In revealed this and many more in an interview with Naij.com
Excerpts:
Q: How would you describe the first 100 days of the Lagos government headed by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode?
It is not only Governor Akinwunmi Ambode who may not have much to say about his 100 days in office. We too are in same position.
We asked ourselves and colleagues if anyone has anything to show for his 100 days in office, but none could say he has performed satisfactorily. At a stage we were asking: where are our commissioners? We were told that the list of the commissioners is on its way.
They also said it could be because there is no much money on ground since if you appoint commissioners, you are expected to fund their offices.
There is also need, like the federal government is doing, to fight corruption before the appointment of cabinet members. When they said this, I saw reasons with it to an extent. You know that a majority of us are still in court. Ambode was also in court over his electoral victory.
Honourable Fatai Olatunji Oluwa
Honourable Fatai Olatunji Oluwa
Q: But some of your colleagues seem to have done some things within the last 100 days.
I don’t think it is enough to boast about. If you talk about borehole, I don’t think that is enough for 100 days in office. You, anybody, can sink boreholes.
If you want to talk about 100 days in office, you must be talking of things you have achieved, not one or two boreholes. I’m not saying borehole is not enough, but we both know what I’m saying.
Q: Talking about boreholes, what would you say about the millions of naira allegedly spent by former Governor Babatunde Fashola on two boreholes?
I just finished discussing that with one of my friends. How would you drill two boreholes with over N130 million?
I just finished calling someone who I want to help me drill boreholes and he told me N500,000 and I was even asking him if that amount would drill a standard borehole and he assured me.
We all know the cost of a borehole even though some of us have not done one. I don’t know if he gave the contract to a Chinese company.
Q: Don’t you think the lawmakers in the state failed in their oversight function in that regard?
For me, we are still learning. Remember the last Assembly had no opposition. I don’t know how they approved the money. The members are not even saying anything about it. We are just coming-in and need to learn and know how to get loopholes.
If we don’t learn properly and act when due, it will fall back on the opposition because we won’t know what exactly to oversight on. Though we’ve been seeing some things but we don’t want to be too forward.
Q: With eight PDP members, Lagosians had thought there would be a viable opposition in the House. But the opposition seems weak from what we can see today…
(Cuts-in) Don’t get us wrong. For me, I have chosen to be very careful with what I say. We all need to learn from the House how things go before we know how to say things. It is not that we are weak. I don’t think any of us does not know what to say or do.
Even among the APC members, there are things to learn. You talk about eight of us, but I assure you we are still going to have more. We are still expecting more. Some of you do go to the tribunal and you must have observed the developments and hearing cases of some of the candidates of the PDP during the last elections.
Q: Are you so sure that some of the PDP candidates would win at the tribunal?
Well, you and I know the truth which is that we are expecting more PDP members at the Assembly. But if you say you don’t know, then do your research on what is happening at the tribunal.
Q: What do you think of the removal of the spendings of Fashola’s administration from the internet?
The APC knows how they have run the government of Lagos. If we were in government, maybe I could be able to tell you how we ran it. But I can bet it with you that now, most of the things that happened in past regimes in the state will not happen again. The government of the APC in Lagos will now be very careful.
Some people may have known about this, but they never knew it could one day be exposed. With us in the minority now in the House, I don’t think they will attempt to do anything of this sort again.
While he was there, we were all praising him and saying he was working, but we didn’t know there were some things that were going under. It was because there was no opposition to checkmate them. He (Fashola) has seen it now, because the allegations have reached a stage where he can’t get a ministerial appointment.
If not for the allegations, he would have got the appointment on a platter of gold. Now, he is worried; very worried. He can’t scale through because there are still many things that would come up.
If he was not seeking an appointment at the federal level, nobody would have known about it. It is the same people in his government that opened everything. But I know that in this current government, such things won’t occur because we will checkmate them.
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