Tag: Majority leader

The Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday, July 19, 2016, passed a bill to prohibit forceful entry and illegal occupation of landed properties in the state. According to the provisions of the bill, land grabbers can now face a maximum and minimum of 21 and five year imprisonment respectively if convicted. There are also various fine impositions for individuals or groups convicted of the offence. The new law came through a motion moved by the Majority Leader of the House, Sanai Bolanle Agunbiade.
In this interview with Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan, Agunbiade said the passage of this bill into law in Lagos State is a huge step towards a lasting solution to the activities of the land grabbers, popularly known as Omo Oniles or Ajagungbales which have become an age long menace in the state. He also spoke on some other issues. Excerpts

Last Tuesday, the Lagos State House of Assembly passed the bill to prohibit forceful entry and illegal occupation of landed properties in the state. The bill emanated from a motion you moved. Can you tell us why the law is necessary?

I am elated at the passing of the bill into law. We are now awaiting the assent of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. The law is higly needed to adders a number of menace in the state occasioned by the activities of land grabbers popularly known as Ajagungbales. Land is to us in Lagos what oil is to the people of the Niger Delta. Sadly, a lot of people have abused and destroyed the value system of the people of Lagos state where forceful land occupation is concerned.

The activities of land grabbers in Lagos have become a mnace. People would struggle to buy land, only for them to be unable to use the land. Some people would emerge from the blues and forcefully disposses them of their lands. And nothing would happen afterwards. Even law enforcement agents connive with these criminals to forcefully take lands away from their genuine owners.

Criminals and cultists are engaged by these people to terrorize land owners into abandoning their properties. Some uniform men and legal professionals even work with some land grabbers to threaten people and implement illegal judgments. All over the state, what we have been hearing are cries for justice and protection by victims of these menace. These are the reasons why I felt we need a law to effectively combat the problem.

I am happy that when I set about working on the bill, I received a lot of encouragement from most of my colleagues. There reactions and supports encouraged me to believe that the problem is a statewide issues needing a serious solution. In Ikorodu where I come from, the activities of land grabbers is responsible for a large chunk of the violence we daily witness and hear about in the town and its environs. Many young men are employed by these people to maim and kill.

Many Lagosians are eager to get more details about the bill. Can you tell us some of the components of the new law?

The law, when signed will provide that no person or group of persons shall use force or unreasonable force to take over any landed property in the state. Section 3 of the law states that “any person who is on any property as a trespasser after having entered as such and fails to leave the property on being required to do so by or on behalf of the owner of the property, his agent or any other person in lawful occupation commits an offence.”

According to the provisions of the bill, land grabbers can now face a maximum and minimum of 21 and five year imprisonment respectively if convicted. There are also various fine impositions for individuals or groups convicted of the offence. We have ensure that the final output is such that will deter forceful occupation of land henceforth.

The bill provides for prohibition of forceful land take over, entry by force, illegal occupation of property, use of land agents, illegal use of Law enforcement agents, encroaching with a weapon, sales of property without authority and professional misconduct among others with their attendant punishments as regards the particular offence.

No person or group of persons from the commencement of this law shall cause to be placed on any land or landed property any land agent for the purpose of forceful takeover of the said land. No law enforcement agent, vigilante or ethnic, cultural/traditional militia shall execute the judgment of a court in respect of any landed property except as may be provided for under the Sheriff and Civil Process Law.

To put it simply, it is the much awaited bill that will criminalized the activities of Ajagungbale in the state. It is the Property Protection Bill. The bill has been passed on Tuesday. Don’t forget that the Governor has set up a task force ahead of the passage  of the bill. That shows the seriousness being attached to the issue by all arms of government.

But already there are fears about the implementation of the law. Do you share such fears?

Well, we were aware of the type of people we were up against in passing such law. And we took the issue of implementation into consideration all along. This is why the law provides for a special task force to implement the provisions of the new law. And good enough, the governor did set up a task force even before the law was passed. So, I am optimistic that with all of us being vigilant and supportive of our efforts so far, we will get the best out of the new law.

You will agree with me too that the land grabbers are not novices in the game. They have the retainership of the best lawyers in town to argue their cases. They are well connected within the law enforcement circles and of course they have people here and there they rely on to help them circumvent the rules. But I am optimistic that with the new law, we will rid Lagos of Ajagungbales soon.

We expect the law enforcement agents too to appreciate our effort and key into the new opportunity provided by the new law to help us in the fight against cultism, violence and crime in Lagos. We are also warning land owning families and Omo oniles to be wary of the new law as they del in land sales and allocations. The law is all encompassing and well thought out. Soon, we will begin to see the dividends.

