Hon. Musibau Taiwo Kolawole, who is the Deputy Speaker
of the Lagos State House of Assembly, is the most experienced member of the
House having been in the system as a lawmaker since 1999.
He boasted that he has been part of the transformation
of Lagos State since the new dispensation began, adding that he still wants to
do more for the people of Ajeromi/Ifelodun Constituency 1, who he is
representing in the Assembly, and be part of the further development of Lagos
State in the next dispensation.
He specifically faulted the government on the recent reduction
in the fuel pump price, which he said should have been reduced to about N40
from N97 instead of the current N87.
Hon. Kolawole also speaks about his achievements in
the Assembly, how he has turned Ajegunle around, why his people love him and
why he wants to return to the Assembly for the fifth time in this interview he
granted us recently.
The Federal Government has just reduced the price of
petroleum from N97 to N87 per litre, do you see this as a welcome development
or as an electoral gimmick?
To me, it is exhibition of inefficiency, when you want
to do something like this, there must be basis for it, you know that since oil
price has reduced worldwide, there should be reduction in pump price. They are
not doing anything special. They have not even come up to tell us why it was
only N10 that was reduced from a litre of fuel. Everybody knows that the oil
price dropped from about $100 to $45, and that supposed to contribute more than
N10 reduction. It ought to be reduced to about N40 per litre. This is not how
to run a nation; you cannot even run a company like this, it’s wrong. You need
to come up with analysis to show that the only gain we are able to make from
all these fall is N10. That is the transparency we are talking about, and when
people say they are corrupt, they would be defending themselves. Nobody is
interested in this arbitrary reduction as if they are doing us a favour. The
reduction should be based on the fact that there is a drop in the oil price. Unfortunately
for us, we are even importing the product. I don’t know why people are
celebrating this because there is nothing to celebrate, they are still stealing
our money; nobody should steal our money again. They said they wanted to remove
fuel subsidy, which was why they increased the price to N97 per litre then, now
there is a fall in the price of that same product, tremendous fall not just
ordinary. It is one those things we are faulting the Federal Government about.
Don’t you think the fall in the price of crude oil would
affect the budget of the country?
That is another aspect of their inefficiency, when
they took over government, how much was a barrel of crude oil, it was in the
neighbourhood of $20 or $30, even then we were talking of a boom. The price came
from a single digit figure, we are talking of a boom, a sensible and reasonable
person would know that any closed door would one day open. Any unrealistic
price in the modern world of ours would be checked later and that ought to have
been the basis of our planning. Even if the oil is going for more than $100, we
know that the price was about $30; we supposed to have taken some steps and use
the excess to build up things that would cushion the effect of the fall because
there must be fall. That is why we are talking about infrastructure. If they
had used the excesses to fix our power sector, we would not feel it because the
money would have been able to take care of the effect of the fall. What did
they do, they spent the money, they said it was their product. They spent the
money anyhow; we could not even see the effect of it for almost eight years of
unprecedented gain. Gain that supposed to turn the lives of Nigerians the other
way and take care of our future, they messed it up. No government of Nigeria
has benefited what this government has benefited from oil. We are talking of
the budget; it is only going back to the normal state. You know the simple
economic theory of demand and supply is that when there is high demand that
makes it very significant compared to supply, the price would adjust itself. When
the disparity between the supply and demand is very significant on the part of
supply, the price would adjust itself downward. But the economic theory says
that we would look for an equilibrium point, where the supply and demand would
balance. That is where we supposed to be aiming at. We are not supposed to
think the oil price would to be like that because there is war in Iraq, there
is war in Libya and Saudi Arabia would listen to OPEC to reduce its supply.
That is not how we supposed to plan our lives because we know that all things
would never be equal, but if a government now comes up to show their
inefficiency and ignorance, then you begin to wonder. Are they not the ones,
who said they have grown the Nigerian economy to be the best in Africa not
knowing that the oil price could come down? We did not even plan for it, roads
we cannot do, there is no single infrastructure that we can point to. They said
Lagos State has siphoned the money of the people and that we over-bloated the
prices of the roads we build. At least, we are building roads, and secondly, we
are not building their type of roads. We are building roads that can last 25 years
in Lagos State now and that depends on the level of asphalt that we use and
this determines the price of roads.
