Lagos is a shining example of what good governance should be –Fafunmi

Hon. Dayo Saka-Fafunmi, a lawyer and an engineer is the member representing Ifako Ijaiye Constituency 1 in the Lagos State House of Assembly. The astute legislator, who is on his third term in the state Assembly is happy with the developmental strides of the state governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and believes that the governor is setting a trend for other states of the nation to follow. In this interview with PATRICK OKOHUE, Saka-Fafunmi speaks on why he has decided to take his representation a notch higher by vying for a seat in the House of Representatives to give his people better representation.

Your political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) recently set up a national reconciliation committee headed by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but considering issues in the party, its inability to hold a national convention since inception and many other issues, what are the things you think Tinubu should pay more attention to in achieving his goals?
Like its rightly said, Tinubu is a living legend and the leader of our party who I strongly believe is in a position to turn around the situation that we have found ourselves whether deliberately or accidentally.

The APC is a party that fits together the ACN, (Action Congress of Nigeria), the CPC, (Congress for Progressive Change), nPDP and other minority parties and you will agree with me that when you have such meeting of minds, after sometime if your expectations are not met, such individuals or groups are bound to be disgruntled and in a way to express their unhappiness they probably will be working against the interest of the party and the party will gradually become more fragmented.

I don’t see any other leader with such a big heart than Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is a well grounded politician, strategist and someone who understands what it takes to hold power, so the appointment of Tinubu to address all these issues in the party is putting a square peg in a square hole, there is no other person who can do it better.

Now, one of the areas I strongly believe that Senator Tinubu should work is to further strengthen the party to give the party its rightful place.

One of the things that happens in other countries, because we should not insulate ourselves from happenings around us, in South Africa for example, when Jacob Zuma was alleged to have done some unlawful acts that was perceived as corruption in the eyes of the people, the party was able to rise and take a decision and at the end of the day the position of the party in conjunction with parliament was seen to the very end,

but such a thing cannot happen in Nigeria because the party has not been given its rightful place and even the leadership of the party should allow it to evolve from the people, give the people a voice in determining who governs them.

Before Zuma became President of South Africa, I was in South Africa in 2007, 2008, Thambo Mbeki was still President, he was just about two years in office or thereabout and they were already saying their next president will be Jacob Zuma and I asked how did you know and they said in ANC, Zuma will emerge as the leader of the party and from being the leader of the party and since ANC is forming the national government he will be the next president.

I looked at our case, do we have such provisions in our constitution, do we have an avenue where if we elect anyone into office and that person goes beyond his briefs is there anyway we can address such issues, here you can only address it through impeachment, but it is not easy to achieve and if we don’t build our society and allow our democracy to grow to such a level to the such demonstrated in South Africa.

What happened in Zimbabwe cannot even happen in Nigeria, if the military should seize power here it is gone, they will want to remain in power.

What I feel the National Assembly should do is to say look we have been on a track for sometimes, we were doing things in a particular way, if other Africans are doing it this other way and are getting better results than us why can’t we look outside our immediate domain and see what we can do better.

We don’t necessarily have to copy what is done in America or Britain, look within Africa, see where we have failed, yes we are practicing presidential system of government and they parliamentary, but the essential thing is what the mechanism of governance is that is making them improve and I don’t see why we cannot borrow such ideology and bring it into our own so that we can achieve what others are achieving.

The National Assembly, recently approved the re-ordering of election timetable and it generated uproar in the Senate with some senators saying the action was targeted against Mr. President’s re-election bid, do you see it that way or you think it is in the best interest of the country?
I am not a member of the Senate, but if some members should come out to say that about 59 of them have met and they have seen that it is targeted at Mr President, if that is true, such an act or a bill should not stand.

I am one person who strongly believe that a law should not be made because of one person or targeted at any individual, you make laws for groups of people, to address a collection of issue in society, not just because of one person.

Now, what has been the practice? During elections, it is usually the presidential and National Assembly elections that comes first and after that you have the governorship and state Houses of Assembly and the local government, like that of Abuja municipality. If it is the responsibility of INEC to determine election why are you legislating on it, what is in it for them to legislate on the order of election?

But, it was earlier enacted by the National Assembly and part of the Electoral Act, all they did was to amend their own laws, is there anything wrong with that?
What is the basis for amendment, if you want to reverse the order why not start with the Abuja Municipal election, why not start with state’s houses of Assembly and governorship and allow the National Assembly to follow and then the presidential. You see lets’ make laws devoid of any form of sentiment.

