Seye Oladejo, former Chairman of Mushin Council, one-time Special Adviser on Commerce and Industry and Special Duties and Inter-governmental Relations Commissioner, succeeded Comrade Joe Igbokwe as Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State during the last Congress. He spoke with reporters on the Sanwo-Olu administration, the restriction on Okada operations, agitation for council autonomy and other issues. Deputy Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU reports.
Nine months after, Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) has cause to be happy about the choice of Babajide Olusola Aduragbemi Sanwo-Olu as flag bearer in last year’s election.
The governor is implementing the programmes of the party and fulfilling his campaign promises to Lagosians, underscoring the fact that the people have not voted for him in vain.
Many stakeholders have been assessing the administration. At party level, the publicity secretary, Seye Oladejo, said Sanwo-Olu is on course.
The former Special Duties commissioner also praised members of his team for their focus and commitment to Lagos.
“The current State Executive Council is made up of men intellectual and institutional experience. The commissioners and special advisers who make up the Lagos State government now have been around for some time. Indeed, they are bound to shine. It also speaks about that passion to deliver on the various programmes of government,” he said.
Remarkably, Oladejo pointed out that the governor is not working outside the famed ‘Lagos State Master Plan, which is all encompassing.
This has rekindled hope in people. “The blue light rail is back on board. Government is paying attention to the issue of transportation; there is more attention now as a result of the fallout of the partial ban and restriction on motorcycles and tricycles, and the rest of it.
“The waterways are being opened up. So, Lagosians should be rest assured that they have a government that is compassionate and determined to deliver on its mandate,” he added.
Oladejo hailed the restriction on motorcycles and tricycles. He said Sanwo-Olu only implemented the Lagos State Traffic Law that has been in force since 2012.
Thus, he explained that the imposition of was not new. Justifying the decision, the publicity secretary said: “The main explanation given by the government for this partial ban is security of lives and property.
Anytime a government gives reason for taking certain actions or passing certain laws as regards to the issue of security of lives and property, it is weighty and loaded.
“At that level of governance, the government is in the business of balancing issues, development and occurrences within the system in order not to throw the citizens into panic. We cannot dismiss the menace of motorcycle and tricycle riders in our state; we cannot close our eyes to insurgency, terrorism and kidnapping in our state.”
Oladejo added: “Few days ago, a former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, during an event on insecurity and checkmating organised crimes held in Lagos, gave out a piece of information that there was a plan to bomb Lagos in 2013 and that they intercepted 17 suitcases of explosives.
“I was a member of that cabinet, but he didn’t share that information with us at that level. That should tell you that, even a governor needs to manage information; if he has churned out that information, you can imagine the panic it will cause. So, we cannot really identify the exigencies that propelled the government to implement that law now.
“Even at that, government has shown compassion and understanding because the law itself says there should be a total ban, but it is now partial restriction. That shows understanding on part of the government.”
In Oladejo’s view, a government can only joke with security to its peril. He said the risk was not worth taking as lives and properties are involved, adding that since the influx of okada riders to Lagos from states where they were earlier banned portended risk, the challenge had to be tackled with speed.
If the sky did not fall when they were banned in Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Zamfara, Edo, Rivers and Abuja, there cannot be any consequence for their restrictions in Lagos.
“When they were banned, most of them just put their bikes on trucks and trailers and moved to Lagos in droves, having nowhere to sleep; having no place they can call their own. Some of them sleep on their motorcycles, kiosks and under bridges.
“All those things have implications to our security and environment. No responsible government will watch all these things happen and close its eyes.”
Many Lagosians have also hailed the decision, although they said government should have provided some kinds of palliatives begore the restriction.
Oladejo acknowledged that it was a painful decision. However, he said if the difficult and hard decision is not taken and there is a terrible occurrence, government would still be blamed by the people.
“There are developments that we citizens might not be privy to, but someone at the level of government, the threats are real. Governance itself, especially, between the governor and the governed, is a social contract by the virtue of voting him into power.
