Cool, calm and cultured. Those are the first things you will notice about Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon. But beneath all of that is a rugged and resilient politician. A former local government chairman, a serving legislator and a successful businessman, GOS, like he is popularly addressed, picks his words. And after having thought them through. The reason, perhaps, they always come out deep and well distilled. Very well grounded in Mushin, where he grew up and also the entire Centre of Excellence, the accessible and acceptable politico granted audience to YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AZUH ARINZE, at his Omole Phase 1, Ikeja, Lagos home, on Thursday, November 20, 2014. Excerpts…
Why exactly do you want to be the governor of Lagos State?
Well, I think I’m prompted first and foremost by the desire to give service to the people of Lagos State, and we’ve seen the previous administrations – the extent of work they’ve done – and to sustain what is on the ground and surpass it. And with this on our mind, we need to provide service to the people and by service, I mean selfless service and delivering the dividends of democracy in every aspect of life. I always like to, in just one sentence, summarise my desire for Lagos – and that is creating a Lagos where there is life in abundance for all and sundry.
People are saying that APC (All Progressives Congress) is going to explode in 2015 over the alleged imposition of candidates. As one of the chieftains of the party, what can you say about that?
Well, I think the leadership of the party has a way of getting feedback from the streets. They also have a way of getting feedback from their members and they are also not unaware of the need to make good the promises to imbibe the culture of internal democracy in the party. If we have all these, I don’t think we will have any fear of explosion; if we guard against anything that will cause it. Like in some quarters where some aspirants are saying that they’ve been anointed; it becomes very difficult if you say you are anointed. I think the onus is on the leadership to come out to say nooo, we’ve not anointed anyone and also in their actions and utterances, to put to rest that there are in certain quarters; that they may have an agenda of choosing one of the aspirants. I don’t know who the aspirant may be. Even where it’s me, I don’t think I will accept it; I don’t think I will agree with it.
The out-going governor (Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN) is from your party…
(Cuts in) – That’s right!
Some people say he has done a lot, some people also say he has not done enough. If you get to win the election in 2015, what hasn’t Fashola done that you would like to do?
Well, there is no governor or there is no administration that will successfully solve all problems in two terms. No! There will always be issues; there will always be challenges to be tackled. I think whatever level, whatever changes that the present government must have brought on board, there will still be room for improvement and I can take it one by one. The issue of youth empowerment; we need to do more. This is not to say that the present administration has not done very well. But it’s an issue that’s been lingering before the commencement of this present dispensation in 1999. And it has gotten to a stage that we have a large number of unemployed youths. So, we need to consciously tackle the issue. Head long! Give it everything it takes. In doing that, we are preparing our children for the greater role tomorrow. We are also preparing them so that they give us peace of mind. We cannot afford just to leave them to move about the way they are now. And that is one area that I think we still need to do a lot more.
And the issue of housing too. I have had cause to have a one on one with top government officials on the issue and I still believe very strongly that we can provide very low cost housing for the people. Yeah! It’s going to cost the government a lot of money, but then that is the essence of governance. Government is to allocate scarce resources; it’s to make sure that it prioritizes these scarce resources for different deliverables and that is where your experience must come in and that is where your interaction with the people must come in. Because you must know what they want, what is their priority; not something that you want. It must be what they want in any particular community, in any particular local government. You must find a way. And in doing that, you must not allow a sector to suffer. So, a good administrator must also have the ability to balance all these activities, the deliverables. He must balance them so that no particular sector suffers at the expense of another.
There are quite a number of people who are currently jostling for the position of governor in Lagos State in 2015. What stands Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon out? What distinguishes you, why should I give you my vote, why should the good people of Lagos give you their votes and not the other people who are also interested in becoming the governor of Lagos State?
Okay, at this point, I will be scientific by drawing your attention to some facts. And the first among them – I was a local government chairman. That is an executive position. I wasn’t a member of that council, I was the chief executive. That means the decision maker for that period for the local government. So, I’ve acted in that capacity, and my track record is there. And I’ve also been able to have a kind of training as a parliamentarian. I’m not sure we have anyone that has combined the two. None! And you need interaction between the parliament and the executive. So, I will bring all these to bear as a state governor. My vast experience in the parliament and my experience as a local government chairman; an elected one, with the whole council and supervisors. That is why I kind of have this passion that look, I can do it. I’ve demonstrated it and it’s just like a different party, different level. But it’s almost the same. So, if you take it from that angle, from the past record, from my experience as a parliamentarian and then executive, I think I’m the better choice.
You’ve been in the senate now for years. What would you say has been your greatest achievement in the upper house?