I really don’t want to get involved with the politics of the Senate, but if every senator should search his conscience, if the law is targeted at one individual I will stand against it, but if it was done in the collective interest of the country I will stand by it, but for now I cannot take a position because I don’t have the true picture of things.

This administration came to office riding on the wings of anti-corruption crusade, but recently the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, who was suspended by the Minister of Health was reinstated by the President despite the several corruption allegations which are still being investigated by the EFCC, how do you look at this in line with the anti-corruption war?
Well, on that issue I will say you cannot be fighting corruption and at the same time be encouraging corruption and expect to be taken seriously.

You can’t be doing selective prosecution if you are fighting corruption. That is why if you look at the symbol of justice, you will see the lady is holding a sword and putting on a blind fold, that is to say that for justice to be served I don’t have to know who you are, whether you are the defender or you are the accused, wherever the balance of justice stays that is where the sword will go.

That is justice. In the approach of fighting corruption, if there is allegation against any person, even if it is against the personal assistant of Mr. President, even if it is Mr. President’s own brother who is holding a public office that is being alleged, Mr. President should and must allow the person to be investigated, let them come up with the report, if he is exonerated from all the allegations, that is the only time Mr. President will have the legitimacy of putting such a person back to office.

But, when someone is being investigated and you now try to cover such a person up by bringing such a person back through the back door, where is justice? Since he is back in the office he is going to hamper investigation, the efficacy of whoever is investigating, documents that ordinarily should have been submitted he will keep them away from those investigating and it will hamper investigation.

Investigation is a process, so, I strongly feel Mr. President should have a rethink on the issue and let the voice of the people prevail on this.

He doesn’t have to defend anybody, we know him that he is not a corrupt man, but when you are as white as snow and you are now playing in the midst of dirt, you and I know what will happen to you white garment, so, when anyone is being alleged the proper thing is that let the law take its place, let who whoever alleges prove his case.

When you appoint anyone as a minister you have given such person a certain level of authority and the minister has every authority to suspend those under him, he might not necessarily have the powers to remove, and while on suspension is for them to carry out due diligence and if he is clean he is put back in his position without any problem.

I have seen some of the unions protesting, I have seen some of the staff in NHIS saying he is a bad influence. While we respected the President the way we did while he was coming to office was because of the precedent he set as military Head of State, he has zero tolerance to indiscipline and corruption, but with the look of things Mr. President still needs to realise that, he is no more a man in uniform he needs to listen to the cries of the people, he needs to sit on issues and look at them dispassionately, irrespective of whoever is involved.

There has recently been an upsurge in the number of people falling over themselves to endorse the Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode for second term, but some people are saying yes Ambode is doing well and deserves to have a second term, but that many of those doing the endorsement however are not doing it in the interest of the governor but for self interest, sycophancy, do you agree?
Well, a good product does not need too much marketing, His Excellency Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has demonstrated that he is a very good product and Lagosians have bought into his own ideology.

You see, the business of governance is about ideology, it’s about what you stand for, if you don’t know why you are in government that is when you fall for every trick, because the moment you assume office a lot of proposals, things will come to you and you should know what you stand for, where you belong.

He has demonstrated with his various reforms, be it in environment, health, transportation in every form of reform coupled with unprecedented infrastructure growth that he is someone that thinks outside the box.

He has performed many wonders and one of it is the Lekki Epe Expressway, he was able to take away with those big roundabouts that usually lead to those heavy traffic congestions.

He was able to lift the face of our bus terminals that is being constructed everywhere, now looking like the UK (United Kingdom) city terminals, to take away traffic from the roads to be able to accommodate the increasing population.

Don’t forget that the major obstacle that we have in Lagos is the ever increasing population. Lagos is the only state that is really doing well because of our IGR (internally Generated Revenue), it’s not like the other state governors don’t know what to do, but Lagos because of its seashore has economic advantage over any other state,

so Lagos is growing at an unprecedented rate and every state around Lagos and even in Nigeria cannot catch up with it and this leads to influx of more people to Lagos and as a result Lagos is facing a lot of challenges, like transportation challenges, housing, environmental, health and all other challenges and as such Lagos will always be on the heat.

That is why the re-engineering, transformation, the repositioning which his Excellency is doing is meant to accommodate all these challenges and in doing that he is able to continue to grow the GDP of Lagos and creating additional jobs.

The environment alone is creating about 27,500 jobs and ever since I have been in government we have not created jobs as much as Ambode has done, just look at the Safety Corps.

Are you saying no Lagos government before Ambode in this dispensation has created as much jobs?
Yes, in this dispensation, if you look at it, Fashola did well in terms of road infrastructure, in terms of repositioning Lagos, he built on the foundation laid by our leader, Jagaban of Borgu and when you look at that successive governments you will see that this man is bringing a new face to governance, though some see some of his policies as elitists in nature, but when you look at it there is always a place for everyone, whether you are an elite or an ordinary person, there is always a place for you to fit into the policy.

