By BASHIR ADEFAKA
His name is Honourable Jubreel AbdulKareem, a former Chairman, Agege Local Government Area, who recently emerged victorious from the March 18, 2023 State Assembly Election and has since been inaugurated as brand new Member of the Lagos State House of Assembly representing Agege Constituency 02 where the Speaker, Mudashir Ajayi Obasa, represents Agege Constituency 01. Popularly called JUBI, the lawmaker speaks in this DEFENDER PERSONALITY Interview on few issues of importance. Excerpts:
Once again we can comfortably say, and proudly too, that we have a very active Honourable in Alhaji Jubreel AbdulKareem, having left the stage as Honourable Chairman, Agege Local Government, Lagos State, running into a decade now. You recently won election as Member Lagos State House of Assembly representing Agege Constituency 02.
We thank God.
Congratulations!
Thank you so much my dear brother.
Now, let me begin by saying that for a good time at a time in Lagos State you were Chairman of Agege Local Government, Orile Agege inclusive. What at that time did you see should be responsibilities of local government administration, which you were unable to carry out, and the impediments for fulfilling those responsibilities at the time?
Let me quickly correct one impression. During the time I was Chairman of Agege Local Government, it was then Agege was divided into two by the Lagos State House of Assembly. That was when we began to have LCDA, Local Council Development Area, which was brought out and so we now have Agege Local Government and Orile-Agege LCDA. So, while I was the Chairman of Agege, another person was Chairman of Orile-Agege LCDA. That was how we were managing it and that is how it has remained.
But the difference between being Chairman of Agege Local Government and that of Orile-Agege LCDA is that, now, most parts of the LCDA now fall within a Constituency. In each Local Government we have two House of Assembly members. So, every Local Government is divided into two: Constituency 01 and Constituency 02.
Will I be right therefore to say that Constituency 02 now stands for Orile-Agege?
No. The way Agege is structured among the two LGA and LCDA is interwoven. You couldn’t have a clear cut separation between Agege LGA and Orile-Agege LCDA. One encroaches, albeit positively, on the other. We have parts of Constituency 02 in Orile-Agege LCDA and we have them in Agege LGA. So, you cannot say that now that I am Member House of Assembly, I am now only of Orile-Agege LCDA. No. Agege Local Government as whole has 11 Wards and, if we are to use the old Local Government structure, Constituency 02 cuts across six Wards while Constituency 01 cuts across five Wards and of the six Wards that fall within Constituency 02, we have two and a half of them that are in Agege Local Government while the remaining three and a half Wards are in Orile-Agege
LCDA.
So, in Agege, we are one family that cannot be separated from one another. Agege cannot be separated from Orile-Agege and Orile-Agege cannot be separated from Agege. But when we are talking about Constituency 02 we don’t talk of it being under Orile-Agege. It is Agege Constituency 02 and, here, Orile-Agege is silent. Some people are confusing it. Even some would address me as Honourable representing Orile-Agege and I do correct them that there is nothing like Orile-Agege when you are talking of Constituency 02. That name, Orile-Agege, is only one Ward under Constituency 02.
With your ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) now consolidating in power at the Federal level, don’t you think the time is now for the LCDA to be transformed into proper status of LGA, especially with Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the inventor of LCDA administration in Nigeria’s history, now as President of Nigeria?
If you look at it like that, we may be misinterpreting the aspiration of those who brought or, using your word, invented the idea of LCDA. You can only say by now people should understand the need for LCDA. It is that understanding that will give it a footing. LCDA was not accepted into the constitutionally listed number of Nigerian Local Governments because the people who should do that did not understand the purpose of it.
Could you let us into the purpose therefore, why LCDA was brought about?
The purpose of LCDA is to bring development nearer to the people and people must be convinced about the need and purpose of it before we can be able to achieve it. We will try more to educate people to see through the reason and need for it. By the time they realize these, they will be the ones even calling for the inclusion of what you have
today as LCDAs, in the Constitution either in Lagos or anywhere else, as part of Local Government Areas in Nigeria. It is a thing to be achieved by use of opportunity of power that we have. No. People must be made to see the advantage.
It is just like the economic situation that we have currently in the country. You can see that when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now the President, he let people realize why this fuel subsidy should be removed and all other political parties agreed and they all even used it to campaign because, then, people did not realize the need for the removal.
You will recall recently when a former Governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda, was interviewed last month, June or so, and he was talking about some people saying they do not want subsidy again because they have made more than enough money from subsidy that they do not even know what to do with it. Meaning that we have been spending a lot of money on subsidy without anything to show for it. So, we don’t it and the money that government is going to save from that blocked waste will be used in a way that it will now been seen as serving the needs that people will benefit from.
Now than you veered into fuel subsidy removal, let me ask what do you really make of the saying about it being a scam because, some people have argued that when it was a scam as claimed, fuel pump price was maximum of N185 per litre but that now that subsidy has been removed, fuel pump price per litre has gone so high that life is now very hard for the people. What exactly do we say is happening?
Those who understand economy has been saying that for a leader of Nigeria to removal the fuel subsidy as we were having, he must have political will to do so because, immediately you remove it, things will be hard as it will look like something people are not used to. It looks strange. To build a house takes three, four, six months but to demolish a house can happen in one day. To them who built fuel subsidy into the Nigerian economy and those who do not understand the evils they perpetrate with it are the ones saying no to, whereas there is no way the country can continue to survive with fuel subsidy as it were.
