Olanrewaju Oshun, member of the
Lagos State House of Assembly representing Lagos Mainland 2, is a younger
brother to the former Chief Whip of the Federal House of Representatives, Wale
Oshun. He was elected into the House in 2007. In this interview with
correspondents covering the House, he spoke about his growing up years, his
sojourn outside the country and matters of national interest. Our Senior
Reporter, Akinwunmi King, was there
 |
| Oshun |
Can you tell us more about yourself?
My name is Olanrewaju Moshood Oshun,
I was born into a polygamous home, my father died 25 years ago and my mother
died last year. So I am an orphan. I am the last child of the family from the
two wives my father had; my mother is the first wife. I was born in
Abule-Ijesha area of Lagos 45 years ago; I am from a Muslim home. I went to
Seventh Day Adventist School for my primary school. My father was an accountant
and growing up was very interesting. My father valued education so much that he
would say: ‘I might not be able to afford the best clothes in town, but my
children must be educated.’ I later went to St. Finbarrs College, Akoka, Lagos,
for my secondary school education and from there, I proceeded to Ogun State
College of Education for the National Certificate of Education (NCE) programme.
I taught English and Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) for some years because
I read CRS in my NCE.
I resigned from teaching and worked
in a private company, where I was production manager. But I was working as a
clearing agent for them becauses I headed the clearing section. I later went
back to teaching for some time. But before then, I contested to be a councillor
from Ward D in my constituency in Abule-Ijesha.
We had the 1993 election and,
fortunately, I am from a family of politicians, my father was the Chairman of
the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in my ward. I have a brother, the first child
of my parents, who contested to be the chairman of the old Mainland Local
Government. He later became a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1989; he
was elected into the Federal House of Representatives, where he was the Chief
Whip. My tutelage in politics started from there, as I would arrange and
clear the chairs for them after their political meetings.
After the annulment of the 1993
presidential election, my brother went into exile and the government was
hunting for everybody in the family, so they came after me. I was at work one
day when my boss came to tell me that there was an armoured tank outside the
premises and that they were asking after me, so I had to escape through the
bush. After that, I couldn’t go back to the office again and I had to travel to
the United Kingdom in 1994. I just felt it was an opportunity for me to study
in England. Initially, I had an ambition to study in the University of Lagos,
but it was not possible. As soon as I got to London, I went to Westminster
University on Regent Street, where I read politics and sociology and graduated
with B.A (Hons.). After that, I came to Nigeria because living abroad was not
for me; it was borne out of necessity.
I contested in 2003 to represent
Lagos Mainland Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives and I was
asked to wait for my turn and so I had to wait. Later, I started my own little
business; I was bringing cars and computers from abroad as well as containers
of drinks, just anything that could bring me money.
But, basically, I focused
more on cars. The craze for American cars was not much then; I used to go to
places like Germany and Holland to bring cars and sell. I met my wife in 1997
and we got married in 1998 and I had my first child the same year; she is a nurse. I
have three boys; my first son is 16 years old, the last one was nine few days
ago and I have a 14-year-old son.
After the 2003 elections, I decided
to contest for the House of Representatives in 2007, but they said the
candidate for the post had been settled in the party and that primaries had
been done within the party and that somebody had won. However, I was offered
the state House of Assembly option and I was elected in 2007 and I also
returned in 2011. One of the reasons I preferred to be a legislator was because
in 2002, I was going to Holland and a lady with a Nigerian passport was
maltreated by immigration officers. As soon as they saw her passport, just
because she was travelling for the first time, they maltreated her and I was
not happy about it. I protested the maltreatment and the guy threatened to
deport me and I told him he couldn’t deport me that I had a return ticket and
that I could go back to my country. A senior officer later came and said that
they knew they were wrong, but that they had to be sure that the visa the woman
had was genuine.
