Engineer Olayinka a core professional who has traversed top-notch telecoms outfits like Ericsson INC, MTN and more abroad and across the African continent, was the Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Matters between 2015- 2019,he is currently the Special Adviser to the Governor on Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission Matters. Most recently, late 2021 he became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Local Government and Public Administration of Nigeria. He is the CEO and Founder of Kunle Olayinka Peace Initiative (KOPI). He recentlpy indicated interest to jostle for the Ifako-Ijaiye federal constituency seat at the House of Representatives. Speaks on why he is gunning for the seat and other national issues in this interview.
It is a fact that you truly has many parts, kindly let’s have a feel of you, your cognate experience and political leanings?
I come from a very humble background in Ogun state, Abeokuta to be precise. My mother is from the Zaanu family in Ikoga Zebbe Badagry, so I have journeyed this life in the last close to five decades now and I’ve attended different institutions of learning, currently I am concluding my doctorate degree in Public Administration,I’ve had very wonderful experience in engineering with SIEMENS ICN a telecommunications outfit that was doing all the projects stuff for NITEL. At the advent of Mobile Telecom in Nigeria, I joined MTN as one of the pioneer engineers, core high level support engineer, Switch Manager, it was from there I got an employment with Ericsson International Sweden and I was taken to manage their projects in Asia, East Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa also. So I did all that on my corporate side. Then it was at a conference that I was part of as the Secretary General of AC Action Congress then in Southern Africa. It was at that particular conference that I met Chief Bisi Akande and Otunba Henry Ajomale and a couple of others. It was at that conference that more or less they discovered me and asked me what I was doing there and I said well I am an Engineer here, a telecoms consultant, an expatriate at that. They said you have a lot to offer your country, why don’t you come back home and I gave it a thought, ask my God if it was something that worth it and God told me that yes, it is something I should take up, more like there was a pool of resources somewhere, he needed me to go and administer, it wasn’t clear to me, I just took to that calling and I came back home in 2010. So since I came back home, I was just more or less appointed to the party as Special Adviser to the then state Chairman of the party Otunba Henry Ajomale and at that time in the whole Southwest it was only Lagos State that was having an AC Governor, the others we have lost, I can attest to that I was part of the process to getting the whole of Southwest back and even the whole Nigeria for our party under Mohammadu Buhari.
That is why I will continue to reference my leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for that courage and Otunba Henry Ajomale, whom I was working with, it’s just a straight line report, so for me those things have built me up and afterwards , I did that for five and a half years working for the party as an administrator. The network is there I have contacts with past Governors, current Governors, senators Council Chairmen, councilors and all that because I was the administrator at the party level.
I did that and got appointed as Special Adviser to the Governor on Development Agenda for Western Nigeria and I believe that with all these my corporate, political administration experience and the executive knowledge for me my being in the legislature at the green chamber will be something that will contribute to my self-development, Lagos state and the country at large, because like I told some people that as a telecom expert that knows about how calls are originated, terminated, charging rate and all what may. I want to see to the issue of decongestion of on bill of this inadequate charging and we can strike a balance without without nobody getting bruised at the end. The operators and the users of this telecoms won’t get bruised. So we need to come to agreement and by looking at the bill that established all these telecoms company. What have we agreed with them and what sort? To see how we can leverage on that and also budget performance which is oversight function, how is our budget performing? How are tackling and handling the projects put in the budget and how is the budget performing? That is the work of a legislator at the federal level and more so the various federal appointments that we have, are we putting the right person in position? A round peg in a round hole, those are the kind of things we should look at, how would one be in an electrical engineering set up and you go and bring someone who did Yoruba or whatever to come and superintend or head? Those are the kinds of things that we need to manage, because for every course or profession you have a corresponding agency that they fit in. You also have institutions of learning, you have linguistic department, and you can put everybody where they belong then by doing that we would have helped our nation. Our economy would have improved.
In my constituency how are we going to make sure there is development? How are you going to engage the youths? How are you going to engage the women? There has to be continuous town hall meetings.
You seem to be well placed given your cognate experience as well as political acumen garnered over the years and being somehow quite close to the Governor of the state many will want to believe you are quite comfortable how would you assess Ifako-Ijaiye Federal constituency polity and what drove you into aspiring to be a federal lawmaker there?
My assessment still remains linked to what I said about Nigeria earlier, Ifako Ijaiye Federal Constituency is evolving you see you cannot give what you don’t have, we can only get good materials now because people that are exposed, educated are now getting involved. In the past it is the materials that we had, that we used then, but now people that are exposed, educated and have contacts are now getting involved, so we can only expect the best for the constituency. So I wouldn’t say that in the past we have chosen wrongly, because the materials that we had then is what we used.
So we are now saying that yes we want better materials which we have. We have quality people in our federal constituency that have traversed this world, people that have corporate, party politics and executive experience. Age also should be something we need to consider because the youths constitute the largest percentage of the our population now,so we need someone that will connect with them,someone that will be in the middle filling the gap between the old and the young so that is what I see happening very soon in Ifako Ijaiye.