So, by and large I strongly believe that the endorsement he is receiving, though it might be a way to patronise him politically, but it’s a well deserved endorsement, if I have the privilege of endorsing him I will endorse him, because I have seen what he has done and I will continue to endorse him,

so anyone who is giving him endorsement without political undertone is a good one, but sycophancy comes in when people wants to be seen to be doing the job and the job belongs to the party.

The party brought the governor in and it is the same party that will still bring him in, but sycophancy will set in when people starts forming groups to say we are the supporters of Ambode, we are one party, one body and Ambode belongs to everyone, he does not belongs to one Ambode supporters vanguard or any group for that matter, he belongs to the whole of Lagos and he is the number one member of APC in Lagos State.

So, if you look at all these things you will agree that his endorsement is not like some other endorsements that are being orchestrated by the person that is being endorsed.

Most of the people endorsing him are people who have benefitted from his government one way or the other or groups of people who strongly believe in his vision, who share in his ideology and that is good for our democracy.

If Assembly members are to endorse him I strongly believe that he will get all the 40 members endorsing him, even the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) member will endorse him as well because they can’t proffer a better solution to the issues confronting Lagos better than he has done

You really can’t be sure of that until election time?
Well, let’s wait and see, but the message has been passed that we know that some people might want to play games, but we all know that in the governance of the state, there is no vacancy, the PDP or any other party should wait, we have put a process in place and we have a destination in sight, they should allow us to focus on our journey, because if anything goes wrong in Lagos the whole nation will be affected, because this is the only state where every Nigerian believe they can earn a legitimate living and Lagos is working.

You have been here for the third term and from sources you are now looking towards Abuja, to go the House of Representatives, what is your interest in Abuja?
Let me say that election is a function of what you stand for, who you are, your political ideology, your relationship and interaction with the people.

Today, Asiwaju is not standing election, but whichever party he is that is where all of us will go because we believe in his leadership. A lot of people believe in my leadership and my representation and that informed my decision to want to take representation to a higher pedestal at the National Assembly.

Having been here for three terms, it is quite unprecedented and I thank the people of my constituency and the leadership of the party for giving me such opportunity, I know that some are running the fourth term and some will probably come back to run the fifth term.

The truth in the matter is that legislative business is not a small business, it is not a child’s play and for you to be well grounded as a legislator it takes more than what you read in text books, you must gather experience, most often, great leaders of the world they build institutions, one of the things that endeared me to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is by constantly ensuring that he builds virile institutions, a virile legislative house and any executive that is thinking of strengthening the legislature is a friend of the masses and till eternity Lagosians will always appreciate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for strengthening the legislature.

If you look at other states that are not doing well, go and look at the state of their legislature, they are weak, extremely weak and they are at the whims and caprices of the executives and when that happens there won’t be any meaningful development, because there is no check and balances.

I have seen situations where honourable members go to their governors, kneeling down and begging the governors, even for them to even speak to their governors they must be on their knees, it does not happen here. In Lagos our leaders have given us a voice for the voiceless, they have defended the very weak to ensure that we have true democracy in Lagos.

Because of all that is happening, I have done necessary training here as a lawmaker, I have necessary educational qualifications that will make me perform excellently well if given the opportunity to represent Ifako Ijaiye at the National Assembly. I am not just going there as a lawmaker, I am going there both as a lawmaker and as someone who knows the law.

It’s a different thing when you make the law and you make a better law when you know the law, that is what I consider to be my added advantage for me representing the people.

I am not saying that the person there has not done well in terms of lawmaking, but the responsibility of a lawmaker transcends lawmaking, it involves representation, legitimising, agenda setting and so many things and I probably will be able to do much more if given the opportunity. It is a contest, that is the beauty of democracy.

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When you look at it there is always a place for everyone, whether you are an elite or an ordinary person, there is always a place for you to fit into the policy. So, by and large I strongly believe that the endorsement he is receiving, though it might be a way to patronise him politically, but it’s a well deserved endorsement, if I have the privilege of endorsing him I will endorse him, because I have seen what he has done and I will continue to endorse him

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If you look at other states that are not doing well, go and look at the state of their legislature, they are weak, extremely weak and they are at the whims and caprices of the executives and when that happens there won’t be any meaningful development, because there is no check and balances. I have seen situations where honourable members go to their governors, kneeling down and begging the governors, even for them to even speak to their governors they must be on their knees