4th February, 2011
Hon. Lolade Waheed Shonibare, former Chairman of Conference of Local Government Speakers is contesting for the Federal House of Representatives in Ikeja Federal Constituency under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He spoke with Political Platform. Excerpts:
People have accused politicians of vying for public offices to amass wealth, why are you vying for the position?
I want to say it is an erroneous impression that people go into public office to amass wealth. I want to borrow a word from Socrates that the greatest punishment for the wise who refuse to rule is that he would suffer the rule of idiots. A lot of people before now preferred to sit back and just complain instead of doing something. I will rather get involved, do something about it and offer myself for service than sit back at home and complain. That is why I feel that the time is ripe for me to give quality representation to my people. Before now, we have had people representing Ikeja Constituency, but if you go around, you will realise that there is nothing to show for it. People collect N39 million as constituency allowances every three months and the people of the constituency have nothing to show for it. Where is the money meant for your constituency going? You see many of them sinking boreholes. Is boreholes the only problem of the constituency? .
How do you hope to win in a state like Lagos, where the ACN is the ruling party and you are in the opposition?
I want to correct the impression that one political party is progressive and one is conservative, they are all like centrist parties. If you are not centrist, you will not find someone coming from the ACN to PDP or PDP to others. There is no party that has clear cut progressive or conservative ideologies. Most of them are a little progressive and a little conservative. Talking about ACN being in government, the situation has changed in all the states.
But if it was a PDP government that did that, I am very sure it would be all over the papers. These are some of the issues we must resolve, look at the market women, look at what happened in Tejuosho and Oshodi. We are not saying they should not clean up the environment, but those market women are being taxed by local authorities, after paying taxes, you wake up one day and say this market is no more, and you level up the market without providing an alternative. I can tell you categorically that majority of the voters in Lagos State may not vote long party line, but along personality line. Having been Speaker of Ikeja Local Government and Chairman of Local Conference of Local Government Speakers in this state in 2002, I am telling you that majority of the voters in Ikeja will vote for me.
Can you tell us more about your pedigree in politics?
I want you to know that first of all, I am a politician. Secondly, I am fully integrated in Ikeja politics. I have been in politics in Ikeja at least for fifteen years now. I was a delegate during the zero party election in 1996. After then, I was the Assistant Secretary of Democratic Party of Nigeria at the local government level. After that, I was a Councilor under the Alliance for Democracy in 1999 and I was the Speaker of Ikeja Local Government between 1999 and 2002. I was also the Chairman of Conference of Speakers in Lagos State for that period. The issue of legislating is what I have been doing for long. I have done it before. If you go round my constituency, especially the most populated areas; Ipodo and Isale Awori, go there and ask about me, they will tell you that was the best councilor they ever had before or after.
What can you say about godfatherism in politics?
I have leaders in politics and I respect them. What most people regard as godfathers in politics is one arrowhead leader, that is adamant that he will never change his opinion. It happens in some states, but godfathers are those who impose people on others. I went through party primaries, all the rudiments of internal democracies. I emerged as the party’s candidate based on the love that the people have for me. So, I have a lot of leaders. I can’t really say I have a godfather except God.
Do you think it would be easy for the PDP to wrest power from ACN in Lagos State in April?
It is very easy. You see, people talk about performance, do they talk about the IGR. I am sure that they get over N22 billion IGR monthly and a percentage of the money goes into a company that doesn’t do anything for Lagos. You see, people now know the fact, they are discussing everyday on the facebook, nairaland, online social media. They are more enlightened. Why would you give N250 million to NBA, for what? How does NBA add value to Lagos, people know and people see. Where is the traffic situation, you say LASTMA, they are not doing what they are supposed to do. Look at INEC junction for instance, what they ought to put there is a fly over, if you put one million LASTMA officers there. It cannot solve the problem. That will make it easy. Look at Abuja, it does not have as many population as Lagos, look at the number of bridges and fly overs there. If they must make Lagos a megacity because of the commercial nature, then you must be ready to spend on infrastructure. Look at our street lights, they are powered by generators, that is not a lasting solution. Do you know how much they spend on diesel to keep the generators working. There are better solar powered street lights and it is working. All the projects they have been doing in Lagos, do they ever tell you the amount the amount they spend on them, but the federal government will always tell you the amount they are spending on any project. Have you ever had that in Lagos? it is not a transparent government and people are not going to vote for them. They don’t have programme for the masses. The BRT project they have for the masses, they have increased the fare; from Maryland to Fadeyi, they have increased the fare to N70 when you can enter an ordinary bus for N40. Okada riders will not vote for them, market women will not vote for them. They dislodge these people from their market. Do you think people will vote for those who put them out of business.