My Critics Are Mere Political Spectators

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 Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, incumbent Chairman of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, in this interview with JAMIU YISA, speaks about his second term ambition, the development he has brought to the LCDA, and other issues.

 

Why are you seeking a second term in office?

I’m seeking a second term to complete the programmes which I set out to do in the year 2008. Some of the programmes are the construction of four new primary schools. I have built two and I think we can build two more. The other point is that we have used the first term basically to grade many roads but we now believe that by the fact that we have been able to generate more internal revenue, we will do the asphalt laying on some of the roads. For example, just recently, we laid the asphalt on Kolawole Sebili street. This was done with the funds from our internally generated revenue(IGR). This tells you that between 2008 and now, we have increased the monthly IGR of the council from about N70,000 to about N4million. That means that we are in a better position now to construct new roads. Besides, the construction gives me the opportunity to do a second term and I have the vision and the idea of transforming Ejigbo from a marginalised community, from a community where amenities are not many to a new community that can now boast of a lot of amenities. This is the reason I believe that with my new programmes I’m going to put in place, I will be able to achieve my target of making Ejigbo a better place.

Do you think these are enough reasons to seek a second term in office?

Yes, because when you are trying to develop a society, you will face a lot of challenges. When I set out vision three-by-three, I put in it some certain things. First, I said if we get into government we will provide free uniforms for primary school pupils which we have successfully done for two sessions. I said if we get into government we will provide free meals for primary school pupils on Mondays and we are likely to extend it to Wednesdays and Fridays.

I promised that we will provide free drugs and we have done that consecutively for over 1,000 days. Now we have also promised at that time that we will build new health centres and we have built and commissioned three new health centres and we will still build three more. Not only that, we are also going to bring scan centres into all these health centres and that is another challenge to us to meet.

I promised that we will computerise the council which we have done. I also pledged that we will increase the number of our Community Development Associations, CDAs, and empower them and this we have also done. From the 15 which we met in 2008, we have now increased them to 61 CDAs. The next stage for the CDAs is to further establish them as the forth tier of government. That also is part of the new challenge that we are going to face.

At the time we got into office, there were only two arms of government instead of three. There was the executive and the legislature. I have now created the third arm with the construction of a customary court and we are empanelling the judges of the court. We now have to strengthen the court as a judicial arm of government. This is another challenge.

The health centres we have built, we need to increase the people’s access to them and there are other issues that are coming up. When we talk about roads, which is one of the major issues here, we have concentrated more on the major in-let roads. The estate main gate before you enter the estate and Ifoshi Road before you enter Ejigbo main town have been improved. We have now entered into an understanding with the state government to work on our major trunk roads.

Lagos State government is already interested in those areas. This is an opportunity for us now to be able to work on the inner roads. Many of these inner roads were un-motorable when we came on board. But now, we have made them motorable by constructing about 160 culverts. .

Another reason it is more important for us to come back is the link bridge project that we have started. Many of us know that for us to decongest Ejigbo, we have just only one route and that is the road that comes from Isolo to Ejigbo. But now, we have made it our priority to develop another link road out of Ejigbo via a bridge over the canal and we have called it the Ejigbo/Ajao Estate link bridge. We have been on this project since 2008. We have done the design and we have been talking with the Ministry of Works. Only recently, the ministry approved our design and the next thing now is the construction. It is part of our agenda to be part of this major development in Ejigbo LCDA. So, these are the issues that make us want to come back and complete the works which we have started.

What are the other challenges that you faced and how were you able to conquer them?

Land was a major problem. When we came on board, we thought that it will be easy for us to source for land very cheaply in the community. We have many capital projects like schools, health centres, customary courts, public toilets that we needed lands to put them in place, but it was not as easy as we thought. Many people want to sell their lands at exorbitant prices despite our efforts. In fact, at the beginning, we had problems with the police because we wanted to negotiate with owners of identified lands that were abandoned and some with uncompleted structures whether we could buy from them at cheaper rates but many of them were scared and they had to bring in their lawyers and the police to harass us. That explains why most of the projects are sited often in the perpheries of the town because most people who have lands in the main town were not ready to sell their lands. So land was a major challenge.

