Hon. Sabur Akambi Oluwa is the youngest Lawmaker
in the 10th Lagos State House of Assembly and represents Ajeromi/Ifelodun Constituency
2; he has become a voice for those he represents. In this Interview with a team
of AJIF based Media Practitioners, Hon Sabur disclosed that in less than a year as
a lawmaker he has been able to attract agencies of government with plans to
revamp the famous Tolu School Complex in the Local Government. CHARITY NWANYIEZE NNAJI has the details.
Can we meet you?
My name is Hon. Sabur
Akambi Oluwa, Lawmaker, representing Ajeromi/Ifelodun Constituency 02 at the
Lagos State House of Assembly.
You have been in the House for how long now?
We were inaugurated on
the 7th of June, 2023.
So how has it been like being in the Lagos
State House of Assembly?
It is a very familiar
terrain; I have worked in the legislature for the most of my professional
career, so, though in different capacity.
So you mentioned in different capacity, can
you tell us your first job and the difference between then and now?
My first journey here
is that I was a legislative officer, as a legislative officer, my job is to
make the job of the honourable members seamless and easy, and now I am one of
the honourable members, so I am very familiar with the terrain, having worked
as a legislative officer for close to 10 years.
Let's closely look at your scorecard these few
months you have been in the office as a legislator
For the seven months I
have been here, as you are aware, this is a new year, before now the budget for
the first six months have already been passed. However, we were able to lobby
so that certain things could still come to Ajeromi Local Government, and the
way I see this job, aside what government can do for us, I have also been able
to find a way to reach out to the people personally, in terms of education. After
my election we did JAMB coaching for our students, and I have been able to also
get agencies of government to come to our aid. For instance, one of the major
landmark projects we are going to be having in Ajeromi/Ifelodun Local
Government is intervention in the Tolu School Complex, the Tolu School Complex
is going to be revamped totally, that is a major complex, in fact, it is the
biggest school complex in West Africa with over 30 schools.
We are going to have
new structures coming there, and existing ones renovated, there will health
centre, fire service coming there too, the library will be overhauled. We have
many of our major channels, drainages, cleared in anticipation of the rainy
season.
Seven months as a member of the Lagos State
House of Assembly, between when you came in and now, what has changed in
Ajegunle?
One major thing that
has changed is that we now have a voice in Ajegunle, attracting the attention
of government to the area. As you are aware, geographically we are
disadvantaged, Ajegunle is on a road to nowhere really, we are bordered in the
south by the Atlantic somewhat where we have the Apapa Port, some of our
complaints cannot be raised by someone else, some other areas, maybe the
governor, the commissioners, someone can drive past and see there are some
concerns which need to be addressed, we need to talk about these things and
that is why every opportunity I have to talk about things that need to be done
in Ajeromi, I always talk about it and get people who can help us and intervene
in some of these problems.
What motivated you to seek this office?
This office is very
small and very big as well. In the scheme of things, it is not very big and in
the scheme of things you can get a couple of things done. What motivated me, is the fact that having
worked in the corridor of the office for a while I feel we can get a better
bargain and that is why I have to go for this office.
You come from a family that has political
pedigree, to some people it is difficult to separate how you merited this
office on your own without the family you come from, what do you think you can
do differently to stand out as Sabur not as Oluwa?
You see, the dynamics
of the last election was quite different and I am sure as a press man in that
vicinity, you observed how much I was able to campaign and go door to door to
tell people what I have to offer, I was able to meet people, I was able to
campaign, and also people are becoming more politically enlightened now. I am
sure the people looked at all the candidates in the offing and decided to vote
for me, and by the family being politically inclined family, however, I was
also not the only one that contested that election from the family, how I
merited it would be left to the electorate.
What are you doing as a member representing
Ajeromi to make government earn the confidence of the people? Bringing
information down to the people on what government is doing to make residents of
your Constituency still believe in the government?
We have found
ourselves in a very dire situation and all hand must be on deck, I am a
lawmaker, I don't implement government policies; my own responsibility is well
stated in the duty giving to me. In fact, mine is to create policies, laws and
enabling environment for the executive to execute these plans and you see at
plenary today we did so many things and resolved that we need to sit on a round
table with the executive to find solutions to all these problems, especially on
the high cost of living, and it is a very bad situation we find ourselves.
However in my own
little capacity we have been able to come out with plans on how to reach out to
people, I have been reaching out to people, I am not really a very loud person
that talk about how I reach out to people. I don't have the opportunity to
implement these policies, but I can, for instance, if government wants to
implement some of these policies, it is only my responsibility to make sure we
get a fair share, if you are implementing something, for instance, 5000 in
Lagos, make I make sure we get 250, 500 come to Ajeromi Local Government and
that is where I come in.
Before now, I had the
intention of reaching out to some people on my own personal ground and some of
those I intend to reach out, some students I realized that some cannot afford
JAMB form and also go for coaching, these are some of the reasons I am buying
some of these forms and students that cannot afford it. It is palliative, some
of these palliatives are very temporary and for me temporary solution does not
do it for me, I try to find more lasting solution to the problem.
Do
you believe in agricultural re-organization?
From orientation right, there are
certain things ordinarily, even when I was growing up, I know that some people
usually have small gardens in their backyards, balconies, maybe to grow some of
the vegetables they need, it may not be sufficient year round but it cushioned
some of this cost, however I feel some of us have abandoned some of these
things and it is only in times like this we remembered some of these things
just for us to encourage people by also providing some of these seedlings and
also teaching them how to take care of these crops.