Well, as a senator, we are to legislate and in the field of legislation, I had, at the last count, 11 bills. And not just bills for the sake of saying okay, he has bills. Each of them is a bill that’s worth pursuing. However, because of the peculiarity of our own democracy, people will want to ask you, okay, what have you brought, what project have you attracted here? They seem more interested in that than your legislation as a legislator and when it comes to that, I make bold to say that there’s still no senator within my constituency that has brought as much as I have brought to this state. I can even take a risk and with all sense of modesty say that every one put together has not brought to my senatorial district what I have. To start with, I have 9 libraries, 4 ICT centres, 1 major ICT library. Combined, I have over 30 motorised boreholes, solar – energy controlled. I have street lights and I’ve done youth empowerment and I will also want to say that it is the first of its kind in the state – maybe we now have others following suit. The first; I repeat, the first of its kind. And we used that as a pilot study. As a governor, we will do more and continue to have it. And from the feedback we are having, from our monitoring, it’s a huge success. What that shows is that this is beyond men and women. We just need a push; we need a push at the right direction and they will grab it and they will go places. So, we’ve done that. We did empowerment for women, youths and so on and so forth. And we’ve also equipped several primary health centres with drugs and equipments and so on and so forth. A lot more! Like I said, we’ve done quite a number of things.
Some people describe the incumbent governor as the governor of Surulere, Lekki and Ikoyi. If you are finally elected, what are you going to do differently from him?
Well, I don’t know how they will see him as governor of Surulere and all that. He’s been a governor of Lagos State – the length and breadth of the state. In my case, I will just make sure that; like I said, we will start from wherever he stops. That means we need to look at those areas that we feel rightly or wrongly they’ve been neglected. First, we need to let them know that it’s impossible for any government to do everything at a time. You need to have your priorities. But in coming up with our own priorities, it will be dictated by the people. We won’t sit in the comfort of our office and take decisions as to what is supposed to be the priority. The priority in community A may not be the priority in community B. So, all these things, we have to take cognizance of. But by and large; we’ve said that all over again, we have an advantage. The advantage of coming after all of them is a big advantage. We stand on their shoulders. We are not going to neglect any administration; we believe every past administration had its own selling points and that we will not take away from them. I can tell you some right away – and if you borrow from all these, you will come up with a government or an administration that will eventually be the benchmark of past administrations and even future administrations. If you take Jakande (Lateef, former Lagos governor), his foray into housing has not been rivalled; it’s unrivalled. I mean, nobody comes next. Whoever comes next is a distant second. And you take Marwa (Buba, former military administrator of Lagos), he introduced this community development association, using them effectively and in administration, they are very, very important in running any successful government.
And of course, for this present experience, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu laid the foundation of everything that is being done now. I remember that as far back as 2005, he had plans to start the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). He identified the corridor, he identified the kind of buses and so on and so forth. But they could not start, and then BRF (Babatunde Raji Fashola, his successor) came and started it. Some people have forgotten who laid the foundation of that BRT. Right now, it’s synonymous with the achievements of BRF. But he ran it. So, we had a lot; a lot of foundation laid during that administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which BRF worked on and whoever also is coming after him; already, there’s a master plan of what to do on every aspect and don’t forget, they put together experienced hands to come up with a programme for the administration. It wasn’t meant for his administration alone. It’s something that you have to work on and on and on. But given the reality of today, some of them may be obsolete, some of them, they might not even consider implementing because they think it’s not do-able. Now may be the time for them to come on board and do a good appraisal of why certain policies they recommended are not done. With the situation now, some may also require that political will to do it. Once you start it, that is the end of it. I don’t believe there is anything an administration cannot do. If you can think about it, if it becomes an idea and you give it the necessary push, it’s achievable.
The issue of Okada riders has been a major problem in Lagos State. You banned it and you unbanned it. What are you going to do if elected to re-integrate them into the system?
Yes, that is a major thing to be considered and I won’t sit here and tell you that I’m going to bring the Okadas back. That will be doing a disservice to the present administration, particularly since we are from the same party. I’ve studied the complaints of the Okada riders. The main issue is what will now be our source of livelihood, how do we survive? You can adequately take care of that. In the first instance, some of them are artisans, but pushed by non availability of jobs and they resolved to go on Okada. They were not trained as Okada men and if you make their jobs worthwhile again, suddenly, I’m sure they will still prefer to go and do that job which they are trained for in the first instance. Now, we are quick to say that we have dearth of artisans. Why? Because we are not training them.
