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By Faith Ijeh
Senator Adesoji Akanbi, who represented Oyo South Senatorial District from 2015 to 2019, has changed the narrative of true representation during and after leaving office.
The general believe when a serving lawmaker lost bid to return to the National Assembly during election is that such a person will turn against the electorates and other factors which did not make him to emerge.
The Okanlomo of Ibadan’s political philosophy is totally different from such believes. Little wonder Akanbi keeps raising the bar of societal growth through sponsoring and facilitating interest free loan for different associations and groups in Oyo State.
It is a known fact that history will be kind with those that always advance the progress of the society they found themselves. Despite not in office, giving his busy schedule, Akanbi made sure that all beneficiaries (associations and groups) of N100 million revolving loan he sponsored, access the loan to boost the Capital base of their business.
Akanbi is a rare and uncommon leader with pragmatic approach in solving problems. Inability to access interest free loan has put women in humongous danger nowadays than ever before. This is because they will have to run helter-skelter on how to pay loan with interest back at agreed date.
The distinguished Senator Akanbi while representing Oyo South Senatorial District at the Red Chamber had invited various market guilds who are registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) with a minimum of six months running account to their names to come with verifiable documents for screening at his Inalende Office. This was done to ensure that they meet the requirement for the cash support.
Out of the 12 associations who came on board, only nine were unquestionably qualified while others were given the opportunity to tidy up their documents, perfect it and make it more presentable.
Despite losing his re-election to the 9th Senate, Okanlomo of Ibadanland completed the whole process to ease the disbursement of funds for the nine associations.
The list of nine associations that benefitted from the N100 million revolving loan are; Ibadan Industrial Agric Machinery Spare Parts; Labaowo Ogunpa Market; Nigeria Society of Professional Tailors; Mokola Ifesowapo CICS; Mokola Al-Ameen CICS; Apete Ibadan Albarka CICS; Ifesowapo Motor Scraps; Plank Sellers Association of Oyo State and Apete Ibadan Albarka.
For the avoidance of doubt, the agency in charge of the revolving loan is Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), and the commission duly paid to ferret- out the concerned associations and the financial institution monitoring and making sure that the loan is 0.8% interest rate per month.
With the success recorded in the so far through Akanbi, about N100 million has been injected into the local economy of Ibadan and Oyo State in general through the cash support and interest-free revolving loan. This will no doubt improve the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Oyo State and improve ease of doing business across associations.