“We have consented certain powers to him; that on our behalf, he should go ahead and take decisions on our wellbeing, welfare and security, among others.
That is exactly what we are doing now and I want to appeal that we shouldn’t allow our emotions to boil over this and people should not because of this politicise the good intentions of government,” he said.
Following the restriction, the traffic gridlock had persisted. Whatcis government doing to alleviate the impact of the traffic snarl? The APC spokesman noted that the number of vehicles on the roads had increased because more people now ride their personal vehivles.
Oladejo, who said government is addressing the thecgridlock, added: “Just about two weeks ago, over a thousand LASTMA officials passed out from training; those ones are in the process of being deployed to address the gridlock. Since the rain stopped, government has embarked on massive construction and rehabilitation of our roads.
“Apart from that, as soon as partial restriction was announced, government rolled out 65 buses, which are not enough and as a result of that government has also ordered for more and is in the process of clearing them, over 500 of them.
“It is work in progress; it is not perfect. Government is also opening up the waterways. Few weeks ago, eight more ferries were procured for LASFERRY and before the end of the year, government has promised that would be increase to 30.
And the light blue rail is back on board too. We need to sacrifice because if we don’t, the implication could be a lot more far reaching than what we can imagine now.”
The Lagos State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has increased its criticisms of the ruling party in recent times. Is the opposition about to give APC sleepless nights? Oladejo said:” As far as I know, PDP is on life support generally and even worse in Lagos.”
To the publicity secretary, the Lagos PDP has been decimated by the gale of defections that hit the chapter before and after last year’s polls.
“Tell me who the key players are in PDP now. Majority of the key players, the leaders, followers are moving in droves to the ruling party. Tthey have seen the light, they have seen clearly now and Nigerians have not forgotten their 16 years of locust, when they looted our common patrimony. Nigerians won’t forget that in a hurry.”
But, how is the APC-led government grappling with the security challenge at the centre? Is the situation not getting worse? The party official said the past PDP administrations should take the blame for contemporary historic dislocation that led to the current faulty foundation of security.
He said the Buhari administration is not relenting in its efforts at restoring order into a state of pandemonium. Nigeria, Oladejo said, will survive the current tribulations.
As a former local government chairman, Oladejo lent its voice to the debate on grassroots governance and council autonomy.
He said the idea of local government is to take governance very closer to the people. “The belief is that, every problem like every politics is local; that people at the local level will know what their priorities are,” he stressed.
Oladejo attributed the hijack of council powers to the operation of a defective federal principle. “How did we come to the level that some of the powers possessed by local government were taken away?
“There were issues burdened on performance, burdened on delivery on the mandate of the people, even burdened on payment of salaries of local government staff. Are those issues being addressed?, he queried.
Instructively, Oladejo noted that some state governments have been known to carry out some lawful deductions from local government allocations. However, he said autonomy will become more meaningful, even at the local level, when councils exhibited better executive capacities.
He said: “The onus of control is on the various local government to show the country what they can do by getting the allocations directly; to show that there will be remarkable improvement in their various local governments as a result of this autonomy; to show government in those states where they believe they can only get allocation at the pleasure of the power that be, the governor, as it were in those states.”
Oladejo added: “It is also important that local government and state at various levels should also be on the same page because definitely, there are some projects from my experience that are beyond what local government can handle; projects burdened on environment, road construction and the rest of that.
“They will always need the collaboration of the state government to be able to handle some of it. By and large, it is not just about autonomy, it is about what they are able to do with the autonomy without looking side of the need for collaboration.
The issue too should not be unduly politicised because you will also find out that there are not many states where you have one party at the state level, another party at the local government level.
Perhaps when we have that, we can really test the water of how much of the autonomy the local government will end up with it at the end of the day.
“But at the end of the day, it will still end up as a family discussion and they agree on how to go about the various environmental projects in their local governments or the state as it were.
“So, it is a balancing game; there is a need to leverage on the opportunity provided now but they cannot jettison the role that the state government will have to continuously play.”