I am also optimistic that the Governor will sign it soon. He is also very eager to put the problems of Ajagungbales behind him and rid Lagos of violence. He has shown zeal and commitment to the efforts to solve the problem. So with assent coming soon, the law will in no time come into force across the state and our people can heave sighs of relieve.

You recently gave a report of your activities in the last one year to your constituents. Would you say you have fulfilled your electoral promises?

It is for my constituents to actually answer this questions. But every legislator is first, a representative of his people. Therefore, I have my responsibilities as a Legislator and as a representative. As a legislator I have tried to perform up to expectations. The house of Assembly has in the last one  year, moved a total of sixty seven (67) motions, with resolutions passed to the appropriate quarters for executive actions. The following are the motions I sponsored: call for review of the special and standing committees of the house of assembly; call to revive  the teaching of Yoruba language as a compulsory subject in all public and private schools in Lagos State; call for the dissolution of membership of Lagos state judicial service commission; need for regulation of noise pollution in Lagos state; call for amendment of Lagos state university law and resolving the perennial problems of the institution; call for urgent investigation into the activities and funding of the federal road maintenance agency (FERMA) in respect of federal roads in Lagos state in the last eight years.

Others are: need to effect slight amendment on the house resolution dated 15th july, 2014; amendment of the standing committees of the Lagos State house of assembly; call for constituency stakeholders’ meeting to hold simultaneously in the 40 constituency of the state; need for compliance with the local government levies (approved collection list) law, 2010, by revenue agents in the 20 local government areas/37 local council development areas in the state; need to wall-off mile 12 market from the main road and or relocation of the market from its current location; call for erection of warning signs on the blind ends of the concrete divides on Ikorodu Mile-12 road and painting the blind ends the with reflective colours.

I have told you about the bill against forceful land occupation which is one bill I have been working on for years as a legislator. It has been passed into law.

It is common place for people to expect even legislators to directly alleviate the suffering of their people through empowerment. Have you also been doing these?

As a representative, a legislator makes personal concerted efforts to represent and agitate the expectations and yearning of his people. He makes himself available for their request and strive to get for them, dividends of democracy.  With humility, I wish to say that I have made successful  impact as a representative in the following areas:

I have empowered the youth in my constituency with ICT. Presently, 252 youths drawn from Ikorodu Local Government, Ikorodu West LCDA and Ikorodu North LCDA are currently undergoing three months of intensive training in Desktop Publishing and Graphic Designing at three different computer institutes: (Access point Computer Institute for Ikorodu Local Government and Ikorodu North LCDA and GlobalTech Computer College for Ikorodu West LCDA). The best three students at the end of the training will in addition to being presented with Computer set each, get connected for employment. This is the 6th edition of such training. Also in the last one year commencing from June 8th, 2015 I have empowered 31 youths with  employment.

With the assistance of Wema Bank Plc,  I have assisted 100 market Men and Women in the constituency with interest free loan of Fifty thousand Naira (50,000),for a four months tenure. The total sum of Five Million (5,000,000) naira, was dispensed on 29th April 2016.  That is the 5th edition. In the 1st edition, 100 people benefited, in the 2nd edition, 150 people benefited, in the 3rd edition, 150 people benefited, in the 4th  edition, 160 people benefited (including 20 beneficiaries from each of the CDC). So far, Six Hundred and Sixty (660) market Men & Women have benefited from the free interest loan since I assumed the representation of Ikorodu Constituency 1. On Wednessday , another group of 100 persons, all members of the Lagos State Tradesmen and Artisans (LASCOTA), comprising 21 Trade Unions, benefited  from another Five Million (5,000,000) naira, Free Interest-Loan Scheme.

And what rejects have you attracted to your constituency as a legislator?

I will gladly mention the popular Obafemo Awolowo road. I nominated this road for rehabilitation through the House of Assembly under the regime of H.E Babatunde Raji Fashola. The construction of the road commenced during that regime, but completed and commissioned during the tenure of H.E Akinwunmi Ambode, specifically on May 16th 2016. Coincidentally, Hon. Babatunde Ajare, who was one of those ranking Honourables (then) that assisted me in pushing for the road, was the representative of the Governor at the commissioning ceremony. He is now the commissioner for the Environment.

As we speak, the Government of Akinwunmi Ambode is constructing A block of 13 Classrooms at Isiu Local Government Primary School. I am proud for the role I played in the development, I appreciate the Elders forum of Isiu, led by Alhaji Sulaimon, for their resilience and knowing how to use their representative.

The Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA), Sanai Agunbiade, speaks on how the Assembly avoided crisis in electing its principal officers, the recent crisis that rocked the National Assembly, the presence of a large number of opposition lawmakers in the Lagos Assembly and how he thinks the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should handle the situation, amongst other issues, in this interview with ‘Dare Odufowokan, Assistant Editor and Chinedu Ihueze.

Congratulations on your emergence as the Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly. As someone who was part of the 6th and 7th assemblies of the House, what are your expectations from the 8th Assembly?

For the 8th Assembly, our expectations are in the areas of improved legislative activities, more dedication to legislative duties, improved public legislative relationship; by this I mean that the members of the Assembly should have improved relationship with their constituencies. They should be more visible in their respective constituencies. They should be seen attending more to the yearnings and aspirations of their constituents.

As an institution, our expectations also include more capacity building for the members of the Assembly and staff. With this, we intend to compliment our legislative activities and duties. We also expect more robust and result-oriented debates on the floor of the House. Above all, we have set certain tasks for ourselves and we expect to achieve, at the end of this Assembly, a better placement of the Lagos State House of assembly than we had in the 6th and 7th Assembly.  We want to see Lagos Assembly being reckoned with as a legislative house beyond or above common standards of excellence.

Is there any remarkable difference yet in the composition of the 7th and the 8th Assemblies?

Of course there are differences. There is nobody in the state today who will not notice the differences between the compositions in the 6th, 7th and 8th assemblies. In the 6th Assembly, we had three Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members. Before the end of the 6th Assembly, one of the PDP members crossed to the then ACN voluntarily. In the 7th Assembly, we had a convertee from PDP to APC, so it was an all APC House. All 40 honorable members were all APC till the end. But in this 8th Assembly, we have 8 PDP members and 32 APC lawmakers. This is the largest presence of the opposition party in the Lagos legislature ever. So, it is a big difference.

Another remarkable difference in the composition is that, for the first time that I know, we are having equal proportion of new honorable members and returning honorable members. We have 20 old members who returned for 2nd term, 3rd term and even 4th term while we also have 20 new members coming into the House of Assembly for their first term. It is of these fresh 20 that we have eight (8) for PDP and 12 for APC.

Another change in the composition is that we had five female members in the 7th Assembly but presently, we have only three female members. Also, in this 8th Assembly, we are having a non-Yoruba native as member, which shows how tolerant Lagos is. So, I think these are the remarkable differences in composition between this Assembly and the last assemblies.

And what challenges do you foresee as a result of these differences?

Well, I will not see the composition in the negative but rather in the positive. I want to believe that the members of PDP in the House of Assembly will enhance more robust argument. This is so because we have eight people coming from a different platform and having different manifesto, philosophy and orientation from that of the APC which is the party in control in the state. So, we are going to have different patterns in the presentation and perception of political issues. Conflict of reasoning on political issues will emerge, which will make the debate robust and at the end of the day, we expect to have superior arguments having their ways as it would be in any sane society. It would give us different shades of opinion and different angles to issues, all in the interest of the people of Lagos State.

I am very sure that the few females in the House of Assembly will want to rise at all times to defend the interest of the female populace. That is not to say that male members in the House have always been against women interests. We’ve always been fair when it comes to gender issues but you know women for what they are; they always want to claim equality with men. The three women can even say that they are more than all of us the males because they are our mothers. So, I want to see it more as bringing the best out of the House of Assembly. Though, it was not something that was desired, but as it has occurred, I am sure we will work together to give Lagos House of Assembly a better identity.

After initial fears, the election of principal officers into the House was rancor free. How was these achieved?

I will say that Lagos State is the centre for excellence. Lagos State is the heartbeat of Nigeria in so many areas, ranging from economic, political, social and the rest. Whatever happens in Lagos will dictate the tempo of what happens in Nigeria and we are conscious of this. And as members of APC, the ruling party at the centre, we know very well that all eyes are on Lagos and the representatives of the people in Lagos. Therefore, whatever disputes, disagreements and conflicts that may appear to come up, we will always resolve it amicably.

It will be out of place to expect the leadership position of the House of Assembly to be allocated unopposed. The number of people that came out signifying interest for the leadership of the House shows the competence and the quality of membership of the House of Assembly. If you had ten people who were convinced that they could be Speakers or Deputy-Speakers of the House of Assembly, that is the beauty of democracy.