Also, for the country to survive, we have to diversify the economy and to do this we must have a solid structure on ground that can drive our national economy, for instance, good roads, effective rail system and others. These cannot be achieved without money. When the money saved from subsidy removal comes in, then, it can now be used to put those structures in place for the improvement of national economy and for the good of the people. Then, others will follow. All we need to ensure is for the money realized to be judiciously used. That is what people should clamour for.
So, it should not be business as usual and I want to assure the people that the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will ensure the benefits of fuel subsidy removal will reach the nooks and crannies of this country.
But the people, in less than two months, are already calling the Tinubu administration a failure. What comes to your mind when you hear people judging the new government by its actions in this short period of time?
Two months period is not enough, at all, to judge President Bola Tinubu’s performance.
At the same time, somebody would say you are averse to that because you are a member of the ruling APC and so that you are not being straight with your response. What do you think?
Some will say so because of what they are facing, which is quite understandable. That is why journalists and those saddled with the responsibility of talking and educating the people should also play a role. If you are doing something for the people and the people do not know or understand what you are doing, you can’t blame them when they complain except when the issue of ignorance comes to matter of law where ignorance is not an excuse before the law.
It is the duty of everyone of us to educate people to understand what it takes to run a government. If we are all saying and monitoring it, the people will understand, they will give their support and cooperation and then we will all get to the promised land. But when people who should educate the people to understand the policies of government for them to give support, rather than playing their role, begin to play politics with national interest, then it becomes a problem to the extent that even those who have good intention to do good, give support and cooperation for success of government policies before will begin to be distracted and demoralized. It is not good for our country, the today and future of both ourselves and our children.
Journalists and media generally are also at the receiving end of blames for some of these things. However, what do you say of people who should cooperate with the media by providing the information required to inform, educate and enlighten the public but have unexplainably failed at all times to fulfill their own responsibility? How do we work without proper information?
I don’t know which information that you need and they will not be willing to provide because, this is an open government.
(Cuts in) Otherwise they supposed to?
Yes, yes, yes, they should be able to provide you whatever information you require to work with because it is an open government. This is somebody who has told you what he has done before about how he transformed what happened in Lagos State into what it is and where we are presently. Then, when he was doing it some people were shouting as well. But at the same time we have seen what the place has become today.
Anywhere you want to build something good and great, the experience we currently have sometimes cannot be avoidable. Do not forget that it was not easy too for Jerry Rawlings when he wanted to same thing in the Republic of Ghana. Wherever you want to build a new thing, it is usually not coming at ease with the people. You don’t blame those who are complaining, the reason I said it is we that need to play our role by encouraging the people to persevere and not to discourage them because this trying time will pass and we shall all have a good, sweet song to sing at the end of the day.
Let them realize that two months, six months period is not enough to judge the performance of a new government that is willing to do something good. We have been doing something one way and have been complaining of not having an anticipated good result. This time is another opportunity for us. Let us to the other way round so that we can see what the result will be. If, at the end of two years, we are yet to see something around our expectation, we can now begin to talk and then, also, it will be for us to continue to do what we should do until we get it right. But I believe, by the end of first, second year of this government, we will all clap and say, “yeah, this is the government that we want”.
President Tinubu actually has talked about palliatives to assuage strained nerves or alleviate the sufferings of the people due to the fuel subsidy removal at a time no local alternatives to sourcing for the products. But the plan is also facing problem because of disconnect between the leadership and followership occasioned by lack of trust, built over the times, as governments are believed not to be sincere with the people and so the trust and confidence that this government needs to carry on with the post-subsidy removal plans have hit the brick-wall. What is your take on that?
Thank you my brother. That is where I said you, journalists, must be patriotic enough and in a way that we should take our country first in whatever we are doing. When we think along the government and at the same time balance our thinking with the people, because you are the mouthpiece of the people, we will have it fine.
Are you simply asking Nigerians, who are getting ready to Japa, to bury the thought?
I am telling you! Even those who have already Japa will ‘Jabo’ (run back).
You mean you have another slang as opposite of Japa (runaway) as Jabo (run back) – Laughs?
Yes, they will Jabo by the time they are seeing the differences in what is happening in their government, they will Jabo. Yeees!
In my interview once with Alhaji Taiwo Alimi, former DG Voice of Nigeria (VoN), once gave collapse in Local Government Administration as reason for the national woes that we have. As former Chairman of one of Nigeria’s 774 Local Government Areas, what experience did you have that comes closer to what he said?
During my own tenure and as it is today in Lagos State, Local Government Administration is doing wonderfully well.
Is that to say that Local Government Administration never failed in Lagos State?
Yes. I can assure you of that but we can still do better because there is room for improvement and what will bring about that improve is when people of the caliber of Alhaji Alimi are ready to participate in the politics of their environs. People that are supposed to participate in politics are leaving to ordinary persons without interest.
How would the quality people come to participate in politics when they are not given the chance to do so?
Power is not served a la carte.
Oh! do you mean that power is fought for?
Definitely. When you ask for something in politics, you must fight for it because there is no way they will bring it to you while you are sitting down at home. No. Other people want and need it. And it is when people your participation and what you are doing in the community that they will call you to say, “We have been seeing your effort in our community. Come and be our political leader of representative”. Otherwise, the community will not demand for you to be. That is how Councillors, Chairmen Local Government, legislators, Governors, President emerge. Make yourself relevant by playing good roles in your community, you will be given the chance to participate in politics.
