How would you describe your experience in the House of Representatives in the last one year?
The experience has been worthwhile. I see the opportunity to represent my people in the National Assembly as a privilege and I am eternally grateful to the people of Ikorodu Federal Constituency for finding me worthy to be their eye and their nose in the parliament.
Democracy is the freedom to elect people who best represent the interest of the constituents into positions. I am grateful to be among those sent on such important assignment. As you know, members of the House are rated fourth in protocol as represented by the Speaker. So, it is an important position and I am grateful to my people.
At the House of Representatives, I met over 360 other representatives from all over the country with varying degree of differences in opinion and ideas. It has been an interesting learning process too. In the last one year, I have had immense opportunity to learn and at the same time, represent my people.
This 8th Assembly has done very well. Few weeks back, we had sectoral debate on the economy. I don’t believe this has ever been done before. We had interactions with ministers of agriculture and finance as well as solid minerals and trades and investment.
We are a peoples’ parliament that is committed to handling issues in more matured manners than have been done in the past.
The last one year in the National Assembly witnessed a lot of crises, ranging from the leadership tussle to the budget row. What were our Initial reactions as a first term member?
When all these were happening, I took solace in what my dad used to tell me which was that I should have the fear of God above all things and in all things; that I should do everything in honesty and with the intention to put smiles on the faces of people. So, I was guided by these admonitions as the storm raged.
All decisions I took were based on the above creeds and I can tell you I did all I did with my constituents in mind. Of course, I also knew it was a storm in a tea cup. Today, we have gone beyond that and moved on to grater things.
And what would you say are the challenges of the average lawmaker in Nigeria?
One of the main challenges I see is that the people don’t understand the role of the legislator. But this challenge is not peculiar to Nigeria as I was privileged to be in Malaysia to represent the Speaker and I had comments from Canada, Malaysia, United States and India. From these comments, I realised that it is not a Nigerian problem.
Also, the legislature in Nigeria, of the three arms of government, have the least institutional experience because whenever the military takes over power, it is only the legislature that get suspended. So, those years of military rule robbed us of quality experience. There is need to allow the institutional experience to grow.
What is your take on the state of the nation?
I believe that Nigeria is a blessed country but it is so funny that with our economy that is bigger than that of South Africa and Egypt, we only generate 3000 megawatts of power. South Africa generates 50,000 megawatts of Power and yet our economy is still larger than theirs. You can imagine what will happen if we manage to generate half of what they have.
If that happens, we will supersede India in no time. The sectoral debate 1 spoke about opened my eyes to a lot of things that assured me that Nigeria will be great again because the people are a great people waiting for the right environment to do great things. We are very entrepreneurial and very resilient.
If we have the right environment, like say 40,000 megawatts for five years, Nigeria will become one of the leading countries in the world. Also, we need to practice true federalism to really attain our potentials. The federating units must be able to develop at their own pace with the federal government just providing regulatory support. That way, a state like Lagos can harness its resources and grow without delay.
We are in a time of recession obviously. At such time it is either you cut cost by all means, including shrinking both the government and the workforce, or you pump money into the economy and give people purchasing power. I believe it is the latter that the government is considering and very soon, things will improve. The recession is a global challenge. The budget for this year is over N6trillion up from the N4trillion of last year. So, the economy would soon be stimulated as money will be available in the economy.
The governor of Lagos State is doing the same thing by focusing more on infrastructure. He has allowed the local governments to construct two roads each; he is redeveloping Oshodi, an agreement has been signed for the 4th Mainland Bridge, etc. All these will stimulate the economy of the state and get money into the pockets of the people. All tricks to get us out of the wood must be employed by all governments at all levels.
But some people blame the ruling party for the current economic woes.
I disagree with such people. We made a lot of money over the years that were mismanaged, leaving our external reserves very with. But with the body language of the President, things have changed and leakages are being blocked. Things will fall into shape soon as we have been able to use the first year to stabilise and soon, things will improve.
What would you say are your major records in the last one year as a legislator?
I will speak of a project we tagged the “Back to School Project” as one of my major records. This is an exercise we carry out at the very beginning of new school terms. We roll up our sleeves and help put the school buildings back in shape. We do it ourselves and fix damaged chairs paint classes, repair walls and fences and polish the floors.
We have artisans amongst us and I am also usually amazed to see the quality and quantity of people who turn up to assist us get things done. It has really been encouraging. We have done these in about four schools already and we are planning more for the next school year.
We also had the “Start Up Ikorodu” programme which was meant to equip our people to take advantage of empowerment opportunities. Presently, we are training 100 students out of 7000 that applied. We signed an MOU with the Ministry of Wealth Creation to train these young ones and pass them over to the minis to assist. We also assist in some case to set the graduands up. I am happy with the responses I get daily.
Aside the above, we are also concentrating on opening our communities up by grading the roads regularly. We bought a grader and a roller to assist us in doing this. We do this because our people
need to be able to move easily for them to embark on profitable economic activities. Ikorodu boasts of a large number of the people working in central Lagos. These people need to be able to access the roads easily. All these needs informed our decision to get the roads in good shape at all times.
And in the House of Representatives, I moved the motion for the redevelopment of the Ikorodu -Sagamu and Ikorodu-ltokin roads. Although it is not in this current budget, it has been promised to be in the next budget. All these and more are the things I can call my records in the last one year as the representative of my people in the National Assembly.
