WHY ALIMOSHO PEOPLE CLAMOUR FOR HON ADEBANJO TO RETURN TO HOUSE OF REPS

-- How he may have earned ‘automatic return ticket’ to become the APC Candidate; reveals more than the public ever knew about his rift with Enilolobo

By Toyo C. Ngem and Mariam Balogun

IN the complete innocence of media ethics, guided by balanced reportage of the emerging events in the count down to the 2023 general elections, the Civics Weekly in its last edition published the story of confusion rocking the Politicians’ Cave of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Alimosho. The story queried the feasibility of Alimosho presenting a candidate for the House of Reps amidst claims of two factional camps as having the authentic candidate in the enlistment of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the balloting papers. Few days after, the comments as responses of the Alismosho people converged largely on the clamour for Hon Olufemi Adebanjo (aka Eyes Open), who is the serving representative member of the Green Chamber in the national Assembly to continue his works in the next legislative term.

Sequel to this in a chat with the Honourable, he revealed more than the public had ever known about the causes of his fallen apart with his erstwhile political servant that would later become his political godfather, Alhaji Abdullahi Enilolobo. “I do not have 1% of the material wealth Enilolobo has, yet he is too stingy to give to the people while I spent about 50% of my gross income on the welfare of party members along serving the people of Alimosho”, he said.

While bases of the clamour appeared to be diverse with respect to different perspectives of groups and individuals, Adebanjo told this magazine that it's the work of his “God that never fails” manifesting as the voice of people if the Alimsoho constituents could appreciate his performances and rose to seek “continuity of experience” in legislative matters that will come in a new era of Nigerian presidency.

Looking at the story from religious angle, a reader simply identified as Akinjimi, a General Manager of an Alimosho based fabrication engineering firm, warned the Alimosho APC not to make any attempt at playing religious politics. “The APC should better know what they are doing. The whole thing is an attempt to remove the Christian to be replaced with a Muslim candidate, the Alimsoho people will resist that”, he said. Speaking from the angle of direct beneficiary of the many constituency project Hon Adebanjo brought to Alimosho in format of empowerment programmes, commentaries received were accolades of appreciations that made bases for the calamour for his continuity. These were nevertheless divided into institutional or community level project and individual empowerments.

Speaking to our correspondents, a resident of Akinyemi Street, who identified herself as Mrs. Arinola, said they received a power transformer for Akinyemi substation in Igando. She explained how it had solved the problem of power outage that had been affecting her locality. Another beneficiary of the transformer so identified and confirmed to have been installed is the Kemi Salami substation at Obadore, situated at Apalara junction. Two of the residents that spoke to Civics Weekly said the transformer came at a time they needed to stop the load shedding turns for the one transformer “serving about 20 streets”. We have never had a good supply of electricity since packed in about five years past”, one of them said. The other one however evaluated the value of the transformer from the economic and business point of view. She said she had given up on resuming her trade of business centre again “until we had this transformer, which I learnt was given by one Honourable from Abuja.

Being a different stroke to different folks, there are those that have given their perspective evaluations of the Honourable from other social amenities like community boreholes installed in places as Oki Town in Iyana-Ipaja, Tijani Elewi in Greenland Estate, Isheri Olofin; Ita Baale in Isheri Oshun, even also at the Adetutu compound in the Akowonjo area of Egebda Community. There were also those who claimed to have felt the touch of Hon. Adebanjo’s legislative performance through the ‘night life’ his provision of street light had brought to their community. He nevertheless seemed to have concentrated this in his immediate constituenc, Akowonjo. These include the now working Hon Olufemi Adebanjo Street; Sanusi Streets; Abati close and Egbedatedo Street.

