What is your take on rumours of Asiwaju aspiring to be president in 2023?
It is the expectation of the general populace that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will run for the 2023 presidential elections. He has not even told anybody that he is coming out to run, but that is what the people want. People are flying that kite, unfortunately, some people are jittery about it, but you cannot throw away gold or diamond for just a raw iron. If the man is capable of pulling Nigeria out of its death root, then there is nothing stopping him. He is Nigerian. He has the qualification, he has the expertise, he has the knowledge and he is open to the people.
There are so many qualities that the man has that the others don’t have, so you cannot just adjudge him by trying to blackmail him that he cannot come out because that’s exactly what people are trying to preempt, but I am sure when the time comes, we all will see what the population will say.
This is the first time in Lagos State since 1999 that an incumbent governor did not get the support of the party in Lagos State. As the deputy chairman of the APC in Lagos State, can you shed some light on this?
You are right that this is the first time in twenty years that this kind of thing is happening, it is quite unfortunate that it happened that way but in our own case in APC, we take seriously, the affairs of the general populace and members of the party especially the downtrodden ones. We had series of experience during the course of this administration, however, the idea of removing all the street sweepers from the road and then incapacitating the PSP operators gave the party leaders a lot of concern.
As you can see there is so much garbage in every nuke and cranny of the state which turned the state almost to a point where it was during the period of the military when Asiwaju came in before restructuring the pattern of how we evacuate refuse from all the homes.
Deviating from that, gave us a bad image both locally and internationally and during that period, there was fear of Lassa fever because rats were beginning to have a place of abode in all the debris that are all over the state. So they brought in the vision scape.
The concept vision scape brought into the state was quite different from the revenue we generate, it was not as effective as we expected in Lagos state.
With that, there was a concern from the leaders and they felt that they were not consulted neither was the intention made known until these people came into the state. It appears that they don’t even know their terrain. The operations were not as effective as it could have been, so that was what gave the final straw to the patience of the leadership. Later, they actually closed down LAWMA headquarters by moving all the staff back to Alausa, as if they are going to start a new process and that in itself gave the PSP operators concern and they started protesting. So with that, the leadership now felt that well, we were informed that the incumbent was invited and matters were discussed with him, but it yielded no positive result. At that point, they felt that well, if given the opportunity for the second term, it may be an adverse damaging effect on the party itself so that was how they took that decision and was not even the governor-elect alone that was considered. There was a screening process. He just happened to be the one that emerged at the final stage of which he himself doesn’t even know. There are People that they put on the line and they screened their antecedents in terms of their professional skills and the ability to govern Lagos state with all its uncertainties and then the governor-elect has also been through the meal in the public service so he wasn’t a novice so he knew exactly all the nitty gritty that needs to know and he’s equally a professional, So that opportunity came to his doorstep. And I can assure you when he was initially informed, he was dumbfounded because he could not speak for like, twenty-five minutes or so because the thing hit him with surprise but as a person, you have to take up the challenge. You have been given an assignment which people believe that you have the capacity to man so there’s no way you can now turn back and say I’m sorry I cannot do it.
Put your talent to skill and put all your ability at it. With the support of your peers and the general public, you’ll be able to achieve success but one thing is that, don’t allow power to consume you because at the bottom line, one is responsive to the generality of the populace. So that was how he emerged.
Do you think Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu will meet up with the expectations of the people?
I have no doubt. He will meet the challenges and he will even surpass the expectation everybody is looking at. But one thing for sure is that he’s going to meet a huge challenge on ground. He needs to restructure the entirety of the public service. He needs to put a structure in place, going back the memory lane of what happened in 2006 when civil service was restructured. Some ministries that are very cogent to the needs of the generality of the rural areas have been appropriated or scrapped; they need to be resuscitated.
All our parastatal organisations need to be properly monitored for effectiveness of discharge of their responsibility. Not necessarily because the ministries are supposed to be supervisory ministries, there must be an independent body that will have to monitor their activities. That was how and why things were moving at a very fast pace during the era of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Fashola. One thing is that, by scrapping it, you don’t even look at the effect of it, then you move them under another ministry without looking back.
In Lagos area metropolis today, you have a high level of people migrating from the rural settings to Lagos. That is why you have over-congestion.
Many people sleep under the bridge because many people want to come for greener pastures. Things that are supposed to go to them in their own area has been taken away so they have to struggle to get back to Lagos. Most of them don’t even have any place or people to come and meet here. You go around Iganmu area, you see so many of them sitting or lying on the floor or sleeping on the street there. So I think we need to go back to the drawing board and do a proper restructuring of the service in order to meet the challenges that will bring a holistic approach to the development to the entirety of the state and not one segment of it.
I’m sure a lot of things are going on now, trying to reinvent the will of progress. I think with the work that they have done so far, in terms of preparation for taking over the mantle of leadership here in the state.
They have looked into an area where they can incorporate some new agendas into the whole ten-point agenda that was being used by the two earlier civilian administrations besides that of Jakande. Jakande too came in with a focus.
Definitely, there must be a drive that we need to do and there must be something we call continuity. Like the governor-elect has said, he’s not going to abandon any project that this administration has done. He’s going to incorporate the whole administration’s project, which has been abandoned for quite some time and revive them because it’s the public fund that was used in developing all these projects for the benefit of the generality of the populace. You don’t just set it aside as if nothing has happened. Even if we’re setting it aside, the populace knows that these structures are there so I think it’s time that we must not try to be a preposition where we set a project, a people-oriented project at bay for the purpose of our own personal something.
What is Godfatherism in Politics?
Godfatherism is not a question of just picking or pushing any kind of person, I tell you about some people jittery is exactly what is happening with El Rufai’s statement.
I want to know how El Rufai retained his own governorship candidacy. Is he the best candidate in the north? He is part of the cabal. So he cannot come and tell us here in Lagos that we have godfatherism.
Yes! Asiwaju mentored so many people and you can see the quality of the people that he has mentored. They are not just riffraff’s’. They are people that can stand their ground anywhere. So definitely it’s not a question of that. If you’re good, you’re good; if you are not good, you are just not good. So it’s not a question of you want to lobby me to become something that you are not or cannot even manage. These are things that I believe.
He should manage his own Kaduna that he has he turned into a war zone rather than coming to Lagos to tell us what we are doing. We can’t even put Lagos state on the same pedestal with Kaduna.
Is he telling me that Lagos state is far behind Kaduna or they are still coming here to learn what we do? I’m very certain that we are not complaining.
If it is godfatherism, we love it at least it’s a progressive godfatherism and we love that, so we are okay by what we are having.
What should Lagos expect from Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s Administration?
Under the administration of Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, I am almost certain that we are going to move at a very fast pace, and I know that is what he is determined to do. Although the magnitude of the financial position of the state will have to be properly determined. Nobody knows the financial status of the state at the moment, not until the final take over.
Then you begin to see or examine the volume of debt that has been owed to contractors, stages of things that are happening within the ministerial structure, and the needs that we actually need to improve upon. All those aspects have to be looked into.
Determine the volume of the finance base that we have, before you can now project how you’re going to do or tackle projects.
We all know that Lagosians are very very restless, they will be expecting a miracle to happen overnight so we must also challenge ourselves to meet the needs of the people so that they don’t feel disappointed and I’m sure they will never be.
I want to wish the incoming governor a very successful tenure and I want to suggest that he should listen to advise and not allow people that will surround him to mislead him into something that will damage the image of his government.