So, as soon as they agreed with me I was satisfied, but I felt
our representatives were not doing enough to protect our interest outside the
country. If anything happened to any British anywhere in the world, the
government would raise a team to fight the course. If you look at the things I
have passion for mostly in this House, they are things that affect Nigerians as
a whole. Once, I believe in something, I don’t go back on it, you may not
believe in me, but I hold on to it.
You said you are not happy with the
maltreatment of Nigerians abroad, what are the factors responsible for this?
Can you mention specific ways the issue could be addressed?
The way I was raised is to fight for
people, I was the JAYCEE president in the college of education, and the three
times I fought with the school authority were because of other people. On one
of the occasions, I fought for somebody I was not even on talking terms with;
he thought I was arrogant and I also said he was arrogant. They told me the
school locked the students’ toilet and a student, who went to the bush to ease
himself, was stung by scorpion. I insisted that the staff toilets must be
closed too and the school was closed down. They said the toilet was closed down
because there was no water. Every Nigerian is guilty of the way we are being
treated. At times you cannot explain the way we behave as Nigerians. You are in
a flight, you are travelling, and as soon as the plane touches down, they tell
you to wait before you release your seat belts, but you see Nigerians standing
up and carrying their bags as if they would jump out of the window. You cannot
go anywhere until the door is opened, you see the people behaving like animals.
Nigerians would come with excess luggage and you see them begging the airport
officials. You blame the leaders, but we are all leaders, we take care of our
homes. Most of the things I do are things I was taught at home.
As Chairman, House Committee on
Local Government Administration, you have the power to call local governments
to order; the LGs do not meet the people’s expectation on development, what do
you say about this? Also, how have you handled deviant behaviour in the local
governments?
If my definition of deviant is what
you mean I would not say any chairman has been deviant. The truth is that Lagos
is a metropolitan city and the number of people in the state is as much as
those in about six or seven states combined. If you look at the monthly
allocations for the 20 local governments recognised by the Federal Government,
whereas we have some states with less population than that of Alimosho Local
Government Area, that is why you see some local governments in some other
states having more than enough money. In those states, some chairmen only come
to the council once a month to share the allocation. But in a city like Lagos,
the council chairmen come to the office almost every day and they have to work.
Since I became the Chairman of the House Committee on Local Government Administration
and Chieftaincy Affairs, we have improved the local governments in Lagos from
all aspects including the legislature, executive and the civil servants. When
we had our first visitation, we invited the chiefs; the market women, everybody
and they came to tell us what they wanted from the local government chairmen.
Yes, there is room for improvement. We have a long way to go, but they have
limited resources. We have some local governments in Lagos State that get just
about N1 million or N2 million in a month and they still have to pay the
salaries of their non-pensionable staff, and some of them cannot pay the staff.
We had to tell some of them to reduce their non-pensionable staff.
At the same time, if you ask
somebody earning N15,000 or N20,000 per month to go, you would be affecting
about four or five people who depend on him or her. We try to balance the
equation, talking about the local government chairmen, some of them could be
stubborn or heady, but we have a way of dealing with such people. You see some
local government chairmen outside and you say they are not doing anything, if
you go to their books, you would see why they could not do anything. The
chairman might not be good enough to talk to the people. There is a chairman in
the state, every month, when he collects his allocation, he would call the vice
chairman, the councillors and others and tell them the amount he has collected
and ask them what should be done with the money. They would sit down for hours
to deliberate on it, and he has been able to do some projects through that.
