Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa in this interview speaks on the legislative agenda of the 8th Assembly, why the Assembly will maintain the tradition of cordial relationship with the executive, state police, why Lagos must be given a special status and other sundry issues. Deputy Editor of The Nation on Sunday, Olayinka Oyegbile and Assembly correspondent, Oziegbe Okoeki spoke with him.
You have been the Speaker for about eight months now, how has it been, what has your experience been like, what has been the challenges?
The experience so far has been a very different thing entirely unlike what it used to be as a member of the House. You know, being a Speaker you have to combine everything together, your responsibility as a representative, your responsibility as a member of the parliament and your responsibility as an administrator and at the same time as a representative of an arm of government that has to relate with the public, the executive and judiciary. So, it is a bunch of load which is quite different from what it used to be as being just member of the House. So, it’s been very challenging.
No doubt you have a focus as the head of the legislature, what exactly is/are the legislative agenda of the 8th Assembly?
Every Assembly has its own legislative agenda, we have started ours already. One of it is the one we did a few months ago, that is engaging our constituents, which we tagged ‘Town Hall Meeting’ which took place simultaneously all around the state. We also want to engage the CSOs that we have not been able to bring on board, and we are planning towards it. And also we want to intensify training of members and staff of the Assembly because we believe we can achieve more through regular training most especially where you have about half of the House being new members. That we’ve been doing, and we will continue with it both local and international training for our members. And also we have changed from what it used to be when we have our sitting late, now we ensure that we are punctual as to the time fixed for plenary and that has been encouraging as well and we’ve been receiving response from the public in that respect. Lawmaking as you know is the major assignment of the parliament and that we have started and we will continue to do that and we still have more bills on our list for second reading, which is the normal process of passing a bill into law. And we will continue to make sure that we pass laws that will impact positively on the lives of our people and bring about progress to Lagos State.
As the Speaker how do you balance the requirement of that office and meeting up with the requirements of your constituents who voted you here, is there no clash of interest?
To me I believe I have been depriving my constituents the appropriate attention due to them. Before my emergence as the Speaker, I am always regular and punctual in my constituency. I mean having time to interact with them, meeting with them on so many issues, listening to them. But it has not been the same since I became the Speaker, because as I said earlier on, you have to combine a lot of things together to serve as an administrator, a lawmaker, you are a public relations officer, you have to do this and do that, you have to be present in so many occasions. So, naturally I understand the fact that I have been depriving my constituency the adequate attention they should be getting. But that does not mean that I have not been doing my own responsibility as a representative in terms of infrastructural development, interactions and so many other things.
How do you hope to redress that so that there would be no complain from both sides at the end of the day?
I can tell you there is none as we speak, but I just feel I need to put in more in creating time to attend to them. That does not mean I don’t attend to them, or I don’t see them or move close to them, but all am saying is that unlike members who can decide not to come to parliament in a day I cannot. Even when we are on holidays I still have to be here, I have to attend to correspondence, treat files, give approvals and so many other things. So it is quite a different thing from what it used to be as just a member of the House. And that is exactly what I am emphasising, and there is no way I am trying to keep up to that without neglecting some of the other things that I have to do back home in my constituency. But I am sure they also know it is a responsibility, it is a duty that I have to make sure I do perfectly.
You seem to have recorded a few first as Speaker of the Lagos Assembly, firstly, you are the first speaker to have the largest number of opposition lawmakers in the House, precisely eight, how have you been coping with them and how is the relationship like?
I agree with you, well let me say I appreciate those you are talking about, the honourable colleagues representing different constituencies on the platform of PDP which is an opposition party in the state. But for the fact that they are responsible legislators and we have all established the fact that the paramount thing, is to work in harmony and in such manner that we would bring progress to our people. We will bring development to our state, we will eradicate poverty in our society and make Lagos as our business. That has been a major factor that is assisting and contributing to the progress we are making, because when we get to that floor we don’t think about party, we talk about the state, we talk about the people of the state and what we can do together to bring about progress, development to our state. And I think that has been helping us. And outside the chambers we have what we call parliamentary where we discuss and interact regularly so that we can address whatever issue that comes up that we believe we need to address. That’s what we’ve been doing and I will say they have been very supportive. But doing that does not mean that they have neglected their party, no, but where there is need to talk about party they still strongly believe they are PDP and they have to defend the party. So, I am saying loudly, they are good representatives and they are worthy parliamentarians.
