My Challenges As Council Chairman

Dr. Samuel Adesola Adedayo, Chairman, Apapa-Iganmu Local Council Development Area, is not one to pretend about issues. In this interview with EROMOSELE EBHOMELE, he explains his efforts to better the LCDA

How did you come about your new secretariat complex?

When this administration resumed, we inherited about three tenement buildings with 450 pensionable staff. We had over 20 staff crammed into some of the rooms. I made up my mind that we must do something about it. Government has to be on ground before any meaningful development can take place. So I saw the opportunity. Thank God, when we resumed, we had a lump sum of money that was kept for the incoming chairmen by the administration of Governor Babatunde Fashola from the seized funds of the local governments. So we were able to access a bulk sum for the project. I also approached some people who gave me ideas. So we assembled a team of consultants and began the project three years ago. It is now a beautiful place with excellent finishing. I am also happy that we were able to manage the piece of land that we have.

We give glory to God and also thank our leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for his belief in us. Without his vision and the drive, it would have been difficult for the LCDAs to thrive. At most, this would have been an area office for Apapa Local Government Area.

People seem not to have confidence in the local government system. How has this challenged your output?

Perception is everything. People have this idea that local government is just about embezzling and mismanagement of funds. But from my little experience in Lagos State, this has not been the story. To illustrate this, what 20 local government councils can do, if 57 are doing same, then you would have a multiplier effect. When we bought security vehicles for the police in the state, at best the 20 local governments would have bought 20, but the 57 came together and bought two vehicles each; that’s 114. Each of these councils is also doing very well in terms of primary health. With this, you can nip a lot of health problems in the bud. People would not need to go to the general hospitals or teaching hospitals for small illnesses like malaria that can be treated at the primary health level. Because these health centres are functional, it has helped to reduce pressure on secondary and tertiary health institutions in the state.

If each of the local government councils is able to work on two roads, multiply that by 57 and see how many roads would have been constructed or rehabilitated. If we have 20 local government councils, we can only have 20 council chairmen, but now that we have 57, we have 57 chairmen, 57 vice chairmen; several political appointees, several councillors, and you can go and see how this has helped to spread governance to the grassroots. What is happening in Lagos is what we must thank God for and appreciate the initiator who persisted in spite of pressure from the federal government.

The grassroots is still the closest to the people when you have a responsible government and I assure you that here in Lagos, our council chairmen have remained responsible and responsive and this has produced results.

In terms of sanitation, Lagos has improved and this is as a result of the collaboration between us and the state government. I can tell you that with time, the perception of people about local governance will change. Today, we have professionals taking charge of the councils and this is not because they want to make greedy money. This has a lot to bear on the improvement of the areas and the state.

What were the challenges you faced while the structure was ongoing?

For you to carry out a project, you must have a vision. As in the Bible, you must have the Sambalats and Tobias, those who would say: ‘No, you can’t do this. This is not our priority,’ but as a leader, it was my responsibility to make them see that this was achievable. At the beginning, there was the issue of where to site the secretariat. Some people wanted us to use a virgin land, but where can we use here? The place is choked. So are we going to acquire a property? This will drain the money you are going to use for the building. My fear was that if we followed that line, we may end up having an abandoned project and the next administration after me may not see it as a priority. This would bring a lot of problems. But we succeeded, following the rules set by the state government, being the second obstacle one must scale in carrying out a project like this.

I must let you know that it is impossible for me alone to accomplish this. There are a lot of people in the administration of this government who were involved. You may not have seen them publicly but I can tell you that they were fully involved. We must also give credit to the councillors for their support, because here, most times, we look at consensus on issues that are beneficial to the people.

There have been reports of crisis between some council chairmen and councillors. What is your relationship here?

We have an excellent relationship. During my first tenure, this was a very hot area with crisis being witnessed almost on a daily basis. But in this second term, we have had a harmonious relationship and those who have visited to assess us can testify that this is one of the most peaceful councils in the state. We also have a superb internal working relationship and this is as a result of our collective efforts to foster peace. I made up my mind that those outside must not hear noise in the house of an elder twice. I made up my mind that whatever it takes, I would ensure that there is peace in this council. Thank God that so far we have not had any crisis.

