Mr Omobolaji Oshinowo is the President, The Exclusives Club Ikorodu, one of the most prestigious clubs in Ikorodu Division. He is a businessman, a hotelier and a politician. He is a chieftain of ADC in Ikorodu and Lagos State.
He was a member of AD, AC and ACN before he left the party in protest to join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he was a chieftain. Some years back, he left the PDP to join the Labour Party. Today, he is a chieftain of the ADC.
In an interview at his office at The Exclusives Club house in Ikorodu, Osinowo spoke with Kunle Adelabu, Publisher/Reporter -in Chief, THE IMPACT Newspaper on ADC and other opposition parties in Lagos State, state of ADC after the exit of Mr Peter Obi and Governor Rabiu Kwakwanso, what Lagosians should be expecting from the party, performances of the APC government, and dredging activities in Ikorodu among others. Excerpts:
THE IMPACT: As a Chieftain of ADC, can you confirm if your party still has structure in Ikorodu and Lagos State at large and what have you been doing?
Bolaji Osinowo: ADC is in Ikorodu and ADC is doing what other political parties are doing; getting ready for 2027 elections and we have many aspirants coming on board but we have not done any primaries and I can’t tell you that we have a candidate for the position yet.
THE IMPACT: I asked the question because people keep saying the only party in Lagos is APC, what’s your take on this?
Bolaji Osinowo: No, they’re wrong and don’t forget that ADC is a coalition of other political parties. I left PDP with so many other people here in Ikorodu to join the ADC; to join the coalition, likewise, members of the Labour Party and we have some members of the APC that have joined our coalition but you know they came under the Omoluabi who used to be part of the APC and everyone who comes from Omoluabi is from APC. We have so many of them and some of them have positions in the ADC executive because the offices were shared among all the tendencies that formed the coalition.
THE IMPACT: You said ADC is a coalition which I agree with, with members coming from PDP, ADC and Labour. Thus, that now means there is no more PDP and Labour since little or nothing has been heard about them in Ikorodu, the more so since you were a member of these parties at different times?
Bolaji Osinowo: No, there’s still PDP and Labour Party, but we all know that both of them are in crisis because PDP has got two factional National Chairmen. They just got out of the Supreme Court but they are still in court over other matters and it is a big problem because most of their aspirants that want to buy form don’t even know where to buy the form from. I can say there’s a Wike faction in PDP and the other faction is that of the former governor that they have been at loggerheads with. The two factions are not ready to let go and it is a big battle in the party. I hope that they sort themselves out before the general elections, but we all know what is going on because if a party chieftain says he is for PDP and he has the best interest of PDP at heart and he knows that his party is likely not to produce a presidential candidate and he is saying that the current president is his boss and they’re going to work for him; I think that says a lot about the party.
THE IMPACT: Talking about crises, you cannot leave ADC out of crisis because they are also going through crisis at the National level and just recently, Obi and Kwankwaso left the party, therefore, what does that portend for ADC at the state and national level?
Bolaji Osinowo: Nothing, to be honest with you, nothing, because Obi is a lazy politician; If you are in politics, and you are fighting for an office and there are other people fighting for the same office with you, there’s something called primary election where you have to mobilise people to come vote for you. You are coming out for president because you believe that you have something that will change the system and inputs which will lift the country out of the current predicament. All that you have to do is to sell your manifesto to your audience. Obi, in all his life, from being Governor, he never got into any primary election, because Ojukwu gave it to him free and he went to court against whoever won. After he left APGA, he joined PDP and ran together with Atiku. He ran out of PDP because he knew he wouldn’t get the ticket from the PDP and he ran to Labour Party (LP) where they gave it to him and now he left LP during their crisis and jumped into ADC and was talking about rotations because he wanted to collect it on a platter of gold, but there are other presidential aspirants and he went to meet all the southern presidential aspirants begging them to step down for him and they said no! Again, he ran away from ADC to a new party, NDC because they have promised him the presidency. This is a man that said he left those parties because he doesn’t want problems or confrontation and this is the man that wants to rule Nigeria that has a lot of problems and the problems keep getting more, will he run away and leave the country if he is the President? If you want something, you’ll fight for it because that was how we were brought up and trained and if you have something to offer, you talk and explain what you want to do and if there’s a problem, you are expected to offer a solution to solve that. No one is spoon feeding anyone again because Obi wants to be spoon fed. He’s a disappointment to his supporters because when the coalition was formed, all the tendencies came together and they shared offices and now all the people he has left behind in ADC, what is going to happen to them? Obi chose the national organising secretary who is in charge of organising party primaries and in charge of all party affairs. They did not argue with him when he demanded the position. Isn’t that enough that his man is in charge of what is going on but he ran away because he wanted everyone to say Obi go for president and let’s look for a vice president for you. It’s not done that way because they all have an ambition and Atiku himself has an ambition.