It’s like the industry where they are supposed to train is dying off and really, are they really dying off? No! There’s just no conscious effort to make sure that we promote it. If for instance government decides to go on a housing programme and you give a large number to local contractors, they are bound to hire local artisans and you will also encourage them without compulsion, that for everything you are doing, you must have apprentice for every scheme. There must be some group of apprentices. Before you know it, another 2 years, you are producing some artisans to take up the challenge. And how much do they earn? Some earn as much as N3,500, N5,000 per day. What scale will that be? If they are able to work for 20 days, in a month, that gives you between N70 – N100,000. I mean, what scale will that be if you were to work in a ministry? I’m not saying that for graduates; but for the artisans. People are not encouraged to go into such a training anymore. They think they will earn much more from Okada and so on and so forth. But by the time you integrate them, it’s becomes a major thing. Nobody will want to do Okada. If you want to do transport, there are various ways of getting them into transportation business without necessarily encouraging the Okada. So, right now, I will say we may. But we are not considering allowing them on the high ways.
Distinguished! There is still the contentious issue of Lagos East, which you represent and people moving from one senatorial district to another. They see you as a ‘Mushin boy’. Can you shed more light on that?
That is settled. It’s settled! You can reside somewhere and have your root elsewhere. Also, there is nothing that is happening here that hasn’t got precedence. Alhaji Jakande; he’s from the central! But he has always been in Mushin. When he came out, he was from Mushin. He votes in Mushin, because Ilupeju where he lives is under Mushin local government and his root is Lagos Island. You all know that the Tinubus are from Island; not from Ikeja. And Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his constituency is in Ikeja, Lagos West and not Lagos Central. So, the same thing happened to me. I’m in Mushin, but the root is in Lagos East and it has been settled. Very soon you will hear more about that.
What do you say to those who think that you cannot be trusted with power?
How? Thinking that I will misuse the power? I think there are checks and balances (Laughs). We will have the State Assembly to check my excesses, if there’s any. But talking about the party men, the leadership, if that is true, then how do I convince them? I’ve been a local government chairman; even if the cadre is lower than a state governor. They should re-visit my tenure as local government chairman.
I carried all party members along, I carried individuals, leaders within the community along, I carried my fellow politicians within the local government, the councilors, the supervisors and much more along. You can also confirm this – I had a very cordial relationship with the civil service, to the extent that at a point in time, the state NULGE (National Union of Local Government Employees) gave me an award as the Most Co-operative, Friendly Local Government Chairman. Of all the 20 chairmen! The state NULGE! And I can give you instances of what happened – those things that we put in place, that never happened before we came on board. So, you need to balance all these aspects of me. You just need to do the balancing. A good administrator must at every point in time have the ability to balance situations, because you will always find yourself in precarious situations. You must be able to balance it so that at the end of the day, everybody feels important. That is what I think administration is all about. So, I will try and do that. To me, it’s important that everybody feels satisfied to a large extent on what is happening. But a situation where being loyal is considered as being loyal to one person, no…
Most people have this impression that nothing good will come out of Mushin…
(Cuts in) Ah!
That’s their impression. But you are one of the good ‘things’ that have come out of Mushin. What can you tell us about Mushin?
(Laughing) – In fact, if I start to give you names of good things that have come out of Mushin, you will be amazed. And I will say, come up with any profession, among the elites, any profession! There will be a Mushin boy. Or a Mushin girl! Whether it’s banking, whether it’s medical, whether it’s journalism, whether it’s advertising, anything you want to talk of, name it, I will give you names…and names! Oh yes! (General laughter). And in politics too! I think it’s just a wrong perception.
What else can you tell us about Mushin? People are scared of going to Mushin…
Well, it’s an interesting place; a place we love so dearly. Growing up in Mushin was a good experience. Everyday in Mushin, you see a mixture of the good, the bad, the ugly and you become a better man for it. You are taught that if you want something, just go for it and funny enough, you are also taught a lot of good things. Like you give respect to those whom respect is due. It’s very important. And you live in good ‘neighbourliness’ with your neighbours. All these we learnt growing up in Mushin. At that time, we lived a communal life and I believe, yes, things may have changed a little bit, but the basics are still there. Go for what you want, give respect to whom respect is due and don’t allow yourself to be cheated.
In the last political dispensation, you had to go into an agreement at some point or step down, if you like. What is the guarantee that in 2015, maybe the party or the party elders who are close to you won’t prevail on you again to step down for another candidate? Any guarantee that you will run all the way this time?
Yes, this time around, we have a new party altogether. We have APC. It’s not CPC, ANPP or ACN. So, we have a new party and it’s a new idea altogether. So, we are not going to find ourselves in such situation. We are all prepared for primaries and secondly, there’s nothing anybody wants to give me. Nothing! As I am here, I am gradually closing my mind to the senate and I see myself as a former senator (General laughter). The other time, we learnt from mistakes. I know what happened the other time. I will guard against a recurrence. So, it’s not going to happen anymore.
NB: First published November 2014