalists, how did you later settle the case, was it out of court?
CPS: Well, it was settled out of court after they apologised.
AWA CONTENT: I wanted to ask this question regarding the personality of the governor and his administrative style; different people see him from different lights and you have aptly captured his personality, his administrative style. But of course, this aspect of not being a lousy governor, could one see that as one who doesn’t really like too much publicity? How do you reconcile that?
CPS: I think as human beings, we are wired in different ways and I will give you two examples from where we copied our democracy from; that is United States. You will remember that Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt was a very flamboyant first lady, in fact she is used as a model for first ladies in a presidential system, she was so powerful a first lady, she was always addressing press conferences every week. If you allow her, she would address a press briefing every second because she enjoyed being in the limelight every time. Conversely, the woman that succeeded her, Mrs. (Bess) Truman, she hardly ever addressed a press briefing and in the US history, President Truman is one of the most successful presidents to the extent that there are several doctrines that are attributed to him. His wife was never really a press person and if you even look at the two presidents you will see that they have different styles. When you ask Roosevelt questions, he may decide to bark at you and say ‘I do not have any answer’, but whereas Truman would say ‘I’m sorry, I choose not to answer’, so leaders come in different styles, they have different strategies. For the Governor of Kwara State, his style is to do more and say less. As I speak with you, there are many things that have been done, that I’m struggling to even cope to know some of them. He has done so much across every part of this state. I remember going to Ifelodun sometimes ago and in every kilometre, I was seeing new SUBEB schools, new ones, newly built schools and I didn’t know about many of these things despite being the spokesperson of the governor. So, I struggle to cope with the pace of his achievements. He has done so, so much.
I will give you another example, two days ago, a community in Baruten wrote to him to thank him for changing their water plant. I didn’t know this until he minuted this to me and just then we did a press statement on it. So, there are thousands of very impactful projects that have impact on the people that the government has done and he does those things without making so much noise. He travels to the remotest corners of the state just to see how people are faring. In most cases, the media team may not be with him and what that means is that there is a governor who just wants to serve his people with minimal noise. There was an event about two weeks ago or thereabout at the Banquet Hall and one traditional titleholder from Edu narrated how the governor twice visited Lafiagi with just himself, his driver and I think maybe the ADC. Imagine a governor travelling hundreds of kilometres to Lafiagi just to see how things were being done. That was not the culture we were used to. The culture we were used to is when a governor was travelling that far they would’ve announced, the people of the community would come out with drums, they would do all kinds of things. You had monarchs and traditional titleholders lined up to pay homage to the governor and all of that, he doesn’t do all of those things. So, my conclusion with that is that he is a governor, who just wants to serve his people and we are seeing that impact in every community that you go to in Kwara State.
if you are not benefitting from school, you are benefitting from road, water and all of those things. So, he is in a class of his own, in terms of his love for his people, his love especially for the underserved communities, he has that passion for the underserved, he believes that, he sees himself as an advocate for the silenced majority and I’ve seen different examples.
I am going to give you an example of how the governor will on his own fight for the rights and privileges of people who are perceived to be weak. There was a story of one of the current permanent secretaries, the woman had everything stacked against her – the powerbrokers from her local government, the powerbrokers at the level of bureaucracy, the powerbrokers everywhere, they were all stacked against her. She was qualified, but you know the funny thing the woman is a widow, so the fact that she is a widow was the reason the governor took interest in her case, not even where she comes from. He also got to know that the woman is qualified, she wrote the exam and she passed and then you know, for political reasons some people felt that no, she should not be there because it is her husband that is from the place and she is not from the place and the governor feels no, our law does not say that, once a woman is married to a particular community, she begins to enjoy the rights and privileges of people who are from that community and so he took it upon himself to ensure that the woman was given what was due to her. I’m not going to mention the woman’s name but anybody who reads our statements would recall that there was a day we issued two different statements to announce permanent secretaries on the same day, and the second statement was issued solely because of her because the governor insisted that she must be announced as a permanent secretary. So, I’m telling this story to illustrate who the governor is, to tell you how passionate he is about the silenced majority who are perceived to be weak. My own appointment is probably another example, you know, I heard – he never told me this story himself – that shortly after the election, people were debating who would get what position, and they got to the position of the CPS and they were debating; they were saying ABC and some were saying the boy is too young. ‘No, no, haba! you should go and bring big people who have clout and all of those things’, and I’m told that the governor then asked a question that where were these people during the campaign, where were they? ‘This was the guy doing this job during the campaign, why is it that he can no longer do it? No, he is going to get it’ and that was it. So, he is somebody who cares so much about the downtrodden and you can also see that in terms of his programmes, most of his projects are targeted at the underserved and the weak demographics.