The second area you recorded another first is the town hall meetings which you held simultaneously in all the 40 constituencies of the state, that was a feat, and just recently the House passed the 2016 budget for the state, what is the percentage of the requests and demands of constituents across the constituencies in the town hall meetings that is captured in the budget?
This is something that we ourselves as representatives of the people are working on, and you will recall, if you were here during the presentation stage, I as the representative of other colleagues also presented to the governor the collated report of all we gathered from that exercise from the 40 constituencies which was presented to the governor openly. So that people will see that at least we have kept our promise. Whatever we have collated, whatever we have taken from them in terms of information, we have put them together and handed it over to the governor. I think our own assignment ends there, because it is not our responsibility to start carrying out projects and some other things. But we will use our office to continue to monitor the executive in such manner that they adhere to what we have requested from them; I mean to look at our report that was presented to the governor and do some of the things that our people asked for. And I want to tell you categorically that they have started working on it as we speak.
The House raised a committee to screen the governor’s nominees for the state exco which was a deviation from the usual practice of screening them openly on the floor of the House. What are the major reasons why you opted for that style of screening and will you say at the end of the exercise that you achieved the purpose for adopting that format?
Well, you said some people saw it as something secret, but some also said it was a good thing. And I will tell you the reason. Firstly, we need to establish the constitutional fact about it, that the parliament is never restricted in the constitution to conduct screening either in the open or behind the door. But the purpose of the exercise is to make sure, one, I have been here for long and I have participated in such exercise numerously. I think, based on my experience, the only way you can screen somebody is to have enough time. The only way you can conduct interview is to have enough time and when you are screening about 40 something people and you want to do that in a day or two or three days, there is no way you would get result, you cannot achieve the purpose of such exercise. And that was the reason why we resolved to conduct this exercise outside the chambers where members will have enough time to ask questions, investigate documents and so many other things. And I strongly believe it was successful, because it was conducted in such manner that those who were members of the committee had opportunity to investigate documents of each nominee, they received petitions, they went to court, they sought for legal advice from reputable lawyers, we can’t achieve this on the floor of the House. So, for me I think we did it in the interest of the government and of our people, because if you are going to serve in our cabinet; it means you want to represent our people, you want to serve our people and for you to serve our people we have to know you perfectly and very well, we have to know your background, we have to know where you are coming from and what you have in stock.
Lagos has always set the pace for the country, it has always recorded cordial relationship between the executive and the legislature, what has been responsible for this and now as Speaker do you intend to maintain that tradition?
I think firstly, you have to look at the background where we are coming from. Number one, you have to understand the fact that from 1999 up to this period, the governor and majority of the members of parliament have always been family of the same party, that is a fact…….
(Cuts in) but we have some states of the same party executive and legislature and yet there is always crisis…..
I will get there. And also you look at the category of people that have been representing various constituencies in this parliament, look at their background; you consider their experience, their exposure and years in politics also. All these are factors that have contributed to the success that we have recorded in Lagos State. And I must say this, people talk about rubber stamp, eye service and all that. For us, we strongly believe there is no cause to start what I would call crisis or in-fighting with the executive when there is no reason for it. Fine, the parliament has constitutional responsibility to perform certain functions and if these are being done without finding any reason to go headlong with the executive, then why should we disagree, why should we have crisis? Fine, the parliament will pass budget, after that the executive will execute the budget, while the parliament will start oversight function, we ask questions as to the performance of each MDA and at the end of the day if you discover they have adhered in totality with the budget you passed, tell me the reason why I should start crisis. And that is the reason why in Lagos State we have been enjoying this cordial atmosphere and that is why there has been peace in the state since 1999 up till this time. And you must also consider the personality of those who have been serving as governors, right from Asiwaju, Fashola and now Ambode. So if the governor is not so selfish, not corrupt, not greedy, so why should the parliament wage war against the executive. So, all in all, what has been happening and what has been working for us is that we on this side of the fence, we are doing our job thoroughly and we have seen the executive doing same, so there is no reason for clash or for us to start fighting, and mind you when there is crisis, it is the state that suffers Because without cordial relationship between the executive and the parliament the state cannot move forward.
