Hon. Kayode Omiyale, Executive Chairman, Yaba LCDA, is a very simple man by nature. Everybody knows this about him. He is also not a man given to praise singing from party loyalists and hangers on. He knows exactly what he wants and how he wants to go about achieving his set goals and targets. Those who know him very well say he is an extremely focused man. And, truly, from the moment you step into his office, you know right away that you’re with a man who has no time for frivolities. He just wants to do his job and get the results that he desires. His humility and unassuming nature immediately endears him to you once you meet him first time.
Hon. Kayode Omiyale is a self made man. He was born in Ebute -Meta and has lived his entire life right there on the Mainland. Through thick and thin, he fought hard to overcome all of the challenges that life flung at him.
Following completion of his primary education, he headed straight to the Teachers Training College where he distinguished himself and earned the prestigious Grade 2 Teachers certificate. Not satisfied, he decided he had to go back to school.
Today, Hon. Omiyale has a Bsc. in Business Administration and a Masters in Public Administration. He rose steadily through the ranks and soon got to the pinnacle of his career when he was elevated to the position of Director of Education, level 17.
He retired in 2017. But he wanted more. He felt there was still a lot he could offer his community. And when the opportunity came, he made himself available for the position of Chairman, Yaba LCDA and contested for the election and by July 26th, 2017, he was sworn in as the new chairman.
Two weeks ago, City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) was a guest of the amiable chairman. He took us through his humble beginning, his transition from a teacher to a politician and what he has been to achieve as Yaba LCDA Boss in the last few years. Enjoy the excerpts.
You just settled down for your second term in office some months ago. How has the last few years in office been for you? During your first term, you were very busy trying to meet up to the various needs of your people, what are those things or projects that you really wish to execute this term for the benefit of your people?
Well, we have to thank God for a successful first term. It has been a very wonderful experience and we give God all the glory. For this term, we want to improve on our first term performance. The first term when we came, the whole terrain looked new to us. But we were able to get over it within the first couple of years of our tenure. And we were still able to do quite a few things. This time around, we have been able to take off from where stopped last term. We are going to put all of the experiences we have garnered into good use. We are going to be much faster in terms of our response to the needs of the community. For instance, right now, we do not have our Exco in place but we still had to go ahead to put our budget in place because we realized that we cannot afford to waste time and take our people for granted. So, in terms of education, we intend to increase the number of GCE forms and JAMB that we give out to students. Last term, we gave out about a hundred forms, God willing this time around, we will increase it, depending on the resources available to us. We should take it to something between 150 and 200. Also, before, we would go round and give stipends to about 80 aged and 20 widows. This time, we could do 100 aged, 50 widows. In the area of environment, last term, we were able to clear some canals and drainages in some communities. This time, we will ensure we do everything within the next three years. It’s something that we have to do consistently because we are very prone to flooding here. Last term we had environmental defenders who went from one community to the other to sanitize the people and also apprehend those that were not doing well in terms of discharging their solid waste. This term, we are going to add what we call the drainage gang to these environmental defenders. The drainage gang will clear the drainages and desilt the gutters. And this time around, we now have the equipments to cart away the heaps of garbage immediately they desilt the drainages. These are some of the things we didn’t have in our first term.
What about roads, are there any major roads that you have in mind?
Of course, there are. In our first tenure, we did about three to four roads in Makoko, while at Iwaya, we could only do one road there. And both of them are more or less the same thing in terms of population. But now, we have started working in Iwaya. We also plan to work on Mosalasi street, which is already about 30 percent completion. God be on our side, by the time Lagos state is finishing Iwaya road to Okoagbon, we also would move to Owodunni, from Church junction to palace of Iwaya. Ditto Abule Ijesha, we did only Opayemi during our first term, but with God on our side, we will work on Akinsola and some other roads and Abule Ijesha. Last term, we touched all the nine wards with one road or the other, but now we want to balance it so that those who did not feel our presence enough last term will get to feel us and enjoy the dividends of democracy this second term.
What were the immediate challenges you met on ground when you assumed office as chairman in 2017?
The major one was that, at the time I came in, the IGR was so low. You know we took over from the interim administrator. And as a sole administrator, there was little he could do.
So, the IGR was at its lowest level. There weren’t people who could go out to jeer people up to pay their dues to the local government and improve the IGR. Thank God the allocation was regular. In Lagos here, we are given what is due to us, despite the introduction of the NFIU.
Before that, Lagos State had been doing what they were supposed to do. So, it was the allocation that was some sort of bail out for us. So, we had to sit down, draw up strategies and started improving the IGR bit by bit. We had to put all the councilors and supervisors on the field to go and generate funds and then we started getting little results.
