Hon. SEYI JAKANDE Reveals His Plans
As Next Chairman, ODI-OLOWO OJUWOYE LCDA
In the next couple of months, the local government elections in Lagos State will hold. And Hon. Seyi Jakande, the son of former Lagos Governor, Alhaji Lateef Jakande who is currently the Vice Chairman of Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye LCDA, is contesting for the chairmanship slot, having served the people alongside his boss, the Chairman, Hon. Rasaq Olusola Ajala, for two terms.
Expectedly, the very calm and pro-active Hon. Seyi Jakande is favourite to win the chairmanship contest, owing to the immeasurable love and support he enjoys from the people. He is considered the perfect successor to the very hardworking and highly dependable outgoing chairman, Hon. Olusola Ajala.
Below are excerpts of the interview conducted by City People Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290), GM Production, WAHAB BASHIR and Head of Advert, TIMOTHY FOWOMOLA.
What do you think it is about Honourable Seyi Jakande that endears people to you? And, from what I see, it’s not just because you happen to be the direct offspring of Babakere, late Alhaji Lateef Jakande himself, but it has to do with the people’s perception of you as a person. What would you say are those things that you think over the years, have made you so popular among the people of Odi-Olowo?
So, again, you have asked me a question that does not belong to me because what you asked, it’s like you’re asking someone if you’re a good person or you’re a bad person. So, for me, like I said, governance is a call to service.You know, you must first understand the nature of the job you’re about to take. You must understand the terrain, And then, you must understand, most importantly, the person you are working with. So, I think my knowledge of that, combined with my humble background, makes me fully equipped for the job. And I will say, to the best of my knowledge, I was able to create a perfect support system for the administration and for all our achievements from 2017 to date.
Let’s begin to wind up now and maybe I should ask these two questions as we do so. One, just summarize for us your impressions of your immediate boss, Honourable Olusola Rasaq, the outgoing chairman. In a few words, tell us some of the things that the public do not know about him, perhaps a few of his qualities that you hold so dearly, and secondly, how prepared are you for the job? I asked this question because in another few months we will be going for the local government elections and the expectations are high. The hope of every resident of Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye LCDA is that Hon. Seyi Jakande emerges the new chairman. That is a humongous responsibility, just like you have also identified yourself, so, how prepared are you for the job?
Okay, you asked me two questions, right? So, let me start with the first one. I think based on what I have told you earlier, on the noble achievements of this present administration, I should give you an insight of who the master planner is because I am speaking on behalf of a government that is headed by Hon. Rasaq Olusola Ajala. As regards my own personal observation, I would say that Honourable Rasaq Olusola Ajala is my boss, the Executive Chairman of Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye LCDA. He is someone that has an extreme passion for good governance, that is one. Two, he is someone that really cares about the people because most of our decisions at that top level are taken clearly prioritizing the needs and demands of the people within the LCDA. And the reason behind that cannot be far-fetched. He was born and bred here, lived all his life here. So, he’s someone that understands the terrain, both political terrain and social, and of course, his experience in governance has helped a great deal.
He has everything all clearly cut out. He has everything planned out. Mind you, you can actually have passion, right? But if you don’t have the strength, and especially the wisdom, it might be impossible for you to deliver your goals. So, he’s someone that God in his infinite mercy has blessed with a lot of energy, a lot of strength, and to cap it all, a lot of wisdom. That is why he’s popularly called ‘Mr. Ogbon’, meaning Mr. Wisdom. I can’t even go on to start reeling out to you all his awards, but to mention just one, he was named Lagos State man of the year.
So, to answer your second question regarding how prepared I am, I will say, haven worked closely under the tutelage of such a responsible figure, it reminds me of where I’m coming from. Like I said, I’ve learnt practically everything from my dad, right? Both theoretically and practically, I have the knowledge, because I got the theoretical part in the house and the practical from what he demonstrated in the public space.