Lagos is the biggest economy after the Federal Government; now there is crisis at the federal level because of dwindling oil price, how strong is Lagos to withstand the pressure?
I think this is an opportunity to commend our leader, our governor from 1999-2003, that is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. You know when he came in 1999, the revenue of the state was around N600m, from then up till the time he left it was raised to billions of naira, I mean with very strong institutions in place to continue to generate and increase our revenue. That was the beginning of our success story in the state. And since then, you know, when I mentioned that it depends on the quality of people that have been serving as governor; thank God we have those leaders that have the interest of the state and of the people in them before they decide to serve. And that is why we have continued to increase our revenue, and mind you we have invested strongly on infrastructure; and Lagos continues to expand and by so doing we are attracting more investors both locally and foreign. And the more we have them the more we increase our revenue. So we have been able to detach ourselves from the federal government in terms of fund since 1999 till date. So either the money keeps coming or otherwise, Lagos will continue to thrive and Lagos will remain a success story unlike so many other states. Fortunately, the last administration at the federal level lacked quality to serve as leaders or representative of our people and to me it was a great disaster to our nation and that is why this administration at the federal level is finding it so difficult to hit the ground running since resumption. But for Lagos, I think we are making progress and we will continue to do that as much as we continue on infrastructure development and keep the interest of the state before any other thing.
Is the parliament ready to give more money to security in view of the daily influx into the state, more so when you don’t exactly know who is who?
I agree with you, for you to have a successful economy, you want to ensure protection of lives and property. By the way, that is one of the major functions of the state as enshrined in the constitution; it is an assignment that must be done. And in doing that government has to invest seriously in security. Not long ago we did what we call re-ordering the budget, opening doors for the governor to acquire more hardware in terms of security, that is some few weeks ago. If the need be we will continue to do that, to earmark fund for the executive to ensure protection of lives and property because we cannot increase our revenue if there is no safety, no investor will come to our state if they cannot be guaranteed of their safety. And in view of this, if you want Lagos to expand beyond this, if you want our revenue to increase beyond what it is now then we have to continue to address the issue of security. So, if need be we will continue to earmark fund for security.
There is no doubt that the legislature has a major role to play in ensuring good governance through the bills you pass into laws, how many of such laws has the 8th Assembly under your watch passed and briefly tell us the significance or importance of these laws?
As I said earlier on, one of the major responsibilities of a parliament is lawmaking and that we have started, so far, the last one we passed was two weeks ago, that is the employment trust fund law. We all know the situation in Lagos, even in Nigeria, that majority of the teeming population, largely the youths are unemployed, majority of them cannot even access bank loan and in that wise, from the executive wisdom, it was thought of that there should be a kind of fund that will bring opportunity for our youths to access, those who are creative or the entrepreneurs among them can easily access this fund. So that they can start something on their own, by so doing we are creating employment for the people and at the same time eradicating poverty. That was the reason behind the law. We all know the significance of the budget, without the budget there is no economy as we are witnessing now at the federal level. We have some laws that have passed through the first and second reading which we are yet to pass so far and they all have their purpose. We have just worked on the LASIEC law which is to create opportunity for our people in various local governments to contest the local government election, because without that law in place there is no way you can conduct election at the local government level. The law will make it possible to elect their people to represent them at the local government level. We also did the ‘Ajagungbale’ bill on second reading; that is the property protection bill. We all know the problem of ‘Ajagungbale’ in the state and we all know how valuable land is in Lagos and the need for us to start doing something to curb the excesses of the ‘Ajagungbales’ and to protect the indigent amongst us, who have struggled to buy a plot of land and before you know it someone somewhere in the name of ‘Ajagungbale’ deprives him or her of the land. Also not long ago because of the incessant crisis we have in our university, Lagos State University, we amended the LASU law and that is to ensure that there is peace in LASU because for any community to grow education is very important and germane and for us to have good education there must be peace. And taking a step further we also create opportunities for investment in education sector most especially LASU to make it residential. All this we have done and so many other bills that we still have to work on.
