Misbaudeen Oyefeso, chieftain of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), is contesting for the Ijebu Central Constituency seat in the House of Representatives. A lawyer, he hails from Ijebu-Aiyepe in Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State. In this interview with TAJUDEEN ADEBANJO, Oyefeso who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the APM, speaks on why he left the party and his plans for his constituency
Many wondered why you left the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to contest under Allied People’s Movement (APM)
I can say clearly that I am a progressive. I don’t want to leave the circle of the progressives, but there was factionalisation and all attempts made to resolve the issues were unfruitful. I even contested House of Representatives primary in the APC. There was an agreement signed between the leaders witnessed by the national leadership of the party, but it could not be implement, but because of my passion to turn around things in my constituency, to lift the people of my constituency, my glowing passion for good governance in that constituency, I decided to go to Allied People’s Movement to go realise my ambition.
What are your chances of winning because the party seems to be unpopular?
You will recall that Allied People’s Movement has once been used to contest elections in which the ruling party today (APC) defeated APM with just 19,000 votes. That is to tell you that the party is known. APM is popular in Ogun State. Let me quickly add that presently, the party has about seven members in the House of Assembly and one or two members in the House of Representatives in Ogun State.
What do you think the present lawmaker doing that you can do differently?
The present representative member, we both contested for the primaries then and now too. It will interest you to know that he lost gallantly at the primaries, he didn’t come first, second or third. He came distant fourth or fifth. That is to tell you that he didn’t do well even with his colleagues in his party, not to talk of those of us who did not even have any chance of winning anything because of this serious polarisation and fractionalisation. Secondly, I know as a matter of fact that he did not move any single motion in that House of Representatives, not to talk of converting it to a bill and law or act at the end of the day, that is not enough.
In terms of attracting projects to his constituency, to my knowledge, he has only been able to attract only a few solar systems and one small road in Ijebu-Ode and I believe being a member of the House of Representatives goes beyond that. As a member of the House of Representatives, principally you have three roles to play constitutionally – one of them he did not even do at all and that is representation. What do you mean by representation? Going back to your constituent, trying to galvanise their opinions, problems or complaints and taking them back to the chamber to go and see how best to solve those problems, it must be on a regular basis, he didn’t do that. Secondly, in the act of legislation, you don’t even need to be a lawyer to move a motion to convert it to a bill and at the end of the day, make it a law, but he did not do that so he has not been able to carry out his legislative duties.
The third one, which I consider the most important, let me say the most cerebral and the most morally recognised and is what you call being able to have an oversight function over the executive. Of course, this is a democracy that involves checks and balances and one of the ways to have checks and balances is the oversight function provision. Of course, if the house makes legislation or appropriation, you have a duty to also supervise the amount you have appropriated for a ministry. So, the best he can do is to ensure that he monitors the execution of projects and report appropriately to the chamber and to your constituency. He has not been able to do that and that is why I believe, I, Musbau Adewale Oyefeso, a legal practitioner of over 33 years should be able to make a difference and add value to the members of my constituency.
What are the yearnings of the people of your constituency that you think that once you get there you will be able to resolve?
One, we have a serious shortage of federal projects in my constituency. As we speak, we don’t have any federal hospital in the entire local government. The one we have is in Abeokuta and I have been there before to patronise them. It is over-patronised. They are trying but imagine if we have federal hospitals, and state hospitals, even in my town, the only general hospital we have there at the state level was established between 1972 and 1973, because we were lucky to have the secretary to the Western Region, the late P.T Odumosu. I think he influenced the establishment of that hospital. I have also been to that hospital before. If you look at the labour room, you will be scared in terms of rate dereliction and dilapidation.
Personally, I have bought fans for the entire rooms there and I have also made the Muslim community do paintings and some other things there. Some individuals too have also supported that place in terms of fixing the ceilings and some other infrastructures there yet it is still in a serious state of dilapidation. For so many years, there was no light in that place. Three years ago, I was visiting Ijebu to change my voter’s card to my constituency, I had an accident, I had to go to that hospital for first aid and nobody was there. I got there around 4:30 pm, and the only nurse on the ground was an auxiliary nurse and she couldn’t do anything. She only did one or two prescriptions which could not help.
