Sat Guru Maharaji Is My Friend -Gov. Akala

Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State has declared that the founder of One Love Family, Sat Guru Maharaji is his long time close friend that he cannot deny because of his current political and social status.

Governor Akala who disclosed this on Thursday in a monthly programme tagged, “E pade gomina”, said, “Guru is my friend. We have known each other for a long period. As a matter of fact, we became friend when I was in the police force and I am sure that you know that police have all kinds of friends. It is long that I visited him and it is not because I don’t want to visit him but I am so busy that I don’t have time to visit him of recent. But I want to tell everybody that Guru is my friend and I can go to anywhere I like.”

But the governor debunked the widespread rumour that Guru gave him the staff that he carries about especially during his re-election campaigns, saying that the staff was given to him by National Theatre Art Practitioners (NTP), Oyo State Chapter for the good work he is doing in the state.

According to him, he likes the staff so much that he is fond of carrying it about.

Governor Akala also lashed out at a socio-cultural group, Ibadan Elders Forum for adopting the Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN) candidate, Senator Abiola Isiaka Ajimobi as the only credible governorship candidate for the 2011 poll, saying that their attitude is not elderly.

Akala said, “Public endorsement of Ajimobi is bad, ‘unelderly’ and unpatriotic. They are not interested in building Oyo State but destroying it and they are not thinking about the generation unborn and their children. Instead of working for heaven at their ages, they are doing otherwise and I know none of them is less than seventy years of age. They are not laying good example at all”.

Also reacting to the sour relationship he has with the monarchs in the state, Akala stated that he was very generous to the monarchs while in office adding, “I bought cars for all of them, I resuscitated the Council of Obas in the state, I increased their salaries, and upgraded many of them to a higher class. What else do they want?”

Soliciting support for himself, Akala said that during his first term in office, he worked with the fear of God, stressing that he performed far better than his predecessors.

He said that all the zones of the state benefitted from his development programmes, stressing that there is no zone in the state that new roads were not constructed while old roads were rehabilitated, pointing out that most of the cities in the state like Ibadan have their roads dualised with street light.
By Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan