Background information
I am Honourable Kolawole Taiwo a former Deputy Speaker at the Lagos House of Assembly and currently the Chairman Ibile Microfinance Bank and the APC candidate in Ajeromi Ifelodun federal constituency for Federal House of Representatives in the coming election.
I represent a local government that has a lot to be talked about and we want people to say it as it is, so we need somebody that comes from that place that can say it the as it is. I have represented them for quite some times and know their do’s and don’ts, the last four years I have been in the local government, played their politics even the social aspect of it, trying to see how I can bring people closer than even when I was in the House of assembly.
I feel that it is one local government in Lagos State being misjudged and misrepresented because it represents the entire nation, even beyond there is practically no tribe in Nigeria that you cannot find one of their relative in my local government, therefore it suppose to be a Nigeria local government.
They need a big voice, somebody that can come out and say this the way to do it. That is why I felt I should go to the national assembly.
All these while, people we have been sending to national assembly are individuals who did not rise through the ranks in legislative business, for the first time if you have a person that has risen from being an ordinary floor member to lead the house of forty members as a majority leader and also rise to be the deputy speaker, I am going there to do some things; for instance I was talking about a law that would affect the entire citizenry of my local government, talking about the antitrust act, we need antitrust commission in Nigeria, we need an act that would be like police of the corporate people. When you walk into the office of the corporate affairs and say you want to register a company, the lawyers would ask you some questions elicit a memorandum of understanding nobody would ask any question, with certificate of incorporation that is on trust. Anything against what you have put down is antitrust and I would be representing downtrodden and poor people, the only example that comes to mind is this communication gadgets that you people are holding, communication service providers would ask you to pay for a recharge card nobody knows how they are deducting your money, the only thing you hear is that you are almost exhausting, it so you must recharge and we don’t have anybody that would check what they are doing, whether they are doing it in line with what is stated there that they would do or for instance some few months back in my local government some youths there felt aggrieved and come together fighting NEPA, complaining that this people are just charging them estimated bills, this as persisted we need something that will check them they don’t need to now turn themselves into pressure group before they can be able to have steady power supply.
Something like that is what I am going to fight for, they need it now than before because one, it is easier now to bring people together through this our social media, therefore the government needs to be doing things the right way, because the whole world is moving away from quality control, to quality assurance.
We must assure the people that this thing we are doing is in line with standard and the only way you can do that is to have some agency that would be like a check.
Those things matter and I am representing the people, who review their business line, others that buy a hundred naira recharge card. If on every hundred recharge card somebody is stealing one naira it is huge, I am an experienced lawmaker, I have been a legislator all this while and I know how I have added value to my constituents. I know how to lobby, to get things in the National Assembly you need to know a lot about lobbying, that is why you need experienced people there.
That could go in there and talk to people of like minds. It is not about the party now it is about like minds on every issue and get their interest then all of you will pursue it together and get result.
You intend to represent the AJ people but that is the same area you were defeated last time, is power of incumbency APC an avenue you plan to explore.
You know the last time I lost election in an area I felt I can never lose election. When you become complacent, when you are not serious with the campaign and feel everybody will need to vote for HKT because HKT is an household name even till today, I was out of elective position for close to three years but people still come to me. If they need something they still channel it through me but I am a professional statistician and I make use of all those things that I have been taught in school and I am not an average student of statistics, I hold a Master’s degree with PhD in view, and even in undergraduate class I was second class upper so I am not an average student. I also know the tools I am having to check some things, I told some of the people few minutes ago that the reason why we loss was not because of any individual, they are just one small group of people they are about fifty, I met with them in 2015 they are group of people who are seriously against our party. I tried to beg them they said no, so I just felt fifty people! let them go, it cannot affect us but later, I realise that they are controlling a huge number of people in some part of our local government and that in my own local government they have eight booths and that their community was divided by just one connector with just one plank made bridge to get to the other constituency and unfortunately for me that other part of the local government belongs to my constituency, they have influence on the other side too, that particular area has four booths, we lost in all the one with eight booths, we lost badly that particular ward was the only one I lost in my local government therefore when you are saying I lost election, I lost only one ward in the local government and I lost one ward in the other local government and that put paid to it. The side they came from the result was so bad that it affected the second one because it has 27 wards but when you come the second one where it is just 20 it affected it because of that long stretch of ward and I lost by only 1700 votes and I was given an analysis of it all. I was defeated with 1000 votes which means they would add that 1000 to my vote and remove it from that of PDP the difference is 2000, therefore this time around we are not taking anything for granted, I have been meeting people, I was with some people yesterday, naturally we would not go to those people we would say let’s leave them alone but I was with them and they were happy that they said for my coming alone I would see what would happen in this election and yes we have members as my opponent I know even in her backyard now she is afraid of HKT because they started attacking me even before I pick the nomination, they say so many things HKT will carry thugs but my campaign has been devoid of thugs because I told my people if I hear a sound of gunshot once I will just drop the race therefore two days to the primaries I thank them and through out our campaign there was no acrimony.
Since I started nobody has ever call my name that I influenced violence in any form because I told them no position deserves one pant of blood, no matter the position and that is what I stand for I let them see reasons, because since I left government development has stopped.
What are you doing to ensure you reconcile the aggrieved contenders in your constituency?
That is at the primary level because within the party too when people see you rise they will not feel comfortable. Since I was given the nomination I have been trying to reach out and we have been talking and even something that they would naturally do and I would complain before, I no longer complain now, rather I would just tell you this thing you did was somehow and we just laugh it off, you know it is always very difficult to mend fence but we have been trying, I have met with one of the people I contested with twice and we have had meaningful discussion and his people have started calling me that when am I coming to meet them. Kalejaiye felt so bad because he is the establishment candidate and we fought establishment and we won, because I was also part of the establishment and in a way or the other our paths have crossed and done one or two things together positively I think two days ago and he pick my calls,prior to which I have called over eleven times that he did not pick until I had to confront him over it he was just laughing, he return my missed calls now, we have started talking.
How do you plan to tackle cultism especially among the youths that is prevalent in Ajegunle?
My brother we have been campaigning that is why I said we want people that would tell our story the way it is, we want to tell our story our self, during this campaign I have told them I am going to give them a youth centre and part of which would be an Ajegunle radio because we want to be telling our story our self, let me tell you something when they were talking about new Lagos and were premising it on culture and tourism, I say that is they are saying Ajegunle is the new Lagos because our diverse culture is enough to sell Lagos to the world. Our diversity supposed to be our strength not the weakness that is why you see in some of my posters, it says HKT is coming to represent all the tribes not Yoruba, Ibo or Hausa alone, I am representing the Ibibios, the south-south everybody, they have been discussing with me they know me and my effect while in the house of Assembly, they know what I was able to bring to the local government and that since I left nothing is happening in the local government again the only happening now is to drink ‘shepe’, alomo’ and scuches and started making trouble me I know those boys and they know me.
How are you trying to curb substance abuse prevalent amongst the youths in Ajegunle?
We have started campaigning against drug abuse, making them to see the reason why they should stop drug abuse because even we that did not take drugs we are not as strong as we were 20 years ago not to talk of somebody that have drenched himself in drugs ten years later, there would be problem in our local government and we don’t have more than one general hospital, it cannot contain everybody now doing drugs, we are campaigning seriously against illicit drugs and violence and I am trying to direct their attention to the youth centre, where we will be bringing people that are topmost of the industries that are from Ajegunle to do talk shows and secondly there is also one thing that is trending in Ajegunle that people don’t know, most of our people that goes to do business on internet are 419, and I want to engage that there are clean money available in online business therefore we say even the youth centre will contain a computer unit where they would be taught how to make clean money from internet, how to be a good citizen and represent us anywhere they find themselves. There was a time I was in London at a business round table and they are talking about Ajegunle, I was moved and fascinated because they are talking about the positive side but they were now afraid of the negative side, I have to come in and at that point I told them come, Ajegunle is not like you are seeing it people like us as important and popular as we are still move around Ajegunle as late as 1,2,3am without any problems. Yes there is nowhere that we would not see bad people but it is not as pronounced as people are presenting it, like the lady representing us now she stood on the floor of the house and said they are killing children and women in Ajegunle that is unfair because the whole story of this violence is about them killing themselves.
I have not seen one none cult member or gentleman that has been killed in this their squabbles though it is bad and we condemn it but not to talk of killing women and children, you are just selling us negatively to the world and you say you are representing us.
Traffic gridlock is a daily affair in the area what are you going to do to resolve the recurring congestion?
My brother I have something I am planning, you know I am an experienced legislator and I know the federal government would pay for it,you know why, yes they are correcting the mistake of the past,for the first time since our port was created they are carrying out major rehabilitation, it would disturb the environment and all the people living there will not find it easy because we are talking of wholesale rehabilitation but that doesn’t mean that those things are not affecting our roads and they must pay for it, they must come and repair most of our roads I know immediately they finish that work those gridlocks would disappear because those tankers and trucks have their packs, that are also under reconstruction immediately they finish that they would leave the road but the federal government would come and do the job for us that is why they must send HKT that know how to tell them the way they must do it.
Internal wrangling contributed to the loss, fall out of the primaries also poses issues yet to be resolved within the APC, will this not spoil the chances of the party come 2019 elections?
My brother there is no way you will have a primary and there would not be conflict the thing that will make us stronger is our ability to do a lot of conflict resolution and try to bring people together even before they commence, I have said earlier about my effort to close rank with my contenders back then, I know we spend money, our time and hopes been lost, me I am still hopeful, hope no dey die now, it took 25 years before we were able to give hope ’93 concept they should be hopeful tomorrow would be better or else if you lose hope then you are finished, today me I have been able to realize my hope and they will realize it someday.
I know what we went through during the primaries and even local government elections.
It was a serious blow on me, it was because I have my own candidates and the party says this is the way we are going just follow the direction, we won the election and this people are also strong party people they have benefited from the party particularly from my own side. Even including the one aspiring for the house of reps in Apapa none that have never benefited one way or the other, we have an SA, council chairman back to back therefore we should just pull through and there are still many things that everybody can still benefit than allow wrangling to continue, the person that was the worst hit is Kalejaiye and we have been talking it means something is in the offing.
What do you make of the crisis everywhere in the party?
The leadership tussle, you cannot have permanent resolution, most of the houses are peculiar to themselves and the leader must be very careful, our speakers do forget that they are first among equals, what we do in the Lagos house is that we always immune our speakers,we know that if the speaker did not release the immunity we cannot do anything and if you mistakenly press a button that will take it away from him then he is finished, that is what is happening because anybody can be speaker in the house so if you are given that privilege to lead your colleagues, you should know you have equal powers then you must have it at the back of your mind that it must not be a unilateral decision. What you need to immune yourself in the house of 40 members is get 14 of the 40 that is no problem therefore it is part of democracy. Those things would fade away later. Let me give you one example in America house of common Bolusee has been speaker ten years now most of her colleagues maintain that because they don’t want problem she has been their leader, the minority leader allowed that now she had been there because of influence and information they need something they need somebody like that to lead them prove to them that you are a step ahead of them like in the Lagos assembly it is unprecedented in our time we look small, but this speaker stood by his colleagues that this one must return, I was supposed to because I was the one that led the discussion about who will return the last time. Some of our leaders says twelve of you will return but he stood his ground, he saw that thing for the first time because we were together enunciating that and he was given that information and he worked on it right there that we must immune ourselves and let people with knowledge return to the house because it is a waste of money and time for you to send somebody to the house four years and you remove him and bring another person, he say those one will not know anything and legislative business is not easy still go and ask some of them you will discover there are some of them who don’t know that we have a list of legislative function in the Constitution because it took me time before I was able to differentiate between the exclusive and concurrent list and was able to deduce the residual list is not expressly stated in the Constitution. It is now for you to look at those things not in the concurrent and neither in the exclusive list that you now list as residual, those are problems that new comers will face also talking first, second and third reading, the third is when you talk about the merit and demerit but some of them would be arguing. They would not be able to earn the respect of their colleagues and you need that as somebody representing a constituency before you can bring things on the table for your constituents.
What are your plans for mentorship of youths in your area?
This particular race of mine is youth driven. Some few days ago we were looking for the daughter’s of Ajegunle support HKT for house of reps,if you look at our own media it is full of young guys who coming into politics newly because I am aware I am getting old and someone was telling me are you going to spend another 15years in the house? I said no it is not possible my children are now grown ups they are men too, I don’t have a baby in my house they are grown men and I also need to create time to guide them on what they want try to encourage them to stay on the positive line therefore I cannot spend all my life as a public officer I would still spend some time with them, because I still feel I am young I’m under sixty immediately I cross that 60 I will start thinking of retirement because I know that retirement year is sixty in Nigeria. That is why I have been addressing it since 2006 my next line of action as a public officer is to be able to leave people that can take over from us and reason like us, having the interest of our local government at heart not people that are thinking of going to make money, because it is until when I got out of government that people get to know that I don’t have money, they feel I have a lot of money because I spend money I want to satisfy everybody but not when I left government, that I get to know I don’t have much and had to run around to fend for my family that is the kind of culture I want to leave behind, the culture of service, trying to do things for the people, when I was talking of doing three high streets for our local government, we were to deliver one, people don’t know how, I said go to Lagos state and check you will not see it inside their budget, I was not a speaker but while I was a majority leader I did something as the chairman of intervention fund I took money from there and that was the beginning of development in our area, when you enter Badia now compare its present state with what it used to be in those days you will not know you are in Badia until you get to Badagry expressway we are turning our area around, we are now doing in conjunction with them we have the same community,if you are not careful you will not know the difference between Badia and Amukoko, Badia is in Apapa and Amukoko is Ajegunle. Those are the things I want my young one to have in mind. I told them do you need to ask for what is yours? Because my first election I was thirty-seven years also a young man you don’t need to ask for it but strive and ensure you achieve it. Which means our toughness we must retain it because it is good for us as an Ajegunle people, youths should go beyond our contribution.