Two, revenue was also a challenge. When we started, there was no money and whether we liked it or not, we must run the government. We have never even owed our staff since we got into office. For us to do all these, many times we have to undertake serious management of funds. At the same time, we also recognise the fact that we need to increase our revenue.

Therefore, we source for investment in Public Private projects. The first thing we did was to begin the enumeration of properties, buildings and shops in the LCDA. From there,we were able to computerise our data base. We then went into negotiation with the state government because there has to be uniformity in local government rates across the state.

When we took our rate from the state, we found out that each shop keeper will pay the rate of N5,500. When they told us they cannot pay such, we had to negotiate with them and they agreed to paying N3,500 per annum. The beauty of our computerisation programme was that nobody who has his/her name with us can escape not paying anymore. For the first time, we now have people paying in arrears because in the past when you don’t pay in a year, you can dodge it when paying in subsequent years but that is not possible anymore.

Another thing is the bonding with the revenue collectors. Bonding means to sign an agreement with the government that if you are found to be putting public money in your pocket, you will be prosecuted and jailed. This of course discouraged them from behaving recklessly with public funds in their pockets. Then,we provided an incentive for them so that they can move around and do their job better.

At the end of the year too, we give them 10 percent of whatever they were able to generate in a whole year as a bonus. All these encouraged them to be much more aggressive and that is why today we are talking about generating up to N4 million in a month, though we still need more revenue because funding was a problem.

Third, our perception on issues, the amount of investment on state projects is not much here as we have in places like Yaba and Agege. Right now, the state government is constructing about 24 roads in Agege under the LNGBC programmes. I wish I was a beneficiary of such programme. The same thing in Badia. About 18 roads are going to be constructed by the state government there too.

Imagine if the state government comes here and constructs 24 roads, and then imagine how we are going to feel. It will be a booster to our efforts. So, we are trying to draw the attention of the state government to do some of these things here because of the peculiar character of our people. When we were under Oshodi/Isolo and Mushin local governments, this place was neglected. Therefore, anybody coming into office here needs to do double work to be able to succeed. This is another challenge.

But sir, you are so close to the state government. Why not use your connections to bring them down to your local government?

The point is this, it is not as if we have not tried or that we have been totally unsucessul. I will give you an instance. We collaborated with the Lagos State Public Works Corporation to tar most of our major roads. We started from Pako down to Egbe bridge. We supported them in terms of equipment and they provided the asphalt and labour. We did same with Idimu and Ifoshi roads.

It is not as if we didn’t work, part of the issue is that when the government is doing the budgeting , there is quite a lot of competition and struggle. If you take me as the chairman coming from Ejigbo LCDA and compare me to Isolo LCDA which has a member in the House of Representatives, a member in the State Assembly, the chairman of the party and the Special Adviser to the governor on Works and Infrastructure, who actually takes decision. So when the four of them go to see the governor, competiting for a single project with me, you can see that they are going to be much more successful than me alone going for the same project.

These factors are there but we are making progress because in the last election, we incorporated a member of House of Representatives and House of Assembly into our system and they are ready to work with us to ensure that Ejigbo is not left behind in the scheme of things anymore.

You seem to have achieved more in your first term and still have more laudable programmes for the LCDA. What then do you think could have been responsible for the protest against your second term ambition?

It is the struggle for power. Even if you paved the streets of Ejigbo with gold, some people will still want to pull you down. So we should ask ourselves, in America why are they struggling for power? The Democrats and the Republicans still struggle for power because power struggle is a permanent trouble. It is simply not because the environment is not conducive but because the opposition has not articulated a programme of action. At least, when I wanted to start, I came out with a clear programme and I called it Vision Three-By-Three, in which I stated what I wanted to do in three broad areas. But this people are yet to articulate a clear position on what they wanted to do. All the complaint is that Bamigbetan has not done well.

That should not be the arguement and I cannot be part of the arguement. What do they want to do that will make a difference? Let us even see your mental magnitude or capacity to look at problems, analyse them and proffer solutions because these are what you will carry into governance. It is not trying to bring somebody down. That is not how to do these things. It is not about destructive campaign. For those who decided to go and protest, protest culture is part of democracy anyway.