There were expectations of the quality of the person and persons that will lead a Lagos Assembly, so every individual who was convinced within himself as to possessing these qualities, showed up. The party is there as the unbiased umpire and arbiter to regulating things and suggest possible ways of deciding on who gets what. It is like lawyers going before the Judge in a court room. The lawyers will argue back and forth while the Judge would have to suggest the way forward at the end of it all. And as realists who love our party and people of Lagos State, we would not allow the interest of wanting to occupy one office or the other to supersede the overall interest of the state which is stability. Along the line, as the day drew nearer, individuals started seeing reasons why they had to leave the Speakership and any other position and contest for other offices.

 After all, the Speaker alone cannot make the House. One singular leadership office will not make the office and you do not even need to be a principal officer to contribute your quota more effectively to the House of Assembly. To that extent, we saw reasons and we were able to listen to wise counsels by leaders of the parties and our individual leaders, who called us and advised us. And before you knew it, things fell into shape and what we have today is a very united House working together and determined to achieve remarkable feat at the end of the term.

But why do you think the APC was unable to repeat this feat at the National Assembly?

You would agree with me that APC is a conglomeration of about three to four political parties that decided for the first time in the annals of Nigerian history, to prove that progressives can come together and wrestle power. These parties and their chieftains swallowed their pride and sacrificed their independent existences and came together to give the people hope.  So, when it came to the National Assembly, there were people that were originally ACN, APGA, PDP, ANPP, CPC coming together as APC. Within the time APC was formed and the time of the election, it was so short for us to blend properly as a political party. To that extent, I feel what happened at the National Assembly showed that APC still needs to blend.

A lot of factors contributed to what happened at the National Assembly but one thing that gladdens the mind is that APC still remains APC irrespective of our various mistakes and errors. We are still one party and APC will wax stronger. What is most important is that when you make a mistake, you look back, correct your mistakes, learn from it and forge ahead. The best method to do this is already being followed as the party is already talking to all stakeholders and I am very sure the President is trying to come into the issue to assuage all frayed nerves. Once all these issues are sorted out, I am sure that the APC will be stronger and the mistake will not repeat itself.

What has been the relationship between APC lawmakers and their counterparts from the opposition PDP so far in the 8th Assembly?

We were together in Abuja at the instance of the National Institute of Legislative Studies. We had induction together over there. Even here in Lagos, we had inauguration together. We have had two sittings together. It has been so cordial and they have not really carried themselves in a manner suggestive of being from different political platform other than the rest of us and those of us on the other hand have extended our hands of friendship and brotherhood to them. And I must say that the reception has been so cordial from them. I think they have reciprocated our friendly gesture well and I believe and pray it continues in that manner

No doubt the presence of an unusual number of opposition lawmakers in the House requires tact to deal with. How capable do you think the current leadership is to handle the situation?

The ability of a man to resolve crisis and conflicts is what determines the strength, wisdom and capabilities of that man. There are bound to be conflicts even between couples. There are bound to be disputes in a family and even within the society because anywhere you have more than one person, conflict is a necessary phenomenon to keep life going. What is not good is being unable to resolve disputes and conflicts. The ability of the managers, who are the principal members, to manage these disputes is the reason they have been elected to lead the House.

And I must tell you that the Speaker of the House of the Assembly is a man that is good in dispute resolution and very pragmatic. He is a man who has the vision to lead the House to a higher pedestal. So, no one with such a vision will allow any dispute or conflict to be unresolved because what gives you a conducive atmosphere to operate is your ability to resolve conflict of issues in an organisation. So, I want to say that with the ability of the Speaker; with the vast administrative experience of the Deputy Speaker, and with the managerial ability of other principal members, we are poised to manage the situation successfully.

And I must say that we are lucky to have a person like the Speaker in charge. He is tolerant, willing to listen to others and he is a team player. And as someone who has been around for a long time, four terms precisely, he is in a good position to handle whatever situation well.

You are a third term legislator from Ikorodu; what new thing should your constituents look forward to?

To whom much is given, much is expected. The political history of Ikorodu has been such that after one term, you are denied another term. But my people have been magnanimous to appreciate me for whatever reasons best known to them and have given me another term to make me a third term lawmaker. That shows how nice, kind and loving my people have been to me. For all of this that they have done, I want to say that I have justified their voting for me for the third time by the show of love that my colleagues have also expressed by making me the leader of the majority of the house. I appreciate the rare gesture of my people to have sent me here for the third time and the love that my colleagues have shown me because they have helped me to justify my people’s expectation in sending me back to the House a third time. With that, I have added responsibilities; to lead the House and represent my people. I pray to God to give me the wisdom and the strength so that none of the two will suffer: My constituency getting more practical representation and the members of the Assembly not finding any lapses on my part as the Majority Leader of the House of Assembly.