Oyo State House of Assembly Speaker Adesina Adeyemo represents Ibarapa East Constituency. In this interview with BISI OLADELE, he speakes about his legislative agenda, the dynamics of the multi-party House and the challenges of governance in the Pacesetter State.
You’re a ranking member of this Assembly. How do you feel being the Speaker?
Well, to every normal human being, you will feel good. Personally, I feel good and I give God all the glory for that. It is not my own making but it was God who made it possible. I also thank His Excellency, the governor of Oyo State, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi and our party leaders, Chairman of the party and the party Executive who God used to ensure that fairness, equity come to play, and all elected members of the House as a whole who had the confidence that I deserved to be their speaker. So, we have to recognize one fact; that all elected members are qualified to be speaker, going by the constitutional provision that members shall elect their speaker among themselves. So that gives everybody equal opportunity to be elected as Speaker. However, one person has to emerge and eventually, they decided , after my nomination which was seconded, and they all agreed that I should be the speaker of the Eight Assembly.
What motivated you to vie for the Speaker?
Honestly speaking, my way of doing things is quite different. I believe that God has a way of putting ?you in positions and at a every point in time for a specific responsibility or assignment. And as at that time, I was elected to represent my constituency. My concern about the inauguration of the house was how I was going to deliver; how I was going to give my constituency that representation. I didn’t contest to be the speaker during election; I only asked for re-electioon which the good people of my constituency gave me. After the election, my expectation was what would I do again that will please my people and how I would be able to get them the deserved representation in the House. That was my first concern. As the issue of the speakership began to come up, I believed that I may be the speaker and also, any other person may emerge as speaker.
But did you see it coming?
Honestly speaking, I saw it but I was not desperate to have it. I only believed that whoever emerged; either myself or any other person, mine is to give maximum cooperation and support as a person that has passion for service delivery, good representation and ensuring that peace reigns in the House. My expectation was that I was going to give anybody who emerged my utmost support and that I would do my best.
When it became clear that it was going to be you…
The fear I had then was enormous. Fear such as: would the composition of the ?Eight Assembly be quite different from the Seventh Assembly? In every society, especially in Africa, we do respect women; we ?give them respect, we accord them some level of tolerance but you now have an Assembly that a man was coming up as Speaker. So, the challenges would be so high and tasking. So, that happened to be the first concern; that oh God, how would I weather the storm of these highly respected men and women who made up this Assembly? How would I do it and what would I do so that I would not offend them, and that I would be favourable to them, that they would be able to tolerate my shortcomings and eventually having the desired peace to reign in the house? It began to dawn on me that the task ahead was high and that I had to look for ways to bring everybody together after the inauguration because some people felt normally aggrieved and we had to start mendling fences to ensure that we are together. And I thank God that we are now one.
Have you been able to do that fence-mending successfully?
Yes, we were able to do that during our retreat and the ways the interactions we had went, the way they came individually to pledge the?it support both in prayers and politicking showed a positive sign. We’ve begun to have confidence that we have men of like minds who share the same vision of having a peaceful Assembly. And at the same time, I pledged my openness and transparency in the conduct of the affairs of the House and they have been able to see some measures of trust and confidence in me. We are going on well and I believe that what we started now will end well by the special grace of God.
What should be the yardsticks for assessing the Eight Assembly?
Well, when you look at the Seventh Assembly of which I was a member, we must look at factors that were responsible for the peace we had. The first person we need to appreciate and acknowledge is the governor for the maximum support he gave the Seventh Assembly. You see him as a man of peace; a man that embraces peace rather than violence. He didn’t interfere in the affairs of the House. Most crises we had in the House were influenced from outside. But such external influence was not allowed to succeed, coupled with the fact that we had a woman leading. Everybody resolved to work with her. At least, we have wives at home and if a responsible man can tolerate whatever inadequacies or shortcoming of his wife, we all agreed that we were going to accept her; not that she was perfect, not that she didn’t have faults but members tolerated those inadequacies. It was our resolution from the beginning that we wanted a House that would differ from what we had earlier experienced in the state. To the glory of God, we have a governor that believes peace is the only foundation for development; that once there is peace, there is going to be both human and societal development. We all embraced that it is in unity, in an atmosphere of peace that our aspirations can be transformed to reality. Those were the factors responsible for our feat. And we are telling the members of the Eight Assembly that we want to surpass the records of the Seventh Assembly. We have been able to let them know that for you to achieve success in this area of legislative endeavour, the House must be united. Our party affiliations should be put aside and the interest of the people that elected us should be paramount. We were not elected to come and be throwing chairs, fighting one another or confronting the governor but we are elected to work together with other members and see how we can move the state forward for the good and benefit of the good people of Oyo State. So, if that is the purpose of our election, then definitely we must not come here and do anything contrary. And I believe members have been able to embrace this decision and they pledged that what we experienced in the Seventh Assembly would be a childsplay in terms of peaceful sessions in this Eight Assembly. I am assuring members of the public that this Eight Assembly will never be a departure but will sustain, consolidate and give extra performance of what we had in the Seventh Assembly.
Any plan for the training of lawmakers?
Honestly, one of the things that helped us in the last assembly was the series of trainings. We had local and international trainings. And it really helped us because there is no end to learning and knowledge. So, the zeal to acquire more knowledge, to interact with other climes; learn how things are being done helped us in achieving those landmark feats in the Seventh Assembly. I hope this time around, in spite of the challenges of paucity of funds, we will be able to have similar trainings which will help our members in their legislative responsibility. So, it is very crucial that members are having regular and constant trainings. It helps a lot. It is a good thing and we hope the governor would approve of this trainings for us to make us better representatives of our people.
You are a lawyer and you have been a lawmaker for four years. Why is it that some bills don’t scale through the process of legislation?
The fact that we have bills at the point of second reading doesn’t mean that the bills are not good. It may need some re-engineering; to work on it further, to remove some areas which we feel are not suitable. For instance, there were bills initiated by members in the Seventh Assembly including mode of dressing, identity and all that. Having seen these bills, we looked at them and we saw that a lot of factors needed to be considered and we also needed to consider our society ?where citizens view issues from religious, economic view and social perspectives. We tried to look at this bill critically to be sure that various agents of government should endeavour to instil ethics in terms of mode of dressing that suit their professions or agencies. We should not look at the issue of legislation independently. What you feel that some people may want and some may not should be considered. So, such bill cannot scale through; it had to be rejected. You have to consider the perspective of the society because we are making laws that are suitable for people. Another thing is that if you have a bill, whether it is being sponsored by private members or it is an Executive bill, we ensure that further clarifications are taken before this bill will become law. It takes longer for laws to be amended. The impact it will have on society needs to be critically examined. We don’t rush in passage of sensitive bills. So, at times, we allow bills to be pending to allow contributions from members of the public. From those that touch on certain professions, we need to invite those professional bodies to come and make their own input.