Perhaps his touch on road constructions already delivered as part of his constituency projects could as well be the clear complementary projects to those of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) facilitated by the princess of Egebda Kingdom, Hon (Dr.) Adejoke Orelope Adefulire. The combination of these has become the value added amenities that have turned the Egebda/Akowonjo axis of Alimosho to a mecca of sort. Adebanjo’s areas of the road rehabilitation and construction include Adetutu Street/Taiwo Close, Remilekun Rowland Street, Remoye Street via Adetutu, and the combined drainage and road construction at Koto Irabor, Street – all at Akowonjo. However, the Idimu area also benefitted with a culvert construction at the intersection of Adebimpe Avenue and Liasu Road in the Council area. In Education area, he moved to complement the physical infrastructure of Alimosho Junior Secondary School at Moshalashi area of Mosan/Okunola LCDA with furniture supplies to classrooms as well as office furniture. These were covered by the 2018 Federal Constituency project he facilitated.

Akesan Community benefitted in the education facilities with a block of six classrooms built for the Anglican Model Primary School. There is also another of same six-classroom block going on at Temidire Primary School in Agbado/Oke-odo LCDA, which in hope of the Honorable shall be delivered in the coming legislative year he is about to resume. In fact, teachers and students spoken to by this magazine said it had been a ‘prayer point’ for them that Adebanjo should be allowed another term so that he could complete the project. “We fear the project might become abandoned if another person takes over from him”, a Senior teacher said on condition that, as a civil servant, he was not permitted to speak with the media. About December last year, the Primary Health Centre built for Obadore Community under Igando/Ikotun LCDA was formally commissioned. Describing it as part of his “Impactful Grassroots Development Programmes”, Adebanjo said every project that he either executed as a constituency project or facilitated through other means of funding were “products of the Needs Assessments Evaluation (NAE) he conducted across all the local communities in the Alimosho Federal Constituency. “This is what you claimed to be part of your immediate needs as a community. The primary Health Centre is today being delivered for the use of people of Obadore”, he said. Perhaps the more significant areas of governance values Hon Adebanjo returned to the people of Alimosho would be the different categories of empowerment progranmmes he carried out on December 18, 2021. This accordingly to him was supposed to be “a direct means of improving the economic wellbeing of the beneficiary families”. As impactful and wide spread they were, they became about the most recent experience of the dividends of democracy, which may have informed the loudness of voices clamoring for his continuation as Alimsoho Representative. It was the climax of a “one-year long Capital Development and Seed Capital Deployment Initiatives” lasted till the time. It came as an eventful day for the honorable in putting smiles in faces of those that have gone for the pre-requisite training. Handing over of working tools, equipment and working capitals were done in the open.

Categories of the empowerment trainings were Solar Energy proficiency for a total of 51 youths drawn from all royal kingdoms making up the conurbations of Alimosho Local Government. 50 people benefitted with pepper and grains milling training; a total of 57 people benefitted from the combined training of shoe making and soap production. There was also training in information and communication technology (ICT) for the youth. The Fish Farming training was done in two distinct batches. There was the general one which the empowerment was done on December 4, 2021 for 37 beneficiaries. There was also another one specially held for youth and women in which another batch of 50 people benefitted. A total of 29 widows got N20,000 cash to aide their welfare for the yuletide season. The same cash gifts went to 58 youths in various amounts from a minimum of N20,000. There was also the Artisan Support Funds (ASF) from which a total of 143 artisans drawn from all categories of trade – be it hair stylists/barbers, tailors, furniture makers and others benefitted in cash gifts to improve on their businesses. There were also beneficiaries of tricycle transportation system popular as Keke Marwa in addition to empowerment in the business of logistics popular ‘dispatch riders’. Giving insight to why he decided to embark on such elaborate projects of giving back to the constituency, Hon Adebanjo said no reasonable representative of the people would sit back and fold his arms in this era of economic down turn in which over 43 percent of Nigerian youth with O’ level certificates and University graduates were unemployed. To act accordingly, he said: “I decided to put up a think tank to draw out what we could do for our people in Alimosho. The outcome of that body was the elaborate event we tagged the Human Capital Development and Seed Capital Deployment (HCD/SCD) initiatives”. While these empowerment projects might have created a lasting impression in his constituents to warrant the clamour for his return to the National Assembly (NASS), this magazine gathered that the leadership of the APC at the National level might have disposed to the idea of making the next NASS to be inaugurated in 2023 a pack of experienced hands in legislative affairs. This might be one factor that may have favoured the feasibility that Hon Olufemi Adebanjo may have been the authentic candidate of the Alimosho APC for the House of Reps in the 2023 general elections. Speaking to our correspondent, a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) that sought anonymity said the party could not afford a repeat of the “rebellious” leadership of the National Assembly the party experienced in 2015, which caused the party to lose a whole four years of legislative values.