People were coming to him for jobs and employment, so he raised some money and
built some viewing and car wash centres, where he employed street urchins. The
council gets 40 per cent of the money and the boys get 40 per cent and 20 per
cent is used to maintain the place. When we calculated everything, we
discovered that he was able to take about 120 boys off the streets as they were
working on shifts basis, and that local government is one of the poorest in the
state. If you go to a chairman like that to come and construct roads and he
tells you he cannot not do it, you would think he is lying, but there is no
money for him to do it. We should look at the two sides of the coins; some of
them are actually very comfortable. The local government in Lagos cannot be
compared to any local government in Nigeria. The little they are doing, that we
think is not enough, compared to other local governments, they are really
working. I have seen roads constructed by local governments and you would think
they were done by the state government. Some local governments built first
class schools, drainages and Primary Healthcare Centre. If somebody is doing
something bad, I will be the first to criticise him and if he is doing something
good, I will praise him. What some chairmen collect as allocations in a month
is what some councils collect for a whole year. What Ajeromi/Ifelodun Local
Government collects in a month is what Ikorodu Local Government collects in a
year. The fault is not from the state; it is from the Federal Government. There
are some schools in Lagos State built by local governments that can compete
with the ones built by some state governments. I have seen chambers of
councillors in Lagos State that can compete with state Houses of Assembly
chambers and they were built by local government chairmen. I agree that there
are rooms for improvements, but we should appreciate what they have done.
Can you give a fair assessment of
the desirability of local governments in view of the problems they are facing
such as funding? We also heard about the crisis between the chairman and
councillors of Ikosi Local Government. What is your reaction to it?
The local governments are necessary;
they are the closest to the people. It is not possible for the governor to know
every corner of the state. I have gone round the 57 local governments in the
state; I don’t think the governor has done that. The government is local to the
people; the chairman of Bariga Local Government can sit down and tell you all
the streets in the area, but the governor cannot do that. But he might only
know some important places there. Yes, we have issues with funding and it is
because we play politics with everything. The Nigerian Constitution states that
local government is under the purview of the state House of Assembly and there
is a law on how local governments could be created and we followed the
procedure in creating the 37 LCDAs in the state. The Federal Government went to
court against us when we created the councils, but they lost. So why have they
not listed the councils in the constitution; it is because Lagos State does not
belong to the PDP. If not, the LCDAs would have been listed by now, even the
funds of the local governments were seized during former President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s regime. Local governments are necessary, they are closer to the
people; some things are under the local governments like the PHCs and primary
schools.
On Ikosi Local Government, in any
democratic setting, there would be issues, under the military rule, who could
challenge the military. Under a democratic government, people go on air to
abuse the governor and the President in the newspapers. In the last one month
in Nigeria, a governor was impeached, another one is going through impeachment
process, a speaker was impeached, so it is not limited to Ikosi Local
Government. There would be issues, they would be settled but if they are not
settled, we move on to something else.
The tenure of the current local
government chairmen in Lagos State would soon end, what is on ground for a
smooth transition.
The law is clear about tenures; it
ends in October and the government knows what to do next.
Have you intervened on the
Ikosi-Isheri issue? Also, you have gone round the local governments in the
state. What do you think the councils should do with the little money they
have?
I don’t pick information from the
streets; we need to know the facts of the story before we can do anything on
it. Unfortunately, the House is on recess and the letter must have been sent to
the office of the Speaker, and until we get the letter and have the mandate of
the House to work on it, we might not be able to do anything. I was told again
that they have been invited by the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy
Affairs. What the Commissioner, Hon. Abiodun Kuye, and the state government are
trying to do is to investigate what happened, and if there was an impeachment,
was it properly done? But the government is working on it and the commissioner
has invited them. There have been issues in the local government, which we have
resolved. For now, the committee cannot do anything; we don’t have the mandate
of the House on it yet. I only work on genuine information. Justice would be
done, and if he has been impeached properly, there’s no problem but if not, we
will do something about it.
Onisowo Island is under Amuwo-Odofin
Local Government but the people of the area numbering about 200,000 are saying
they have been wrongly grouped into the local government, and there is no
development in the area. What is your committee doing about this?
Delineation is not something that
can be done by a committee, it is a national and state issue, but because you
don’t want to be somewhere does not mean you should not be there. For instance,
Makoko that is under Yaba LCDA, but the place is under Lagos Mainland
Constituency 1 based on how it has been divided. A man once came to me from
Amuwo Odofin Local Government that his area should be under Eti Osa Local
Government or so, and he was a supervisory councillor under the same local
government, so I told him it was not possible.