With due respect, you can see how he has elevated the status of women in Kwara State in terms of appointment. For the first time in history of this country, you have women occupying more than half of the Cabinet. It had never happened anywhere on this continent, not just in Nigeria, in terms of cabinet appointment. The only country that led in terms of women and that’s election, is Rwanda. But in terms of appointment, we led. When the governor appointed 56.25% female cabinet, we led on the continent not just in Nigeria. So, that speaks to his philosophy as someone who cares so much about the underserved and the weak demographics, that’s his style and he does most of these things without making so much noise. You would notice that our media activities picked only recently because people were making so much noise that you have done so much people are not getting to hear and all that. Let me give you an example, there is this statesman, very senior citizen in this state, who called me and said that at the back of his street where he lives, he heard that the governor has just constructed about 4km road. This is a road that had been there for decades, but nobody gets to hear about this, but he does most of these things just to serve the people, just to ensure that people live in a more comfortable way and that public resources go to serve the public. He ensures that public policies and programmes are designed in a way that will benefit the largest majority of our people and that’s his own style, that’s his own unique way of serving the people and I think that history would be kind to him, posterity would speak so well of him because no matter how you look at it, women will not forget him, young people would also not forget him, the people in the hinterlands who had no hope of government ever serving them at all will never forget him.
The Osi-Obo Road was awarded about three times by the former administration, they would award it, they would not do it. Osi-Obo Road is complete now. The Ilesa-Gwanara road was first awarded in 2013. By June, when we came on board in 2019, the road was less than 30% done, even as surface dressing. Now we took over the road, we awarded it again and the road is over 90% completed now with asphalt overlay. So, look at these two roads, they are roads that are not in the public glare, the Ilesa-Baruba is 33km, Osi-Obo is 11.1km, the road that leads to my own community is 13.6km or thereabout. These are roads that are not roads for the media really, they are roads that have been constructed to benefit the people, not for media optics. If you want to make media noise, you develop the Capital, put all kinds of projects in the capital city, that’s where the media is, that’s where photographers would take pictures but even at that, we are not doing badly at all even in the Capital like I told you. Go to Ilorin hinterland today, the heart of Ilorin, things have changed, there are several interlock roads, development has taken place, so if you last came to Ilorin in 2019 and you come back to Ilorin in 2023 you would miss your ways in several parts of Ilorin because of the quantum of development that has occurred. Like I said, the governor is somebody who has his unique style as a leader and for me if you ask me, I prefer his style to the style of someone that would do one thing and shout in the media that he has done 10 things. Ultimately, that would undo him. It may work for him in the beginning but it would undo him because people would get to know that he was lying to them.
So, it’s better for you to know that you’ve done 20 things but you are only able to mention 10. People would now be reminding you that you’ve also done this one, too, you’ve also done that one, too. It is better than for you to say that you’ve done 20 things when you’ve only done five things because people will catch up with you when you say you’ve done ABC. I remember one particular jingle that some administration did in the past, they would say this road, they’ve done it, that road they’ve done it and people would say they have not done it. So, it is better to be truthful and modest in your claims; it helps your credibility. So, the governor doesn’t make bogus claims. He believes in working more for the people.
To be continued.