Integration is a socio economics angle the state need to better explore and going by your present status, how will you latch on that to better the lot of the masses in the Southwest region?
The current office that I head,that is Special Adviser to the Governor on Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission Matters overseas such integration with our neighbouring states, like the issue of Endsars threw up a lot of issues same goes for COVID-19 pandemic, where we saw that unless we come together as a region in the Southwest and the fact that we are known to be an educationally sound region, what the Endsars and COVID threw at us was such that we had gaps where some students had stoppage, they couldn’t continue,so we looked at that and we have started an education upgrade programme which of course is the pilot scheme about starting in Lagos, where if we have such occurrence again in future their education curriculum will not be disturbed in that aspect. Number two is in terms of agriculture in Lagos state, our Rice mill is coming up very soon, the biggest in Africa and we have also identify our neighbouring states as states that will supply us pahadi even beyond that Lagos state have gone ahead to acquiring lands in those areas for our farmers to go and plant pahadi, so that’s in the area of integration. The value chain of that rice production would create a lot of jobs to Lagosians and even Southwesterners, by that we would have aided and increased the standard of living of our people, because a lot of our farmers will have more money in their pockets and also you can see the federal government is even doing a lot in linking our cities, the rail system has been built and also in the region we are also to link it up to our own rail system. The road networks system also is looking up, if you look at the Itoikin to Ijebu -Ode to Lagos now, the road has been built, so those are the kind of Infrastructure, something that we will need to further work upon, so as to ensure we can always work together as a region and get integrated better.
What model of empowerment for constituents will you adopt, given the fact that mostly all we see legislators do is tied to food items, material and equipment distribution?
Given my own exposure, my own idea of empowerment would not only be in terms of materials, we would also be doing more in terms of capacity building, where we are going to have institution, like a market place sort of where an artisan has a place to be trained, an ICT person will have the privilege of getting trained in that line and all other strata of our social space.
Creating a means of livelihood for them after that training that is what ICT will do, a complete empowerment. You don’t just wanna give someone in the name of empowerment, grinding or sowing machines or whatever and they go and sell it to make money. We want to make sure what we are giving to them they are able to make use of it to feed their family and it is by training in capacity building.
So for me that is what I want to see as empowerment not just giving people fish but teaching them how to fish to fend for their needs.
How do you plan to change the political narrative in your constituency to better the lots of your constituents?
Politically I am coming to strike a balance, no winner takes all again especially if I superintend over Ifako-Ijaiye Federal constituency because you need to look at the larger picture, the larger picture of winning elections because only one entity will never win elections for us, but if you have a spread of the emoluments, a spread of what is coming to the constituency, you spread it to the books and crannies, to all stakeholders, structures that we have; artisans, religious,political, NURTW ,young,aged the wise and those considered as indigents, so that is the structure that we need to look at and when you are doing anything, you need to capture all the structures, when you are doing your empowerment.
When you are touching lives,when there is recruitments, appointments and all that stuff that is what to bring on board, striking a balance,ruling with an unbiased and open mind and also for me according to Yoruba adage that says (ti ebi bati kuro ninu ise, ise buse) meaning once issue feeding is taken away from poverty, poverty ends. I would want to ensure we have a food bank that every month,people will always do there and get something. We would have like a warehouse where there will always be continuous supply of foodstuffs, it so pathetic that you find someone stealing because he could not feed, when you take that out of them we are gonna have a saner community and environment.
Ensuring security in your constituency given the proximity to Ogun state along the borderline has been a tasking one in time past,what more will you influence in enhancing security there?
Well I have been involved in the security mechanism, of course with my own experience we have structures, already that deal with our security, and the borders have the security measure exchange between Lagos and Ogun state, we have the police, from our side here in Lagos, we have the neighbourhood safety watch which is our own local arrangement, what do I have to do? It is to further ensure that those structures that are in place work maximally, that means for me to see how I will provide Infrastructure for them to further help or aid what the Federal and State government is doing. Don’t forget that we have our legislators at the state house of Assembly level too at the constituencies, we have the council chairmen and we have the state Governor who oversees all the security affairs, so for me my own would just be to contribute to providing more infrastructure for those security agencies to perform maximally.
In your assessment of Nigeria’s polity will you say we are progressing as nation?
We are progressing, our politics is evolving and that is why you see all these crisis that are coming up now, because in the past few people will just take decisions and it will be binding on us and nobody will say anything, but now we have people that know how things should be done. That is why we have all these crisis because a lot of people that are professionals are getting involved.
Picking interest in governance and politics, I would say that our politics is evolving and of course if you want to probably relate us to United Kingdom and United State of America, you can see a number of years that they have been democratized, it is just sixty years that we got our independence, US democracy is over 200years, so I would also say that for me we are evolving and doing well. The future is very good and bright for us.