Some people have not worked in the
farm before, and do not know how to go about it. They may have the space but
some of these things, there are also a process to it and this process I feel
that government can find ways to sensitize people on how to go about these
them. It is not going to be very easy because people don't even get most of
these things. It is necessary for us to do it now.
Let's
come back to our Constituency. For the youth the idea of information communication,
many of the youths are taking advantage of the negative aspect of this
technology, now as the lawmaker representing this Constituency, how can we make
these youths make use of these tools positively?
Everything that has a good side also
has a bad side, it depends on how you want to deploy most of these things and
you know there is need for total reorientation and also patriotism and one of
the reasons we have become less patriotic is because there is a lot of
apprehension, anger, a lot of people are losing confidence in the system and
the only way for us to do that is to show people that we are doing our best,
because if you are putting so much work into something and people are not aware
of what you do, it is as good as you are not putting work into it, to know the
direction, we need to know how much work that are being put into this for them
to have confidence in us, I said us because as it is now I am part government
and people need also to be carried along and that is why there is need for
government to deploy information, we need to know what is going on.
ICT is a very powerful tool and I am
happy to announce that in months to come there is going to be a vocational
centre and there will be an ICT centre there. It's going to be world class, government
is trying to do that in the area, I think also that will encourage people to
tilt towards that and I think we should have tutors in these ICT centres. Also there
is need to reorientate our people in this area for them to see the good side.
Mostly when you go to learn the ICT, they teach you the good side, some of the
things you can benefit, how you can deploy it, often we tend to learn the bad
side on our own, but I am sure when these ICT centres come on board, it will help
greatly in area of youth engagement and empowerment.
You
have spoken a lot, now what is your level of collaboration with the local
government?
It has been very good, I remember
last week Wednesday, I have some officials of the LG coming for an assessment
of the bad state roads especially the ones that have been built and need
maintenance and one of the things we discussed at that meeting with the
officials that came is the need for some of our drainages to be desilted, among
others; and as soon as I rose from that meeting I met with the local government
chairman, then I explained, because the responsibility of desilting drainages
reside with the local government, right, so I met with the local government
chairman and he directed immediately that the environmental officer should come
up with proposal on how this project can be done.
So, this is just one of the so many
collaborations we have with the local government; they are the closest
government to the people and you know there is no way we cannot collaborate to bring development to the area.
What
are you doing to take the youths, what are your plans in terms of engaging the
youths of Ajeromi/Ifelodun Constituency 2?
I know it is your turf, when that
was mentioned, I know you observed the plenary and I am sure that would cut
your interest the more. As you know sports especially in that area is one of
our selling points, sports and entertainment, and during my campaign I really leverage
on some sporting activities. No one individual can do some of these things,
that is why since we already have the interest basically most of the people in
that area, they have interest in sports, and you know you can’t force a horse
to the stream but since they already have the interest it is just to deploy
some of these things and take advantage of it. These are proposals, let's go
this route, and I want to believe that they will yield to these things. Having
the population that is already interested in sports, I am sure that there
will be no problem to get people to participate. As I mentioned earlier about
the vocational center, it is going to be built for the youths basically, to
take them off the streets to learn one or two things, trade, whatever they can
do, and then deploy some of these things.
Security
is an issue, not that the community is not secured, we are looking at the
relationship between the police and the youth, in Tolu area, the police
division there, there have been public disturbances, rape has been on the
increase, even in Ajeromi police division, your view about this and what you
think can be done? Police raiding at odd hours even in normal hours? And you
know the Lagos State has policy for movement especially motorbike movement,
some areas in Ajegunle are not restricted, what is your take on that?
We keep engaging the police, you
know, there is little we can do over what we don’t have power to; that is the
way the system has been structured. I don't have power over the police. I can only,
sometimes, have to beg them to act on certain things. We have been having a
couple of issues when it comes to security and I don't want to say it is not peculiar
to Ajeromi, however, security has become a national, if not a global issue and
as a House of Assembly, collectively, at our last plenary that was what we
discussed just like today we discussed something else which was security and
under the leadership of Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa we have agreed that the way to
go is to have state police. I think a day or two after the president of the
country Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu also towed that line, that that is the way to
go.
I know, it will affect our security
architecture and positively at that because if you look at the police division
we have in each area we are grossly under policed and that is a recipe for
disaster. So the way to go is also to make sure that we involve the communities
in this policing, we cannot gather intelligence in an area you are not even
familiar, you cannot police an area you are not familiar with. And that is one
of the problems we are having because what will a man who grow up in zamfara
police in Lagos really, maybe he is coming to the city for the first time, and
Lagos is a very peculiar place. So as a House of Assembly we are championing
the cause of having the state police and we feel if we recruit people locally
to police us we would be better secured.
Final
line, you are the youngest member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, and
today the youth population of Nigeria is in despair, what is your message to
your peers?
My message to my peers is, we don't
have any other place to go, we just have to come together and make this country
what it ought to be. The youth, we are the ones that are still giving birth and
a lot of things fall on our shoulders, we are in a very sad situation, as you
can see, the cost of things rising every day, some of our parents don't have
kids with them anymore, but some have more mouth to feed, and also more people
to take care of, so my own plea to them really is we should not lose
confidence. If you run away, we would be like strangers elsewhere, so the best
thing is for us to stay together and salvage the country.