Otunba Bosun Oladele, the national secretary of South West Agenda for Asiwaju 2023 (SWAGA’23), representated the Irepo/Olorunsogo/Orelope federal constituency of Oyo state at the national assembly from 2015 to 2019. He is also a former commissioner of information in the state. In this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, he shares his thoughts on latest developments in the polity, especially the #EndBadGovernance protest. Excerpts:
A former Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, recently alleged that President Bola Tinubu is held captive by forces in the Presidential Villa, who have been feeding him with lies and shielding him from selfless Nigerians who can tell him the truth. As a former member of the House of Representatives, what is your take on this?
It is the most unfortunate statement coming from a serving Senator. Senators are legislators and not part of the Executive arm which the President represents.
It must be noted that the President contested election and won based on his own plan of action and purpose. It will be right to say that the man who planned and won election as President against all odds must also have a solid plan to take Nigeria out of the woods.
Going by the records, the President has not and does not interfere with the legislature and its legislative activities and has never castigated the legislature in any of his speeches whether in the public or private spaces. It must therefore be condemned in its totality that Senator Ndume will leave his own primary duty to be talking down on the President in such manner.
Maybe we should even ask if any of the Ministers or aides of Mr President complained to Senator Ndume that they have not been allowed to see Mr. President to warrant the Distinguished Senator becoming the spokesperson for such individuals.
I sincerely believe that statement was made primarily as an attack on the person of Mr. President and it ought to be rightly condemned.
One may ask the Senator how many Nigerians do get the opportunity of seeing him anytime they want and how many of their phone calls does he pick daily? Let’s not forget, Mr. President was elected to govern and find solutions to our challenges in Nigeria. If the President will leave State duties and dedicate his time to seeing everyone that wants to see him, wouldn’t that distract him from his duties?
Some Nigerians have condemned Ndume’s removal as Chief Whip by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio. Don’t you think his removal is too harsh?
Well, the Senate has its own rules governing conduct of its members. I am sure recourse must have been had to the rules before they chose to sanction Ndume. He is equally within his right to reject chairmanship or leadership position given to him afterall, he was only elected a Senator by his constituents and it is his colleagues that elected him into the leadership of the Senate. I personally don’t see him changing his pattern of entanglement with controversy but I will say this last one has gone too far from his usual.
The #EndBadGovernance protest is scheduled to begin today, August 1. Based on the experience of the #EndSARS protest, do you foresee things getting out of hand?
For those planning protest, we all must know that they have different goals for the planned protest.
On social media, there are three hashtags trending in Nigeria currently. They are #EndBadGovernance #TinubuMustGo and #Revolution2024. A careful interrogation of this will show you that the planned protest is merely a planned civilian coup d’etat. Otherwise, how does one judge an administration in just over a year in office?
Mr President has made a lot of reforms in governance especially regarding more money going to other tiers of government (states and local governments) from increased revenue to the Federal Government.
The increased revenue is majorly from fuel subsidy, increase in export products as against importation leading to the huge trade surplus currently being experienced in the country and unification of exchange rates. While agreeing that some of these policies, as bold as they are have brought with them hardship in the short run, they are policies that go into preparing a prosperous future for the country.
The reforms have also necessitated the various interventions and welfare programmes of the government like wage award of N30,000 for 6 months to civil servants at Federal, States and Local Government Levels. New minimum wage of N70,000 approved, food palliatives to federal legislators to serve their constituents, new approvals of 20 trucks of rice per States to state governments and FCT, Students’ loan currently being implemented, legacy infrastructural developments like coastal road etc, subsidised Compressed Natural Gas conversion kits for vehicles and introduction of gas powered automobiles for use in Nigeria and lately, the financial autonomy of the Local Governments etc
The question is have we really held our States and Local governments to account for all these provisions made to ensure comfort of our people? The answer is no! It has become a past-time for us as a people to bad-mouth the Federal government for lacklustre performance of our States and Local Governments. Who did this to us? If every government at the Federal level in Nigeria had worked with the dexterity sense of purpose, urgency and speed of Asiwaju Tinubu’s government since the return of Democracy in Nigeria, our Country should be mid-way to our destination as a leading Country globally by now. Yet the planned protesters are just waking up to believe and lead others by the nose to equally believe that Nigeria began as a country in 2023 when some people found it unbearable to loose an election.
Some presidential aides have fingered some leaders of the opposition parties as being the sponsors of the protest. Do you also share thar view?
It is very clear that those smarting from electoral defeat are majorly behind the protest. In fact, some of them hold spaces on X.com (formerly Twitter) from time to time to plan evil against Nigeria, Mr President and his government and it is high time the security agencies begin to profile such individuals and make them face the full wrath of the law for their incitement of others into lawlessness.
Please don’t mis- interprete me. The right to peaceful protest is legally guaranteed, however, the organisers are only about to give hoodlums the opportunity to cause anarchy and loot innocent citizens silly like it happened in Nigeria in 2020 and 2024 in Kenya. Many business owners lost their businesses and never survived the shock, many jobs were lost forever and so on. Tell me, who is responsible for such protest and who is going to guarantee that it will be peaceful?
The Supreme Court recently granted financial autonomy to local governments in Nigeria but there has been a debate on it as some said it violates the constitution. Others said the Supreme Court erred in its judgement as the LGs have no place in a federal constitution. As a legal expert, what it is your take on this?
On the Local Government financial autonomy, i believe it is one of the smartest things for Mr. President to do the way it was done. The legislation for it to become constitutional amendment is so simple, direct and somewhat compulsory since it was a Supreme Court judgment. This is an area where other governments have failed and Tinubu has succeeded.
The Local Government staff across Nigeria have demonstrated their support for the judgment. It becomes contemptuous for any State to deny concurrence to the legislation once they received it. Now, the people have regained their supremacy at the grassroots level. There will be more developmental projects for the people to enjoy and be engaged in.
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) said it had disbursed a total of N1.17bn to 20,000 students in five of the public tertiary institutions that applied for the loan. Do you think this scheme will achieve the aim for which it was created?
The Student Loan from NELFUND is a masterstroke in welfarism and it is a tell-tale sign that Mr. President is a “talk and do” President. However the Northern part of the Country took this more seriously than the southern part of Nigeria considering the number of applicants. Our youth must take advantage of this unique programme designed to ensure that no one is left behind educationally.
Also, the Investment by the Federal Government in Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) conversion kits and vehicles for mass transit will ensure alternative and cheaper power source for vehicles thus impacting transport of persons, goods and agricultural products positively.
There are various intervention programmes for Small and Medium scale enterprises, manufacturing, agricultural sectors and there is also the food palliative programme for every state of the Federation.
The President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a listening President who has the habit of speaking for the people regarding daily challenges while telling them steps being taken to ameliorate things. We all must agree that the rot being experienced in Nigeria now is a product of many decades of poor governance and neglect by Nigerians against Nigeria. The president his working assiduously to clear that rot and give us a cleaner, brighter and prosperous Nigeria. Let’s join hands with him to make that vision a reality.
