Why did you choose to contest on the platform of ADP?
ADP is probably the fastest growing party in Nigeria. If check all our candidates out, you would find out that they are grass root people; people that actually care about the welfare of the citizens. They are people that have touched lives, either when in government or outside government, at one point or the other and even up till now and there is no godfatherism in the party. That is the attraction.
You said in ADP are people that have touched lives. How have you touched lives before now?
I have been touching lives almost all my life because I am a people-oriented person. I always think about the welfare of my people; I care about them. That is why I could leave my business in Lagos and everything and come back to my hometown in Ibadan to serve my people in order to leave a legacy. I have done a bit of that when I was the chairman of Ibadan North Local Government Area. I am sure I can say that I touched a lot of lives then.
What should the people expect from you, if you are elected as a member of the House of Representatives?
The people should expect fantastic representation. My people know me and what I can do. As a local government chairman, I built a lot of roads, hospitals and classrooms and constructed bridges. In the area of environment, there was this scheme for waste disposal all over the local government area; I built toilets in all the markets with boreholes in Sango, Isopako/Igbajo Market, Bodija Market, Isopako/Bodija Market and Mokola Market. This is because I found out that they didn’t have any public toilet in all those markets when I came into office. Now, I want to sponsor bills that would directly affect the lives of Nigerians generally and the people of Ibadan North Federal Constituency in particular. This would be in the areas of education, health and youth development and empowerment.
The first major bill I am thinking of sponsoring is to ensure accountability by representatives. In other climes, like the United States that we copied their democracy, you need to do at least 4,000 meetings every quarter which if you don’t has consequences. I will sponsor a bill that would make it mandatory for representatives to go back to their communities to talk to their people every quarter. It is a bottom-up approach to governance which is what I practised when I was a local government chairman. We had town meetings every year to create our budget for the New Year. We called all the 12 wards in local council. It is their input that we used to create our budget so that by the time we are implementing the budget, most of the projects there would be what the people actually asked for; not the ones that we want to do for them. If members of the House of Representatives come back every three months, people would tell them their problems. The lawmakers have constituency allowances – that is where they would know about the projects that the people actually want.
Those social intervention programmes you mentioned, were they done in your personal capacity or in your capacity as the chairman?
They were done in my capacity as chairman. But nobody else is doing that now. The Federal Government is doing social intervention and they are not using their personal money. When you are in government, you have the opportunity to serve diligently and I served diligently. All the things I did then, nobody is doing them anymore now. I left government four years ago and the social intervention and everything has stopped. That means it is not about being in government. It is about the individual, the person; what you want to do and it is about you caring for and giving back to your people.
and then