Councils in the state have complained about poor revenue generation. What is the case with your council?

Our internally generated revenue is very poor. It has even dwindled in recent times and this has been a sour point whenever we go for the public accounts committee at the House of Assembly. There are often queries concerning internally generated revenue, but as you can see, this is a blighted area or what people call slum and the people are mostly peasants. We have an unfair proportion of people that are very poor. So how would they generate the money? Do you know that we don’t even have a single bank in this council area? We don’t have markets that you can actually get resources from. Motorparks also pose a challenge. Where will you create motor parks where there is no space?

One major reason, I believe, that this council was created is to give the people a sense of belonging. If you compare us to our mother local government, there are many industries there, but there is none here and less people dwell there than here. We have therefore been trying to pump money into the economy of this area so that in the end, we can also generate revenue. To do this, we recently pumped N40 million into the area through a microfinance scheme and in collaboration with the state government and Fidelity Bank and this money is given as soft loans to traders in the council. We have the lowest interest rate for these peasants. Right now, we have 2,000 individuals and 85 groups benefitting from this soft loan scheme. Since the inception of the scheme, the total amount that has been pumped into the system is about N260 million and thank God we have over 95 per cent performance and the people have continued to repay their loans without defaulting.

Recently again, I thought of approaching the Deputy Governor, since she is the one in charge of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, to appeal to her to help scale up the loan facility or give us access to more funds so that more people can benefit.

Again, unemployment is a big challenge here. We have a large number of youths many of whom are educated. Some are not educated and don’t also have skills. So we are partnering with the state government create a base for skill acquisition. We have some vocational centres and want to make sure that these people also contribute to the gross domestic product of this area with their skills. When they acquire the skills, they can go back to the microfinance bank, get some loans and start doing something. We also have a scheme called the Apapa-Iganmu Employment Scheme. Here, we have a data base of youths who are unemployed. We have a job desk here from which we write to all the companies around most parts of the state to tell them about these people and their qualifications so that we can provide collateral if they are needed. Somehow, we have been able to get employment for some of these youths.

How have you been affected by the refusal of the National Assembly to list the 37 LCDAs in the constitution?

If we were listed, we would be getting money directly from the federal government and more likely to get more funds. But since we are not listed, we get our funding from our mother local government and that means that we are not getting what is due to us directly from the federal government. With the little that we have, you can see what we have been able to do. So if they list these LCDAs and we get more direct allocations from the federal government, it will accelerate development in the state.

We have members of your party at the National Assembly. Why have they not been able to push for the listing of the LCDAs?

To me, it comes down to an issue between the PDP-led federal government and the opposition. It takes a very benevolent leader to accept that the opposition is right. Lagos state has proven that beyond reasonable doubt, the creation of LCDAs is beneficial. I think it is a political issue. Therefore, we must find a political solution to it. At the National Assembly now, the opposition is in the minority, but I believe that with what is about to happen in 2015, issues of creation of local government areas will be completely left in the hands of every state Houses of Assembly which is so recognised by the constitution. I can tell you that with the population of Lagos conservatively put at between 18 million and 20 million. Let us assume that the country’s population is 150 million with 774 council areas. Therefore, Lagos should have more councils logically. What they have forgotten is that Lagos is still the commercial capital of the country.

Only recently too, the population of Lagos has increased because of the insecurity in the country. In the northeast, there is insurgency; in the southsouth, there is militancy; in the southeast, there is kidnapping. Most people see Lagos as safe. Of course, the population will balloon. We can’t stop people from coming to Lagos, but when they relocate, they are going to put pressure on social services and we need more money to be able to fix things. When you develop the infrastructure, the economy will pick up.  Then you need roads to interlink the communities and city and as you are building these roads, you are generating employment and putting money in circulation. So if more local government areas are created and there is adequate funding, this will ultimately improve the IGR.