So, here again, it should interest you that this is the second political school that I am attending. I learnt from my dad, and here, I find myself learning both the dynamics and the intrigues of governance as well as politics. So I would say combining both together, my humble beginning, my experience in the past seven years, I believe that I have everything that it takes. I have the capacity, I have the experience, and by the special grace of God, because in everything you must always put God first, I believe I will be able to sustain everything that we have achieved in this present administration, continue it, move them on to the next administration and consolidate all the gains. I will start to bring new innovations into the system. I honestly believe that the only solution in this country is for us to develop our systems. We cannot get to our destination if we keep changing the path, if we keep changing the road network. We must be consistent. We must have a government where there is consistency in progress because progress can be measured in various ways where it’s relative. A progress that doesn’t take us forward, for me, is not progress. But you need to move in that same direction, in the same strength, build on it, grow on it, then we can go far.
You know, when you look at Nigeria today, the only state that’s got consistency within Nigeria, is probably Lagos, right? And that’s because there’s been a continuity of progress, all in the same direction. That is where you can have a rail line that was started from Asiwaju’s tenure, continued by Fashola and going all the way, and then somebody else is commissioning it. Nobody is saying, that route is bad, let me go and start from a different direction and all of that. So we must start to work on our system. We must start to have a strong passion and belief. We must start to make conscious efforts where we have continuity in progress for all our generations.
Finally, let’s wrap up this way. Your, local council is possibly one of the most cosmopolitan LCDAs in the state. You’ve got all the various tribes of the country represented here. I am talking about highly educated people with their own different ideologies to life, which brings some sort of pressure on you and your immediate boss as the administrators of the LCDA. I say this because you have people who have certain high expectations and they are from diverse groups of the country. What are you looking at in terms of your own focus when you come in as next chairman, hopefully, in another few months down the line? Or rather, what would you be doing differently from what is currently existing?
Well, I didn’t find any question in what you have just said, because I believe there is strength in diversity, you know, and I believe that when we come to our local content here, every local content, in my opinion in Nigeria is a replica of what you have at the next stage and at the next level. You know, we have all tribes, all religions, everything represented in every local space. The same we have in states, the same we have, the only difference is in the numbers. And you will agree with me, from all we have said, from the beginning of this interview, there has not been a mention of anything that is tribal, anything that has to do with race or any kind of culture or religion.
You know, we have a very clear understanding of the diversity that exists naturally within the space and we will be able to accommodate everybody, including both religions. As a matter of fact, we just don’t identify only with the Christian or the Islamic religions, we also identify with the traditional religion which is the Isese. So, every aspect of diversity is represented in this government. And I told you, we are going to have a commission of Odi-Olowo Cares. And when you look at the first categories, we have a form that doesn’t display your tribe. It doesn’t display your culture, your religion, right? But what we have identified is people that are going to qualify in those categories of the aged people, the widows, whether it’s a widower or a widow, right? And we have also gone to identify the disabled so that the physically challenged are also part of our program. Creating the health insurance too, we have not discriminated about who gets the insurance. It’s basically for people that qualify to get it. Perhaps the only thing we discriminate against, is to use the resources that we are holding here in trust for Odi-Olowo we take it to Ikeja to give people.
We are very conscious of our diversity and we believe in that strength. We have used that in our sports, when we have sporting events. We just finished the GLE sporting game, which is an annual event. We had the Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, you know, which in my address, during the Season 3, having a clear information about the fact that the timing of the next season, if the administration was to continue, would fall around November or December. And I’ve also declared that if I’m elected, there will be a Season 4, that there will be a continuation of what we have started from Season 1, 2, 3. So, those are the strengths. Just last year, the chairman sponsored some of our very brilliant footballers to the Gothia Cup that holds annually in Sweden. You know, I think there are about five of those players, and they were selected through a rigorous screening process. We sent them out for exposure and to help them enhance their skills. We didn’t have to decide or choose who makes the trip based on their tribe or religion. I’ve also explained the process that we have put in place, trying to get the best of all our students applying for Season 4. We don’t discriminate, we go on merit and that is also to make sure that we identify those students and also to put the others on their feet so that they can take things that are beneficial to them very, very seriously.