There is no way anybody can have 100 percent performance. There will always be one thing or the other that needs to be done. Besides, there is nothing that I promised that I have not achieved. Those protesting are only expressing their minority right. The minority will always have a say while the majority will have its way and that is the beauty of democracy. Those protesting are not representing the views of the majority of party members.

They are not even bonafide members of this party. We don’t know them here. It is just that when election is around the corner, even those that have never done anything will be making noise. If we open our party attendance register, I’m sure that they cannot find their names on it. Everybody wants to associate with ACN because ACN is in power and anybody nominated by the party is as good as having won and that provides the desperation. But I can assure you that they are mere spectators. When the real business of politics starts, they will be nowhere to be found.

You said they are not members of the party but don’t you think they might be used by the opposition to polarise the party in this area?

It is a normal game and we are used to it. The point, is how far can they go? The party here is cohesive. If this was happening about two years ago, we could have said, well, maybe they would have some mileage but now, the party is fully reconciled. They have no followership and that is the reason ordinarily we should just ignore them. My position was that we should ignore them but people said we should not allow them to create a wrong impression.

Our people who went from here to counter them were about 200 and they are just one sixth of those who attend our meetings. If we are to move our people there, Acme Road will not contain them. One just has to be very careful because if the game is on your side, you also should not try to make the system hot for yourself. They are mere spectators, they don’t understand the game but they add to the drama of politics. So, the protesters are part of the drama. When the chips are down, they will know that they are just part of the architecture and not the real foundation of politics

Let’s veer off a bit. What is your take on the spate of insecurity cum bombing in the country?

For me, it is a very clear case that the regime in government is not in control. Jonathan’s regime is not in control of situations in the country. When you talk of being in control, first and foremost, you talk of intelligence gathering. What is the capacity of this regime to gather intelligence and protect the state? You see, it is weak.

If somebody could drive into the Nigeria Police Headquarters and there was no detection, I’m sorry, I can’t see it.

Our policies over the years have always created the basis for the people to be recruited for some of this purposes. We have always told the people that in a country, an underdeveloped state like Nigeria, the government needs to engage in social welfare and decentralised governance. A country that is so rich and unable to provide free education for the children from primary school to university level and you expected that you are going to get patriotic citizens, you won’t get such because you have not invested in their lives when it matters most.

A country that cannot provide free drugs, that commercialises drugs in public hospitals, such a country will not get patriotic citizens because there is nothing like security of lives. Security is the people that will secure the state. They secure the state because they benefit from it. But running a government that is totally oblivious and insensitive to the fundamental interest and needs of the majority of Nigerians, you will always find yourself to be totally insecure.

The best guarantee for national security is social security. When you give the people their protection, access to funds and access to be able to eat three square meals a day,they will refuse to be recruited to burn or bomb houses. PDP is also a problem because they are so committed to appropriation of surplus rather than to ensure justice and fairness in the distribution of resources. It will always compound the problem of security. The absence of social security is the major cause of national insecurity.

How do you think this can be solved?

The point of course is for us to go back to the constitution itself. The constitution gives certain fundamental objectives of state policy in which it was stated that Nigerian children should have the right to education from primary to tertiary institution. Let us give the Nigerian child the right to free education, free drugs and health delivery services. Let us create a citizenry that is healthy and enlightened . I know that president Jonathan does not have the will. He is behaving like a president that has no further achievement to record. He is just going to be playing around for the next four years and that is why he is coming up with the issue of six years single term because he knows that it is a jamboree government that he intends to run. He is not going to run a government that will be responsible and responsive to the needs of Nigerians.

He is contented with the fact that he his the first person from the minority tribes to become president but how to use that position to now show that a president from the minority can actually do better than a president from the majority should be his major challenge. He is not concerned about that. It is very insulting that the next thing that he brought before us was six years single term.

But we have a president who said, give me one year before I begin to assess myself. One year means massive losses in the life of Nigerians. 365 days is too long for a president to be able to assess his government. These are the issues that we are saying should be corrected. The government is supposed to have a shorter assssement period to be able to know whether he is derailing or not and for it to better assess the security and economic challenges of the country.

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