You know there’s an argument in the North that they have only ruled for ten years out of 22 years and the south has ruled for 18 years. Olusegun Obasanjo 8 years; Musa Yar’adua 2 years; Goodluck Jonathan 6 years; Mohamodu Buhari 8 years; Bola Tinubu 4 years and they see that as marginalisation. Obi should know part of the problem he encountered in the Labour Party is that he didn’t have an agent, if not for his Obidient Movement and the anger of the youths, but all that has calmed down now and the youths now know Nigeria better. The mistake that happened to Nigeria is the cancellation of History and introduction of social studies because they are two different things. If these youths are students of history and know about it since we got independence till now, they will reason better when it comes to representation and who governs them, they will know better.Kwankwaso is in trouble with the Northerners because politically, both of them were governors at the same time but if we talk about political maturity, Kwankwaso is more politically mature than Peter Obi and for him to accept to be vice president to Peter Obi and it shows that both of them are just after power without thinking of how to positively get that power and they think they can just get the power on the bandwagon that one man was popular during the last election and they think that the popularity will transcend into 2027 which is wrong because so many things have transpired and will transpire between 2023 and 2027. I pray Kwankwaso political career does not end in the North because if you go and check what the Northerners are saying, they see Kwankwaso as a betrayer and this same Obi that deported Northerners when he was governor of Anambra and Kwankwaso had to go from Kano to Anambra to go and plead and tell Obi to know that there are more Igbos in Kano than Hausa in Anambra and that’s how that they settled it. Their combination is already a failure and it is a good riddance to bad rubbish.
THE IMPACT: Let’s talk about the ADC in Lagos. What is ADC doing in Lagos and what is ADC planning to give to Lagos as an alternative to what the party in power is offering Lagosians?
Bolaji Osinowo: What ADC is looking for is an indigenous Lagosian that has got the will and that is capable of running the affairs of Lagos. I was once in the ACN. I was once in AD, AC, and later ACN before I left. There are so many reasons why I left. Our fathers built Lagos civil service. They built the Lagos civil service for Lagosians. But since 1999, when you go to some offices in Alausa, the Directors and Permanent Secretaries speak to you in non-Lagos dialects. Our children can no longer get jobs easily in the civil service because foreigners have dominated our civil service the same way they have dominated governance in Lagos. In Lagos, number one men since 1999 are foreigners, the same are those that have emerged as number two men in the state. They are foreigners. They are either from Ogun State or Ondo State. None of them are from the five divisional areas of Lagos. How will they have genuine love of the five divisions of Lagos State? When Ambode was governor, the only local government that got any representation was Epe. We all saw what he did in Epe because he claimed that he came out of Epe. That is what an individual will do to any area that he comes out from. We keep shouting that Lagos Mega City, can you do a mega city in a slum? Look at Lagos Island, it is a slum. Most areas in Lagos are slums. We are very lucky in Ikorodu, I keep saying it, I’m in the opposition, but if we must really tell ourselves the truth, look at what Jimi Benson is doing as an indigene of this town. Go and check other areas in Lagos State where they have House of Representatives members and check the performances vis a vis that of Benson. I can tell you that only the ones in the five divisions are the ones doing anything, if they’re even doing anything at all. But we can see what is happening here in Ikorodu, because we live here. I don’t live in Badagry, so I don’t know what their House of Reps member is doing. I don’t live in Epe, and I don’t know what their House of Reps member is also doing there. But if they are not doing well, I’m sure we would have heard. We would have seen or heard on social media that they are failing in their duties. Now, let’s look at other areas that are non -indigenous, like Ikeja, Surulere and all those other areas apart from Gbajabiamila, Faleke is from Kogi, and I know that he will have the love of Kogi more than his love for Ikeja people, because he actually attempted to contest for governorship in Kogi State before. That Ogun State guy, Sen. Adeola Yayi was in Lagos for many years as Assembly member, House of Representatives member and later as a Senator before he moved to Ogun State. There are so many other examples that I can’t mention. It pains me as a Lagosian seeing all that, because it does not happen in Ogun State like that. It does not happen in Ekiti like that. It does not happen in Oyo State like that. They say Lagos is cosmopolitan. Yes, it’s a cosmopolitan state, but you must know that the cosmopolitan city, or whatever they are calling it, has indigenous areas. Lagosians have no control in their State Assembly. They have no control in governance. They have no control in the civil service. Are these not sad realities? That’s why some of us are in opposition. We will be living a good life and enjoying everything the way some of our leaders are doing, but no, we are thinking about the future of our own children and their children’s children. If not for the noise that were made by Lagosians when they were flying the kite of Seyi Tinubu for governor in Lagos State, it would have sailed through. They would have debunked it if it’s not true but they did not. It just fizzled out when they saw that it wasn’t going to fly.
