YOU are seeking to represent Iseyin/Iwajowa/Itesiwaju/Kajola Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, is a constituency that covers four local government areas and has a large population. How do you intend to adequately represent that large number of people, if elected?
It is quite unfortunate that we are one of the biggest federal constituencies in the country; I wouldn’t know how the delineation of the constituency was done that time. But that is one of the inadequacies in our Electoral Act which we will begin to look at if elected.
There is what we call foresight planning; we have engaged in that, even before now. So, representing quite a number of people in four local government areas wouldn’t be a challenge for people who have plans. We have engaged in so many activities which have given us enough information and data to work with when I am elected. For instance, I’m working with some professionals who are expert in foresight planning, which include where do we go, where are we right now in terms of education and where are we likely to be, based on the data available now? In terms of economic planning, business, farming and so on, where are we and where do we want to be? Having done all these, to be a good representative of the people wouldn’t be a big problem. We have data to work with and we have moved around to actually talk to people. We are not telling them this is what we think you should do.
For instance, recently, I had an interactive session with farmers in all the four local government areas. We had a robust interaction about their problem and plight, what they really think government needs to do. We have really engaged people before now and we understand, to a certain level, what their plight is and the direction to go when I am elected.
You are talking about data, but how would this help you as a representative of your people, especially given the fact that you won’t have a budget to solve the challenges, even if you have the data?
What is my job as a representative of my people? It is not just about lawmaking and if you want to make laws for the people, lawmaking deals with policy amendment. You have to look at so many things because you have to interact with the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), parastatal-agencies. They don’t have to come to you; you have to go to them with all these policies. Take for instance, the Nigerian Curriculum on Education. We are not just going to sit down and say we want to make laws. There are a lot of laws and amendments we have to do and ensure that there is policy direction in Nigeria. We need to talk to education stakeholders and ask why we are having high rate of failure in secondary school education. In this regard, we have done our own local assessment and I don’t need a budget to work on that. All I need to do is, where can I get this done? How do we get this done? Most people who are elected are lazy, because they focused on different things. Maybe they just want a jamboree or they just want to wear agbada. I want to be a busy lawmaker.
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You are coming from a federal constituency where your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be less popular. How do you intend to surmount this challenge, given that Iseyin, which has the highest number of votes, has always voted for progressives?
Which party is not progressive? There is no basic parameter for measuring a progressive party in Nigeria. Look at the way people cross to other parties. If there is any ideology, it would not be easy for somebody to say I’m a progressive today and he would switch over to another party tomorrow. To answer your question, it’s an assumption that PDP is not strong in Oke-Ogun and my constituency. Look at the political trend, where is PDP is relatively stable today? The analysis is very simple: In 2015, there was a lot of crises in the PDP, which made PDP members split into Accord, SDP, Labour Party and the old PDP. Look at the number of votes that all these parties had; if you put the votes together, the votes are more than what the APC had. Where are we today? APC is divided into three major parties for now; APC, ADC and ADP. The PDP is now gaining from the success that the APC could not manage.
The race for the House of Representatives seat you are vying has always been between Iseyin and others. Are you not afraid of the fact that if an Iseyin indigene gets the ticket from another party, it may affect your chances of winning the election?
One, APC has not given out its ticket to anybody, so we cannot say an Iseyin person would get it. There is the guy who is presently in the Oyo State House of Assembly, who is from Kajola. He’s actually in the race in APC. He is top guy and a politician and not just a new comer in politics. Traditionally, before our constituency became four local government areas, it used to be the old Iseyin Local Government Area and the old Kajola Local Government Area and by the situation then, Kajola was the head of all the four local governments initially. Now, we have the two local governments divided into four; the old Iseyin (Iseyin and Itesiwaju) and the old Kajola (Kajola and Iwajowa). What do we have right now, in the eight years, the old Iseyin Local Government Area has been occupying the House of Representatives seat. So, morally and technically, we try to balance the representation such that if the old Iseyin represents the constituency now, it would be the turn of the old Kajola in the next four years. Normally, the other two local governments, Kajola and Iwajowa, it is not as if we are not comfortable; but we know that it is our turn. This is our time and power should shift and rotate so that, even though I am not a student of rotational whatever. I believe in good hands. But if the calculation is still on, are we going to have it. The people of Kajola and Iwajowa are more determined to actually produce the House of Representatives member this time round and they are seriously working on that.
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