Another one was the environmental sanitation. The situation was really bad. And just a few months when we came in, the state introduced a new policy, the Cleaner Lagos Initiative, that’s the Vision Scape, they came on board and government jettisoned the PSP. It was a serious challenge.
As that time when we came in, monthly we spent about N650,000 on palliative measures to the work of the PSP. But by the time the Vision Scape came in, we had to triple our allocation to the environment.and it hit about N3m every month because the Vision Scape could not cover everywhere. Another was the attitude of the people.
By the time we came into the council, the orientation of the people was, let us go the council and collect our own share of the allocation. They don’t expect you to do anything with the allocation, just share it. That’s why when we came in, under our first 100 hundred days, we had to put together a poverty alleviation programme together where we bought equipments for the mechanics, the hairdressers, vulcanizers, carpenters, plumbers and so on.
I’m talking about N10m worth of equipments that we had to distribute to the artisans. We also constructed about three roads and also did about three eyes screening programmes with other NGOs that cost us a lot of money. We did all these just so that people will know we are no longer under an interim government. And we carried them along.
Yaba is an area that is known to have a large concentration of various tribes from different parts of the country, How have you been able to bring together the Igbos, Yoruba and Hausa people in the community?
We always to have stakeholders meeting here once in a while. Like Makoko, they’re predominantly Egun people from Badagry side. The Ilajes, the Ijaws are all there. We organise stakeholders forum where all the tribes and other major stakeholders like members of the CDA, the market women, the artisans, will all come together and we discuss. Same for the Igbos, the Arewas, they all attend the forum. We bring all the three major tribes together and we’re able to carry ourselves along. And thank God, there has been relative peace in Yaba.
You did quite a lot during your first term, take us through some of the little things you were been able to achieve within the short period of your first term in office?
Well, like I always say to people, these achievements are not by power and are not by might, but by the grace of God. In terms of road construction, during the first few years of our first term, we constructed about five roads. They are Ajayi Bembe, Amusa street and Obadina. We did Church street by Igbehinadun, then we have Ishola and Tokunbo.
These are major roads that we were able to construct. We also built a state-of-art health center at Makoko. In terms of Education, since we came on board, we have been giving out free JAMB forms and GCE forms to indigent students. We also give out free exercise books to primary schools.
Within our first term alone, we had free eyes screening programme and offered free surgery to about 20 eye patients. In the area of poverty alleviation, like I said earlier, under our first 100 hundred days, we spent almost N10m buying tools and equipment for various artisans. Every other month, we assemble 100 aged people, 20 widows inclusive and we give them about N10,000 as stipends every month.
Everyone who knows your story knows you were once a teacher, but from my interaction with you, sir, you’re somebody who could’ve gone into any related field of your choice, but you chose teaching. Why teaching? What was the passion?
The major thing that brought me to teaching was finance. Things were tough. I didn’t have parents, all I had was a brother who took me up and decided to train me. We are from same father but different mothers. In fairness to him, he did his best for me.
He sent me to primary school and from there to Teachers Training College. As at that time, the teachers training programme under former governor of Lagos state, Alhaji Lateef Jakande was free.
There was free accommodation, free tuition. Teachers were well taken care of at that time. Then, by the time you passed out from Grade 2, you’re automatically on the job. In fact, by the time you’re in your final year, you start collecting salary.
We were even paid for the teaching practice. So, it was cheaper at that time. Once you were done with your Grade 2, you didn’t need to write an application, you report directly to the classroom and start work. But I would be sincere with you, I didn’t want to be a teacher then.
But that was as far as my brother who trained me could go financially. But today, I thank God because in 1999 when I was appointed as Education Secretary, it was only because I had Grade 2 certificate.
If you do not have that teaching background, you will never be appointed as Education Secretary, even though as at that time I already had my Bsc. in Business Administration and my Masters in Public Administration. And that was how I started my political career.
Looking back, sir, what would you ascribe to be the pinnacle of your teaching career?
That certainly has to be when I was appointed as Education Secretary. Reason is that at that time I was on level 9 and in the primary school we had level 10, level 12, level 13 as head teachers of the school. But, I guess because of my political experience, they chose someone like me to go and be the boss over people on level 12, level 13.
It was a big challenge but I was able to cope because all the head teachers loved me. I respected them and they respected me in return. It’s just like in the civil service, getting appointed as Perm. Sec is the pinnacle. Same way in the primary school system, once you’re appointed as Education Secretary, then you have achieved your target.
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