They said they performed well in agriculture whereas
in Ajegunle area of Lagos, I cannot see anything they have done. Let us come
down to their level and see their performance in agriculture, if you are a
cassava farmer and your aim is to get to the end users of the product, then PDP
must have scored zero. If my cassava is for producing ‘gari,’ I would need a
mill and the mill would be powered by electricity. Where there is no
electricity, you would need generating set and you would need to buy fuel to
run the set. So, they have scored zero, and if you want to limit it to selling
to other people that would mill it, before you can make money to even feed
yourself, you would almost die. If you go to a farmer to buy cassava, do you
know how much they sell the quantity that would fill a big Cabstar Pick-Up Van,
which has six tyres, it sells for about N45,000. How beautiful they can come
out and deceive everybody, they are just exhibiting their insincerity, they
cannot even lay hands on one road that they have been able to do. Now, somebody
from such a party would be boasting that they have performed, if they have
performed, then there is never a failure, everybody is a performer.
Let us talk about your campaign, Ajegunle is
developing, but it is like there is still much to be done. So, what do you want
to do differently if you are given another chance by your people in the coming
general elections?
We flagged off our campaign last week and when it was
my turn to talk because if I spoke first that would be the end of the campaign,
the reaction was overwhelming. You must be able to tell the people, where you
have started, where you are presently and what you want to do differently, they
would now weigh it whether you have performed or not. When I took over as the
representative of the area, what the area was known for were heaps of refuse
and cholera outbreak. If there is no cholera outbreak in any part of the
country, it must be in one area or the other in Ajegunle. But, today, cholera
cannot come to us; you cannot see heaps of refuse again. When we took over, you
could count the number of roads that were tarred. If you wanted to count the
number of tarred roads then, you would not count anything. But now, you cannot
count the number of good roads in the area, they are so many. The only ones you
could count are the ones that were not tarred, that is the opposite of what we
met on ground and that is performance. I told them to go to all our schools and
tell me one school that does not have a new building in Ajegunle Area, just one
out of the lot.
Would you say that is your work as a legislator?
Then, you cannot count my achievements because the
first law of the House every year is Appropriation Law, there can never be
development without the law. That is the law that determines how we spend our
money and what we spend the money on. So, if the government can be looking in
our direction and say they want to do some things, it did not just come there,
it is because somebody has done some underground works. I am not a new guy, I
was happy, when somebody was talking on a morning programme on LTV 8, ‘Owuro
Lawa,’ and he was comparing those local governments with experienced legislator
and those that change their legislators every election and he gave example of
my constituency, it shows that it is advantageous to repeat your members and
make them cognate members. Cognate experience affords you so many things, you
are known and when you stand up to talk, people would listen to you. You would know
how to manouvre and get things done in your local government. An experienced
member would not move a motion about a bad road in his constituency, no, you
only need to pick your phone and call the commissioner and tell him about the
road. A sensible commissioner would not toy with a legislator, especially on
the issue of bad roads and when it is too much, you talk to the Governor. When
I call the Governor and tell him ‘I want to see you sir,’ he would say ‘okay, I
would ask them to call you, when I am ready.’ He would definitely call later
and say ‘HKT, I am ready now.’ I would talk to him, he would tell me to put it
in writing and he would minute on it and send it to the commissioner, who
cannot reject the recommendation of the Governor. That is the difference
between us and them and that has given us out as a performer. Also, I am a
grassroots politician, I talk to my people, I mix with them and I make them
realize that I am not God, that it is only God that can solve all our problems.
But, I have been trying to change the lives of our people. There is no time
they see me that they would not say we have turned this place around. I give
thanks to God for that and people have given me tremendous support. I always
tell them that I thank them for indulging me, I am en extremely indulged
politician and I don’t toy with it. I don’t toy with it and I thank them
anytime I have the opportunity. If not for the number of times I have been here,
I would not have been able to do many things that I have done and I might not
be as popular as I am. All these things boil down to them.
Apart from infrastructural development, people are now
talking about stomach infrastructure, what have you been able to do in this area?
There is this saying that ‘teach people how to fish
instead of giving them fish.’ A Governor that ought to be teaching people how
to have poultry, but who is now giving them chicken, then it is terrible. That
is not our own way, I am a Yoruba man and we have our own culture, which is very
good, we are different from others, we are gifted. In any area of development,
study a Yoruba man, we are there. It is because we are not facing fact with
some government officials that are playing on the intelligence of the people
that something like this is happening. There is never a Yoruba man that is
dull, so you are insulting them by giving them chickens, when you supposed to
be teaching us how to own poultry. That is what I am doing, I empower our
people, I enjoy seeing them working. It is wrong to give them money, I derive
joy in helping an indigent student pay school fees because that would make the
person a free mind, and it would liberate him/her. I was able to get to where I
am because I was highly educated, while some of my colleagues are not. If
somebody tells me ‘I want to be making stove thread,’ I would be happy to help
the person because that is knowledge, which is not just about reading books. There
is one of my guys, I was so happy about him. I met the Chairman of one company,
who said one of the guy is the best agent of the company that they were even
taking him to an exhibition in London. I was very happy, those are people that
belong to my group, I talk to them every time to be work hard and be the best.