On development in Amuwo-Odofin, I
would say it is one of the local governments that are doing very well. We
inspected one of the roads the chairman was doing in FESTAC Town; I couldn’t
believe it was a local government that was doing it. If you talk of
development, I can say that the expectations are even beyond him. Sometimes,
FESTAC Town is a federal land, the road he is doing there ought to be done by
the Federal Government but because the people there vote in Lagos State, we
have to attend to them. It is getting to a stage where you want to do some
things and people would tell you it is not your problem. On under-development,
Amuwo-Odofin is not a good example though there is room for improvement.
There have been reported issues of
council chairmen dabbling into activities of their legislative arms, such as
was recently reported in Mosan Okunola Local Council Development Area. What is
your committee doing to reduce issues like this?
We still need to train and re-train
our chairmen because they seem not to know their duties. It is not only the
councillors or chairmen, even all Nigerians. When you have professors calling
on lawmakers to come and tar roads it shows that we need to keep learning. I am
sure you are learning, so most of these jobs should be under you. We should be
reading about the functions of the various arms of the government. We need to
educate each other, but everything is muddled up. It is not the job of the
legislator to do empowerment or find jobs for people. Our job is to make
enabling laws for the people.
Going by the imposition and zoning
in the All Progressives Congress (APC), don’t you foresee your party losing to
other parties in 2015?
When you say zoning, it is not an
APC programme. It is a Nigerian project, and every party does it. On
imposition, we must define it. Whether we like it or not, imposition happens in
any party everyday. For instance, Jimi Agbaje is in the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and we were told that before he did that, he went to see President
Goodluck Jonathan and they promised to make him the party’s governorship
candidate in Lagos State. If it is true, it means the party would work towards
his emergence as the candidate. It is an imposition because you have about 10
people vying for the position. The way you view it might be different. When
they were doing the PDP primaries to pick President Goodluck Jonathan as the
presidential candidate of the party in 2010, they spoke to the governors, who
did not want to co-operate. When you want to contest for any position, you have
to go and see those you need to see and when they pick you they will say you
were imposed. For instance, if I want to be the Chairman of the House Committee
on Finance, I will go to the Speaker and other principal officers and if I am
chosen, it is imposition because I might not be the best candidate for the job.
I have contested in three elections in the state and in all the cases, we had
primaries, call it whatever you want, we still did primaries and the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was there. What you can call
imposition is if I am contesting for Federal House of Representatives in Lagos
Mainland and the leaders ask others to step down for me. But, even at that, the
party leaders must have seen the qualities in you. Some people can pretend when
they are looking for job but after they are employed, they turn something else.
Being a handsome man, how do you
handle temptations from women?
I don’t see anybody as being
handsome; your beauty is an inner thing as long as you are happy with yourself.
When I got to St. Finbarrs, in class one, I had an argument with someone, and
he abused me that I had k-leg. Then, we wore knickers from class one to three.
We didn’t wear trousers until we were in form four. So, I would wear trousers
to the gate of the school and then change to knickers but I later stopped it.
So far, I have only one wife but I know that there are people that, you would say,
are ugly and they have so many girl friends. If you are very ugly and you have
money, you are very handsome, but if you are handsome and you don’t have money,
you are ugly.
What was living abroad like?
It was fun living abroad. I went
straight to school immediately I got to England, it is a system that works. I
cannot live abroad, even when I was living there, I always came home. I had my
children abroad and as soon as they got to secondary school, I brought them to
Nigeria. I need to let them know this is home.
As the representative of Lagos
Mainland 2 in the House, what have you done for your people?
I have tried to represent the people
of my constituency very well. I just finished the renovation of a school there.
I have sunk over 20 boreholes and I have facilitated the installation of about
seven transformers. I have done empowerment programmes and I am doing a
programme on Ebola Virus Disease. People from the Ministry of Health are coming
to talk to them. The only hospital that can treat Ebola disease is in my
constituency. I have done many projects, facilitated some with the state
government and collaborated with many agencies on some projects.
No comments:
Post a Comment