He said: “It is the arrangement between the party leadership and NASS leadership that in any state of the federation where the party could agree to automatic return ticket for a performing member of the Assembly, it should be made seamless and easy to adopt that. The party has a good reason for this if you looked back to what happened in 2015 when the APC first came to power. If you would agree with me, it was about a change of government at the centre, which also affected the NASS where many first term members, for lack of experience, joined the opposition party to foist unloyal NASS leadership on the party. It was only in 2019 that the party was able to weed out the traitors and put Lawan/Gbajabiamila NASS leadership in place”.

Another party member who spoke on the need for the return of experienced members was a source close to the leadership of House of Representatives. He also argued on the line of thought that the surety of Tinubu becoming the next President should also go with the preparation of giving him a cooperative legislative organ of the government. He particularly made reference to the case of Lagos State where Gbajabiamila would not likely to return as Speaker of the House. He said: “Don’t forget, Lagos is where the President is coming from, so the current Speaker of the House will not likely come from the State or even the Southwest geopolitical zone. To operate from the floor of the House, the Lagos caucus must be 100 percent experienced hands in legislative matters. What you may need to understand further about this experience issue is that in many cases, only the ranking members get House Committee Chairmanship and House Committees are the primary working organs of the NASS. The plenary only deliberate whether to adopt or discard their reports. “What I’m trying to say in essence is that Lagos must guarantee not only return of all the representatives on the party platform APC, they must also be the experienced ones so that the state will get its due shares of House Committee Chairmen that will help in smooth governance of the Asiwaju era of presidency”. Hon Adebanjo’s experience in legislative matters does not only count in terms of years in the hallow chambers of law making Assembly, it also came with productivity values of what that arm of government is supposed to do which is the making of Bills that will pass into laws.

In total, he has to his credit about 12years membership of legislative assembly, having once been a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly in 1999 that began this democracy for a term of four years. He upgraded this to membership of the House of Representatives from 2015 to date for an eight-year mandate that would be ending on June, 7, 2023. Through these years, he had initiated several bills that are awaiting presidential assent. These, according to him, include the “National Commission for the Great Green Wall Establishment Bill, National Commission for Refuges Establishment Bill, National Poverty Eradication Programme Bill, Public Recreation Ground Bill and Nigerian Institute of Journalism Act Amendment Bill. Others are the National Agency for Population Programes & Development Bill and National Institute for Labour Studies Bill. He had been the chairman of several House Committee, as much as he is currently a House Committee Chairman. If Hon Adebanjo returns to the House of Reps in the coming legislative term, what should be the expectations of Alimosho people? He had this to say: “Even though I am primarily elected to make laws that will benefit the people of Nigeria in general, the Lagos State and Alimosho in particular, I have performed beyond that to personally impact lives. Over the years, I have facilitated the gainful employment of hundreds of our constituents into Federal organizations besides the provision of the social amenities and physical infrastructure I have highlighted. So when I return in 2023, I hope to do more of these so that another batch of the constituents will be captured to benefit from this democracy. “However, what I see to be paramount for the Lagos caucus in the National Assembly is how to put up the legislative frameworks needed to get approval for enlistment of the Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in Lagos State in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I will therefore join my colleagues in pushing that further to reality. I want to also continue the push for a ‘Special Status’ for the state.

“Also in my estimation of what the reality should be, Alimsosho Federal Constituency has outgrown the population size the one seat in House of Representatives can cater to. So I have it in plan to continue the works on delineation of the Local Government to get three more additional seats of Federal Constituency. I believe with the supports and prayers of the people I am representing and with the commitment of party loyalty, I will be putting into it, all this will be achieved”.