That is what I do, I have got a house, where I want to be using for talk show
for our youths so that we can talk to them and energise them and tell them how
they can become good citizens. We are from Ajegunle, we have the energy, we are
strong, we believe that we don’t have anywhere to go other than up because we
are already on the ground and that is the difference between us and other
people. It is working, we are working, we are building human resources. There
was a mammoth crowd at the campaign ground, they want to touch me; they want to
talk to me. I am happy because I am seeing the results first hand. I am not
rich, I spend all my money. Sometimes, I borrow money to take care of my people
and I pay back, I don’t care because I am an extremely indulged politician and
that makes me happy. Sometimes, I sit down and look at everything; I imagine
that in the next 20 years, they would be talking about one man that kept coming
to the Assembly as if they dashed him that position. I am happy about that.
You have been the Majority Leader, you are now the
Deputy Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, how do you see all these
working for you by the time you come back in the 8th Assembly after
winning the election by the grace of God?
I owe everything to God, I know that God has been so
kind to me, He has given me the grace. I was making jest of myself one time
that, when Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan aka Yayi newly came to the Assembly,
I was part of those that guided him on the job of a legislator, but he has seen
it all now. I am happy for him, but I am not also retarded, I am growing, I am
growing in experience and in everything, my coming back would benefit Lagos
State more than they can ever imagine. I look at my experience, exposure and
the way I talk, it is no more like before like a new guy that came into the
assembly. I am a mathematician, and I am also a politician. I even prefer to be
referred to as a politician and as a legislator. I know I am going to impact
more on the society, I have become like a role model, and people use me to
campaign in their respective local governments. They would say ‘allow me to go
back again like HKT that has been there several times.’ They look up to me for
a lot of things, so I open my brain; I read a lot because I could be called
upon anytime to find solution to a problem. If you are caught wanting, they
would not like it. My colleague that sits beside me always tells me to allow her
to talk first before I talk since I am now well known. I am so used to this job
now and that is me. When I was given admission to read statistics, I didn’t
plan to read it, it was my brother that filled the form for me. When they said
I was given admission, my first point of call was how to pronounce ‘statistics’
and ‘statistician.’ After pronouncing it very well, I now started looking at
the course, and I developed interest in it very well. In the first semester, I
didn’t do well, but subsequently, I improved and developed interest in it. So,
I have developed myself to be a legislator, I love the job, I know virtually
everything a legislator should know, I know how to ask questions and I know
what to look for, when you are preparing a budget, and that is working for me.
I don’t want to talk much, but at the end of the day, I talk much. I look
forward to coming back into the House; I told my people that I would make them
proud. They would be happy with my record.
What aspect of education, from the local government
level to the federal level, do you think we should look at in the next
dispensation?
We need to re-orientate the parents; some of us also
find ourselves in that problem. I don’t think some of these private schools are
better than our public schools. For you to be a teacher in a public school, you
must have an NCE, and when you hold this certificate, you are a teacher. But,
most of these private schools would just employ secondary school graduates or
even those who did not finish secondary schools as teachers. Also, we say they
don’t do well in public schools. If half or one quarter of the money you are
expending to take your children to those mushroom private schools are used as
our contributions to the school under PTA, then you will solve most of the
problems in the school. However, the Lagos State Government has done
tremendously well in education; I know where we started from. I know, when I
was the Chairman of the House Committee on Education, we had some intervention
funds, we had school rehabilitation projects. When we came into government,
there were a lot of dilapidated and collapsed school buildings, but today, you
cannot see that because government went into school rehabilitation projects and
they are working. If you go into our schools, you would see that they are
conducive for learning. This particular government has taken a step further
with the EKO project, which is building human resources, they are training
teachers. That has shown in the performance of the teachers and our students,
the project is complementing infrastructure. You cannot just build
infrastructure without building the teachers. We need to re-orientate our
parents. You need to do these things to better our economy, if your children go
to public schools, it does not mean your children would be poor. When we were
doing the lying-in-state of the late Chief Oluwole Awolowo in the Assembly, I
said that we the progressives are the grooming area for the conservatives and
we don’t know. I went to a local primary school and Saint Charles Secondary
School in Oshogbo, Osun State. That did not limit me; I am not limited at all.
We put our children in private schools, where they meet people from the top. I
tell my children, I have seen the two sides because I mixed with the poor in
the school then, and I am now mixing with the upper class, so I am in the best
position to make laws for people.
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