During the re-ordering of the budget last year, the overhead bridge at Agege-Pen Cinema was one of the three of such to be constructed in the state but it was dropped or rather replaced when funds for the budget was eventually released and that happens to be your constituency, what actually happened?
Well, it is still part of it, if you look at 2016 budget, we still have provisions for that overhead bridge in Pen Cinema well embedded in the budget; it is still there. We agreed with the executive about the Agege project, probably along the line, they sought for expert opinion that with signalisation the traffic there can become easy and will ensure free flow. So that we should do signalisation before the bridge, if we record success through signalisation then we can suspend the bridge but if otherwise, we still have to build the overhead bridge. But I can assure you we still have that provision in the budget of 2016 and since it is there it cannot be taken away, so you can’t consider it dead except it is no longer in the provision of the budget. But as I am speaking with you the budget we passed for 2016 we have it well stated, flyover at Pen Cinema.
Talking about bills and laws; what are the mechanisms you have in place to assess the impact of the laws you passed on the masses and the state?
As you have said, the society on its own is also a source to monitor the impact of the laws passed by the House because they have right to come back to the House and I want to tell you this, we have been doing that. If you look at the traffic law which generated a lot of hullabaloo, we received a lot of petitions from both the okada and Marwa riders, drivers, even reputable people, about the law, that we should look at the law again. And we are going to consider it, we are going to look at it again and see what we can do about that. Also the process of town hall meeting is also an avenue to assess what we have done because it is to create an opportunity for people to comment on what we have been doing, what we have achieved. And on our own, of recent I discussed with the chairman, House committee on Judiciary the need for us to look at the child rights’ law and domestic violence. She should take it up and look at it because everywhere today it is all about domestic violence, child abuse. We are doing that, we can set up a committee to address that and at the same time we largely rely on society to feed us back and the CSO also are there, they are also relating with us to tell us what and what we should look at.
Recently chairman of the conference of Speakers visited the senate president to discuss issues on constitution amendment, now that APC is in government at the centre are you still pushing the issue of a special status for Lagos?
Let me take it from the chairman of the Speakers conference. Of recent we elected a new Speaker. And as part of his assignments he has to relate with the National Assembly and one of the things agitating our minds is about the amendment of the constitution to enhance our performance as state Assemblies. Because most of the state Assemblies are not all that free, they are tied to the executive, the independence is not really there. And we believe through the amendment of the constitution this can be achieved. And truly if we want to enjoy democracy the parliament must be free from the executive. Any way the major feature of democracy is separation of powers and there must be checks and balances among all the arms of government. So there is need for us to amend the constitution so that most of the Houses of Assembly can gain independence from the executive. Now, on special status for Lagos, that is not negotiable. It is a must, as we have witnessed, we see every day in Lagos the need for the federal government to give Lagos State special attention and by special attention I mean special fund. Special fund to do so many things. We have just spoken about security, infrastructure and we still have to maintain some of the federal government’s presence in the state. We have been talking about this in our parliament and we are not going to get tired of it, we will continue to call for it and we will continue to write the president and the National Assembly to ensure that they consider Lagos State for special status. Not only that we also talk about state police. Without having our own police we cannot effectively talk about protection of lives and property. Whereas we are shouldering the responsibility of federal police, so what stops us from having our own police that will protect lives and properties. People talk about using state police against opponent, is it not happening at the federal level, did we not see what happened in Ekiti, Osun and other places? So why do we have to use that as a reason to deprive states from having their own police outfit, I think we will achieve that. And in our own party we clamour for federalism and what we have just mentioned has to do with federalism and we must ensure we practice federalism in totality and I strongly believe our party will surely do that.