THE IMPACT: Let’s talk about performances of APC elected officers in the last three years. Let’s look at the governor, Senator Abiru, Jimi Benson, Gbolahan and AMA. How will you rate their performances?
Bolaji Osinowo: Average, and some below average. Governor is average because he has been there seven years now. Tell me what major project that he has done. Is our healthcare system any better? Is the school – primary schools any better? You cannot just go and take one school like they did with Tolu Schools, which they claim is the biggest School in West Africa. That you fix one school and use that as a public display is all whitewash. What happens to Ibelefun Primary School in Ikorodu; Salvation Army School in Ikorodu and others? What happens to all the schools that do not have roofs in all the local governments all over the state where students are sitting down on the floor; where students are still using blackboards and chalk while the world has advanced, leaving them behind? What are they teaching them? The world is now going through AI and in the next five to 10 years, so many jobs will be obsolete, because AI has taken over already. We now have cars that drive themselves. We have buses that drive themselves. Do you know in America, there are some states where AI are acting as lawyers, though, it’s still on the trial stage. There are so many professions that are going to go obsolete in the next 10 to 15 years. Are we ready for this? Are we looking at that? Are we thinking about ways of safeguarding our children’s future by preparing them for the years ahead? There are some schools in Europe that teach their children from primary school what is called mining. Do the Europeans have gold? Have you ever heard of European gold or whatever it is, but they are teaching their children how to mine, to come down here and mine our precious materials. Are we teaching our children that? Are we teaching our children what is in our lands? These are things that the government should be doing. They should be looking into introducing new syllabus and train our teachers the new methods which are in conformity with the modern world.
THE IMPACT: What about others?
Bolaji Osinowo: I know that Senator Abiru has passed some bills since he has gotten into the Senate. I don’t know which bills, but I know that he has passed some significant bills and I see one or two little things he has done in contributing his quota. When we talk about JB (Jimi Benson), don’t even go there because he already has a nickname. They call him “Julius bagger”, which means a construction company. If they can call a human being a construction company, does that not tell you a lot about that person? If they equate him with a construction company, it means that people are seeing what he is doing all over the place. They see what he’s doing in their villages, areas and environment. Who else do you want to talk about? Is it Gbolahan Ogunleye? The only time I’ve seen him talk in the house was the day they removed Obasa. He was the one that moved the motion. I know he was the one that moved the motion of the removal of Obasa. When we are talking about AMA in Ikorodu Constituency II, people are really speaking well about him which means that he is performing and don’t forget that we trained AMA. He trained under the PDP before he left for APC. So, AMA is one of the PDP achievements and he’s implementing some of the PDP policies in APC. So, APC can’t get that credit because the PDP trained AMA.
THE IMPACT: What will be your message to Ikorodu people and Lagosians at large with respect to the forthcoming general election?
Bolaji Osinowo: My message, first of all, if you look at 1999 till now, indigenous communities – Ikorodu, Badagry and Epe have been clamouring for governorship of Lagos State and I hope that our people will start to see reasons why our people are clamouring for indigenes to be the governor of Lagos State. Its all about development and the only governor that I can tell you in Lagos State, that has spread development in the state within his eight years administration is Mr Babatunde Fashola. We can all see all the physical things that Fashola did; housing projects, road networks and everything. Yes, Ambode tried in his own way and I think he wasn’t given enough time to complete his vision. It was cut short for whatever reasons. Sanwo -Olu is there right now and they are shouting – blue line, red line, green line, and whatever line. How many of them are operational? What is the distance of this? Look at the amount of money that they have put into the project. Look at how many years that the project is taking and they are using it as a campaign tool as if they’ve done something wonderful in Lagos. Anytime it floods, people cry. All that they just know how to do is to displace people from their lands so that they can give them to their rich families. Everywhere that they’ve displaced people, is waterfront, Is waterfront because, I mean, obviously all over the world, what have, what are waterfronts and these properties are prime properties…
To be continued….
