Why I Want to Become Orile-Agege LCDA Boss-Adeboye Adebayo

Adeboye Adebayo is a stalwart of All Progressive Congress in Orile Agege Local Council Development Area of Lagos State. He is aspiring to become the Chairman; Orile Agege LCDA in the upcoming Lagos State Local Council Election. He recently spoke with our correspondent in his residence at No 35 Raji Street, Papa Ashafa on issues border around his ambition and plans for the people. Excerpts…

Tell us about yourself and your political background in Agege politics?

Thank you sir, My name is Adeboye Adebayo as you rightly know, I am from Ward D in Orile Agege, the largest Ward in the whole of Agege and Orile Agege, I have been living in Papa Ashafa in the last twenty one years, I spent all my youthful age there, infact I got married to my lovely wife; Mrs. Ajoke Adebayo from Papa Ashafa, I am living at Raji Street , this is where I have been living in the last ten years so to speak, I had lived in Dopemu road, before I moved to Kareem Babatunde with my brother and I have been living here in Raji Street since, while my wife who was born and bred in Papa Ashafa was from the second Street, Olumo Street where I hooked up with her. I have been actively involved in Agege politics since 1998, though  I have been in politics before then but paticipatorily since 1998 during the formation of BATCO which later metarmophosed to Mandate Group. I am a strong member of Mandate group any day, I was also a former trustee member of Agege Voluntary Campaign Organisation; AVCO, a former member of Agege Change Movement; ACM, TACO, Emeritus group among other numerous groups then including the ones I founded myself. Infact, I have been at one point or the other member of the same group with all our leaders. My paths have crossed that of all our leaders at a time or the other, you know I am an advocate of youth development and human emancipation  with life more abundant for all, I have been actively around for a long time.

You are aspiring to become the Chairman of your LCDA, How much of the problems facing Orile Agege do you know?

The problem facing my LCDA, I mean Orile Agege in general is much of social problem and that is not different to what is happening in every other communities in Lagos and in the Country as a whole but peculiarly speaking, I know the issue with my area is basically lack of general social education, not in terms of school going but basic understanding of the way of life which means, how to relate well with people in the neighborhood, how to define what I want to do with myself in life, how to train my children well despite the general problems associated with the city so that they will not become burden to the society, how to really develop myself to become useful to myself and the society. That has been the major problems of my community. You will recall that our pragmatic Governor  Akinwunmi Ambode in one of the town hall meetings laid much emphasis on family values as it affects our society as a whole in terms of too many negative characters we have in the society today and it is everywhere not here alone but I believe government at all levels must look into it the way Lagos State Government under Governor Ambode is looking at, the society is the end result of happenings in each family unit.

 

If you were to be current Executive Secretary or Sole Administrator of the LCDA, what are the things you are likely to do differently?        

Well, each and every individual in politics are there for different purposes, likewise people aspire for political offices for different reasons. My plans may be different from that of Executive Secretary or the Sole Administrator as the case may be, the point is that we are all being guided by laws made for us by the State House of Assembly, the direction of the State Executive Council and the manifesto of our party. More so, the tenure of an Executive Secretary or Sole Administrator is not fixed but as an elective Chairman with four year tenure guaranteed, you can do a lot of things differently because you know the time frame of your tenure in office, hence you have solid plans for implementation within the period.

 

Most people would tell you that they do not feel the presence of LG. How best do you think people can benefit from LG? 