The local government councils are doing a lot of things that the people are not aware of. It is the councils who pay primary school teachers and the amount taken from our allocation to pay them is enormous. Primary health is also a constitutional responsibility of the local councils apart from other areas including taking care of drains, maintenance of roads and in some cases, engaging in electrification project which is not supposed to be our responsibility but that of the federal government. We have had to buy transformers because of the failure of the federal government and because we cannot allow our communities to suffer endlessly. We know that when there is sufficient power, many people will engage in money-making ventures and this could curb the final straw that could break our back —unemployment. I am very scared of the army of educated and unemployed youths. It is a time-bomb which we must all look at. We must all put heads together and generate jobs.

Can we say that passion of yours for the employment of your people is a reason for the reduction of crime in this area?

Since I came in, I have engaged a lot of them especially in the area of managing tolls. They report to the chairman of the revenue committee. The consideration is that they have wives and children and so if they don’t find something to do, they can be used by the devil. The rate of unemployment is unacceptable. It has gotten to the level that graduates with two or more degrees are working the streets without job. The banks and their likes should not be the backbone for the economy. Banks may tell you they make a lot of gains, but the gains are paper credits which you don’t see. It is the industries that we need to revamp. Nigeria is such a big market, but unfortunately, we’ve left it to outsiders who now bring goods while the local industries are not protected. Apart from providing the environment for industries to thrive in some other countries, the government of those countries back them up with incentives so that they can export to you and you become a net importer.

We should be the country dictating in the West African region and even in Africa. But we have not seen that. We need to put aside politics and come together to build this nation.

How can this be possible when the PDP sees your party as an enemy?

This is the message we need to take to them. You may be in power, but you need the help of other people to succeed. Where the opposition is doing well, you must encourage it or copy if you like. There’s nothing wrong in PDP states copying what is happening in Lagos, Edo, Osun, Ogun, Oyo or Ekiti in the interest of the people of the country. If the country cannot survive, the individuals cannot thrive. My party has been engaging in constructive criticisms and suggesting solutions to issues for the progress of the country, but they see us as opposition instead and therefore cannot see the good in us. Perhaps, if they were wise, they can latch on to the criticisms and become better.

How did you receive the report of a Boko Haram cell in this area?

It is scary. When I heard, I was shaken to my bones. It was discovered in Ijora-Oloye, which happens to be part of Apapa, our mother local government. But we are just saying these things on paper, Ijora-Oloye is just by the corner and you can see it across my office. We are talking about contiguous environment. When you look at Apapa-Iganmu, you will see African Petroleum there, you will see Conoil there, you will see Mobil there; at my back, you will see the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Container Terminal. So it is scary to imagine what can happen if someone decides to attack. Apapa-Iganmu is surrounded by massive farm tanks. Remember those areas where fire disasters happened as a result of petroleum products and the massive destruction. We thank God for the agencies that were able to detect before the act could be carried out. But we are in working with the community development associations and other stakeholders. We have held several meetings with them. Security is not a one-man business and people must be on their toes. The police and other agencies cannot work without information. We must therefore be observant and know our neighbours in details. We must watch each other closely.

We are also doing our best to educate the people. The price of safety is eternal vigilance.

I want to thank my people for giving us the mandate, but we also need their cooperation to do the much we can. They should continue to support us since the price for development is team work. They must pay their rates and taxes for us to play our parts. For example, there is a three kilometre-stretch of road behind my office that we have electrified with 75 poles and three sound-proof generators. We buy diesel for generators. Apart from the beauty it has added to the area, it has helped to reduce crime.

Our primary health centres are fully functional. So they should patronise the centres. They must keep their environment clean especially since we have been able to clear the drains. They have helped us in this regard and it has resulted in lesser flooding since the past three years. LAWMA had scored us zero some years back but now we are over 60 per cent. We bought a brand new compactor to assist the PSP. This has also helped in job creation. We have about 100 street sweepers, we have provided uniforms, scandals and school books.