We have two secondary schools in my town, one was established in 1960/61, Aiyepe Comprehensive High School. I didn’t go to that school but the alumni gave me an award because I established the first Computer Science Laboratory in the school before the state government decided to be assisting with N200 per student. No single science teacher in that school as we speak. The other school was established around 1984, no single science teacher in that school too. We have to establish the first Muslim private secondary school in that place to be able to graduate science students. We engage youth corpers, they were all living in my house. Muslin community was giving the corpers N10,000 as a supplement. I asked the principal of the government school, why don’t you engage the corpers? he said the school could not afford the N10,000 that the Muslim community was paying the corpers. If you go to their laboratory, it is in a serious state of disrepair, the laboratory was built as far back as 1960/1961 and is of a high standard, but all the tables have been eaten by termites.
Aside from school and hospital, which other areas need attention?
If you talk of roads, as I speak, Mr Biodun Shobanjo, the Chairman of Troyka Holdings, is the one fixing our roads. I’m talking of the Ikenne-Aiyepe road and the Odogbolu-Aiyepe road, on regular basis, annually. I asked him why and at that time he said he had an aged mother in the town, he didn’t want his mother to be going out of town and get into potholes and worsen her health conditions, so he was fixing it. His mother died recently now, and about two years ago, we are in God’s hands. Let’s see if the man will continue to fix it. Let’s even say Aiyepe is a small town for a federal project. Odogbolu, the local government headquarters, has not witnessed any serious development. What about the popular Ijebu-Ode, I understand a senator brought one or two road projects, but Ijebu-Ode too is facing the same issue of dilapidated roads, so it is not enough.
I was in Imodi, one of the largest towns in Odogbolu because it has about 10 polling units, even Aiyepe has only eight polling units. About two kilometres from the town, the road is in a serious state of disrepair. I took a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) there and felt the state of the bad road. Ogun state government was supposed to fix the road. There is an estate, a big housing estate – Aco Estate, just before the town, about two kilometres from the town, the man could not help, he has tried his best. There is also a quarry very close to the town, nothing could be done. We have so many vehicles moving in and out of that place, they could not help. Even the one being handled by the Ogun State government, because the town is closer to Ijebu-Ode which is the central town in the entire Ijebu, the Ogun State governor has not even finished the project, very close to the house of two prominent elites. It is so sad. So, I believe, if I represent that constituency, I will bring so many goodies. I have not even mentioned insecurity – the greatest kidnapping in that area is happening between Ijebu-Ode and Odogbolu, two major local governments in my constituency and I know it’s because we have not been able to attract federal presence to the place in terms of security.
So, If I am there, I should be able to mobilise the elites and the royalty to ensure that we have enough security presence in that place. Meanwhile, we have so many industries within that community and if the federal government is not coming to their aid in terms of infrastructures, in terms of all these health facilities I’m talking about, in terms of security, those industries will collapse. We have the biggest groundnut oil firm in that place; they have very big vegetation. One of the towns has a lot of Chinese. The Chinese are into serious manufacturing, and the roads that connect Okun-Owa to Imodi and Ijebu-Ode are in bad shape. Serious flooding is taking place there and nobody is coming to their aid. To link Okun-Owa to Imodi, you have to come back to the expressway and go through Ijebu-Ode which is about 15 to 20 kilometres instead of connecting through Agoro and one other town before getting to Imodi in just a few minutes. You can imagine the number of man-hours lost to traffic.
What are your messages to the electorate?
My message to the electorate is we must get it right this time; we must vote for somebody who is passionate about the development of the constituency; we must vote for somebody who is honest. I have been the chairman of my Muslim community for more than 10 years now and my community has the biggest mosque in the whole of Nigeria. If we had not run the mosque well, I would not have been retained. I was an electoral commissioner in Lagos for about 10 years and I was also the chairman of the commission for about six months. When I was there, I was the Chairman of Operations and Logistics for elections. We had three local government elections, the best in the country so far and I was the brain behind those three elections. I was once a consultant to the Ogun State governor on election matters.
It was during my tenure as the consultant that the government created 57 Local Government and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) for Ogun State which brought governance to the grass root. In Odogbolu, we had three local governments. If this present government had retained the 57 LGA/LCDAs created by Ibikunle Amosun’s administration, we would have witnessed development across the councils.