Hon. Tosin Oshunuga is the sole administrator of Lekki Local Government Development Area. If you are looking for a man who is so passionate about education and believe that having a good educational background determines how far you go in life, don’t look further, Hon. Tosin is the man. With the little time he has spent so far, he has contributed immensely to the Education System of Lekki LCDA. In an exclusive interview with City People’s SUNDAY ADIGUN, he spoke on how he emerged as the sole administrator of Lekki LCDA and some of the challenges he is facing in the community.
Who is Lekki LCDA sole administrator?
Hon. Tosin Oshunuga Lekki LCDA, I came on board last year as one the 57 sole administrators sworn in by his Excellency Gov. Ambode. Immediately I was sworn-in, one of my cardinal programme is on education, and we have a community called Refugee highland, its across the Lagoon, we have two primary school on that highland and about 10 settlements/communities in that highland, but unfortunately there is no secondary school, to get access to secondary education, students will have to cross the Lagoon to attend Community High School Lekki, that prompted me to construct a school boat, 200 capacity and I provided life jacket.
The school boat runs from Monday to Friday free of charge to convene students and teachers to and fro and in that area we have so many communities there like I said, that was the first thing I tackled.
Though, I will still come back to that but before that, I want you to tell me about Lekki, because this is different from the Lekki we know.
Lekki LCD was carved out from Ibeju Lekki Local Government in 2003. Lagos State created additional 37 LCDA and the first Executive Secretary is Hon. Abayomi Ayeola and also was elected as the first Executive Chairman of this Local Government and later he was also appointed as the Executive Secretary in 2007 at the expiration of his tenure, though he later resigned in 2008 to contest Local Government election again but unfortunately Hon. Ajayi won the election and thereafter Hon. Olaiya became the Chairman through political arrangement after Hon. Ajayi then Barrister Ogidan became elected Chairman in 2011 after the expiration of his tenure. Bamidele Hassan was appointed as the Executive Secretary in January 2015, and in June 2016, I became the sole administrator.
Your journey into politics, how did it start?
My journey into politics started in LGGG, as a young man that have passion for politics, I became a member of SDP, after the political dispensation was distrupted in 1993 by the military administrator, I contested for counsilorship in 1995 under zero party, but unfortunately I lost the election, I recontested in 1997 for the position of councilor under the platform of UNCP then I won, I became the Counsellor that represented the ward covering the whole Ibeju Lekki Local Government under Hon. Okanlawon Soniyi, the Executive Chairman.
Since then I have been in the political arena of this Local Government. In 1998 Abdusalam Abubakar dissolved the five political party then and that opened doors for more participants APP, AD, PDP were formed and registered, then I was a member of APP before we move to AD and to AC then I became the LGA Secretary in 2005 to 2011, and still maintain my position when it was changed to ACN, I also served in Barrister Olaitan Ogidan administration as the Chief of Staff.
Now let’s talk about your achievements, you have mentioned one earlier, so what else have you done so far?
Thank you, I have constructed a block of 6 classroom with Head Teachers office and 6 toilets at Ipogun LG Primary School and it was commissioned sometimes in March. There are so many programs this administration has done, very soon we are giving Bursary Award to our students in different higher institution.
When I came on board I discovered that we have shortage of teachers in both our primary and secondary school. So I recruited 56 non-pensionable teachers in order to argument the existing numbers of teachers we have in our schools and they are doing wonderfully well.
I also purchased 200 executive chairs for our council auditorium, I discovered that anytime we are having meetings, they always go out to rent chairs, which are not beffitting enough for that type of auditorium and they really appreciated it a lot.
We have also done a lot on empowerment for our youths, we are organised several trainings like tie & dye, shoe making, soap making and so on, expecially for women.
In the area of staff welfare, our staff bus is been maintained, the completion of 114 road project was done and commissioned by us last year by the grace of God. We also keyed into Light-Up Lagos project by funding some of our street light, we put on the generator every night.
You are so passionate about education, what inspires that?
I believe the only legacy you can give to the incoming generation is qualitative education, if we fail to train the incoming generation, that will spell doom for us in future, as one of the most rural Local Government in the state, we believe that this LCDA is the future LCDA and the only way we can meet up is to ensure that we give them good education. As you can see there are many companies springing up from here and it will require professionals to work with them and the only way we can produce those professionals from this LCDA is when they have good educational background so that is why I concentrate so much on education, most especially primary and secondary because that is the foundation.
Also in the area of security, this is a developing local government, with the investment that is coming up in this LCDA it makes this area a target for all the land speculators and land grabbers. The issue of kidnappers is also one of our challenges you know this is the only Local Government that has boundary with 2 neighbouring states Ogun State and Ondo State and that makes this area very porous to militants from the Niger Delta, so its one of the issues that we are contending with and is giving the administration a very tough time.
What other projects are you doing to key into Gov. Ambode ambitions in your community?
There are many projects we are doing to key into his excellency ambitions, for example last week, we had free healthcare mission, we provided vehicles to convene the beneficiaries from Lekki LCDA to Ibefun Lekki in order to have access to free healthcare.
The maintenance of the environment is one of the cardinal programme of Gov. Ambode, we clean our environment regularly, and the maintenance of our traditional institute, with the maintenance of our access road these are what we have been doing to key into his ambition and I want to also use this opportunity to express my gratitude to him on behalf of the people of Lekki LCDA for what he has been doing on this axis since he came on board, he has turned Lagos State to Dubai (laugh), mega city, we are all proud of him and we believe that by the time he will be leaving after 8 years, Lagos will compete with other civilised city all over the world.
We believe in his leadership, we appreciate his commitment and high sense of responsibility.
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