Yes, there are many ways the people can benefit from the local government administration because it is the closest tier of government to them. But first, it takes the understanding and broad analysis of people’s problems to know the right solutions to them. When you are close to the people, you will know and understand their problems, when you analyse the problems, you will know the cause (s) of the problems and you will understand the very best way to solve the problems. Then as I said earlier, the implementation of such solutions will be guided by laws made for us by State House of Assembly, the direction of the State Executive Council and the manifesto of our party. Let me give you one typical example in my community, many young school students usually do not always make all their relevant papers once at the School Certificate Exams, after the first failure, the zeal to attempt the exams again will be gone because by the time they were awaiting their results, they have engaged themselves in some factory works on casual working basis or some menial jobs at the popular computer village or Aluminium village among others which has been earning them some wages so by the time their results come out, to resit for it will be difficult and some parents do not also help matters because at that point, an understanding parent supposed to counsel their children against abandoning education halfway but they will not, they will just keep silence as if nothing is happening and the child will continue making money from his or her wages and before you know it, he will rent a 10by10 boys quarter room, impregnating a girl of his status from the next street like him and begin to raise a family. What kind of family can such people raise and imagine that happens in the 10 households in a street, so all of these contribute heavily to all the negativities and social vices we are witnessing today. So in a document i prepared for my plans if elected, we intend to bridge many gaps including this one by establishing a working Education Centre where school leavers will be attending while awaiting their results to learn some vocations, other skills and even academical classes to continue to prepare yourself ahead of your result, if your result is positive, you will move on and your parent will move on with you and your parent will still see you as their responsibility because you have not engaged yourself in any job that will reward you with any form of wages. But if your result is other wise, the zeal to resit for the exams will still be there because you have not left the educational environment. So this will drastically reduce the breeding of immature families thereby reducing social vices in our society, you know as we have said, the society is the result from each family unit in terms of value.  There are several other ways the people can, not even can, but should benefit from local government administration, they are all stated in that my document, “My Agenda For The People of Orile Agege LCDA as the Executive Chairman”, i will give you a copy. We intend to build infrastructure to attract investment and development that will aid growths of our community. We will engage in wide  training of artisans in collaboration with the the manufacturers of products locally and internationally so that services provision can be at its best in our community hence people from other local government will definitely come for service provision as Ladipo is known for spare parts, Somolu is known for printing works, Orile Agege will be known for quality service delivery in the major sectors of artisanship. We will not ignore economy diversification plans of the country, though there are no lands in our community to do farming but we will explore Agricultural opportunity in the area of preservation of finished Agricultural products, we will support and encourage our people in adding values to finished Agricultural products for selling in our major markets in addition to our plan to export quality service delivery to other part of Lagos and beyond. We will look for every opportunities to move Orile Agege forward, we will look beyond government, we will utilise every opportunities that come our way, we will work very hard because Orile Agege must wear a new look under my watch and it is possible hence we will achieve it. I will give you that document to see more of our plans, we are really prepared.

 

Crime and flooding are two problems in the community, how do you intend to tackle this?

Well, crime as in actions violating the laws of the land is not peculiar to my local council alone, it is every where in the World, however, the rate at which we are tackling it ranges from country, state or local council to the other. For us in Orile Agege as I reiterated earlier, we are going to approach the menace holistically from family value to home training to robust academic and  skills training to employment opportunities created through a conducive and enabling environment in collaboration with relevant agents of governments both at the state and federal, the NGOs plus other foreign agencies and  missions. You will recall that our pragmatic Governor Ambode in most of his speeches talks about family value, and also, at the 16th COWLSO conference in Lagos under the leadership of our amiable mother; Mrs Ambode, much emphasis were laid on getting the family value right. My mentor & political father; Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola also reiterated the need to have a strong family value & Governor Ajimobi also corroborated it at the conference because we all agree that the society as a whole is the bigger result of the smaller units called family. You will agree with me that the army of unemployed, unemployable, untrained, uneducated and unskilled youths is a threat to the progress of the entire society. We are going to really focus on that holistically. On Flooding, a very big kudos must go to our pragmatic Governor Ambode because of his clear vision of new Lagos State, the government under his watch has indeed lifted up the bar of environmental degradation drastically. The Ministry of Environment under one of our able leaders in Orile Agege; Dr Samuel Adejare has embarked on many programmes from evacuation and dredging of Rivers and Canals to sensitisation of our people to stop the menace of dropping waste on the water ways and to also desist from building structures on the canals among other things that are major causes of flooding. For us at the council, our environmental policy will be to complement the efforts of the state government in that regards and also to continue to sensitise our people on the need to keep our environment safe and clean and also we will not hesitate to enforce environmental laws where necessary for the betterment of all.

What is your take on Local Government Autonomy?

Yes for me, autonomy is just a phenomenon by which you can operate without to much supervision, if the lawmakers grant it, it will be welcome  and if not so be it. But the most important thing is the disposition of individual public office holders towards his or her subjects. Without autonomy at the local government or some other institutions, we see people performing excellently and with autonomy, people that will not perform, will not. So for me on the issue of autonomy, I am neither here nor there, all I know is that I have a very clear vision and an uncommon great mission to serve my people selflessly and meritoriously within the ambit of the available law and that I will achieve by the special grace of God. I thank you sir.