Kadiri Obafemi Hamzat is currently the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure in Lagos State. He had served as Commissioner for Science & Technology. Obafemi, the brilliant son of Pa Olatunji Hamzat, an influential politician in Lagos, in this interview with FUNSHO AKINWALE, spoke extensively on his ambition to rule Lagos State. Below are excerpts:
Why do you want to rule Lagos?
I want to rule Lagos State because of the urge to serve mankind and give freedom or respite to the downtrodden. For me, I see that the challenge of black man generally because I’ve being fortunate to go to a lot of African countries, it’s just lack of sustaining developments. Well, there are different reasons why we don’t sustain developments but one of them is that we measure it and people do say if you can’t measure something, you can’t manage people. That is why Lagos State needs somebody that have right approach to all the problems and that person must be experienced and have more integrity, humility and also have what it takes to do the job. I believe I represent those values. And that is one of the reasons I’m presenting myself for the plum job in Lagos. And I must say this, my party, we have enough experienced people who are qualified to do the job so we don’t need to look elsewhere for a candidate to do the job and within that number of course there will also be rating and it will be based on our experience because candidate must be determined in terms of experience, background, education and every other thing that you put together and I believe I have all these which will help me at the primaries.
Can you identify some of the challenges the next governor of Lagos will face?
There are challenges generally but it’s not peculiar to Lagos alone. I think the challenges are so enormous for the state. For instance, many perceived Lagos as the richest state in Nigeria but that is not true, the budget of Lagos is about 2 billion dollars, the population, we have 17 million as at now, if we go by the increase in 2016, we should be hitting about 22 million because as we speak, about 600 people enter the state on daily bases with significant of no homes or destination. They are coming and are not going out. Therefore, the resources to manage them are not there. Going by what we heard that by 2050, we will be about 40 million in Lagos. So, the challenges are how to build infrastructure to accommodate those number of people. Remember the land is not increasing, as a matter of fact is reducing. Erosion has taken part of our land, so what is the way to move our economy to a knowledge base? And that is technology. To make business easier to operate in the state. Though, we have challenges of federal government such as insecurity, kidnapping and the rest. That is why as a state, like Lagos, spend several millions on security and many are still against state police but the reality is here for us to see because I know how much we spend to sustain the state in terms of adequate security. So the challenge now is how to raise the profile of the state to make it friendly and better to attract foreign investors. And one of them is the ability to do business freely given the fact that we are sovereign and most importantly how we raise revenue of the state in such a way that it will not paralyze the economy of the state and to avoid tax burden for people to pay conveniently. Many say we generate 20 billion and people don’t consider the work force and fund being put in place to generate those taxes. We don’t need to pursue people to pay tax, we only need to convince them to see the reality behind paying tax as at when due. I see this also as a challenge in Africa not only in Nigeria because I’ve been to other African countries as well and I was able to confirm how they operate. So we need sustainable technology to these problems
From all indications, PDP may field an eastern candidate with a Christian background come 2015 in Lagos. How do you address this issue?
Any time I remember people like Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, I don’t think they had religion during their life time. Awolowo, who is known to have established Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and set up the first TV in Africa and building cocoa house in Ibadan didn’t attached sentiment or religion to what he did. I don’t even know if Nelson Mandela had a religion, though he was not even allowed to practice it anyway. But there are many Christians and Muslims in South Africa that took money from the white government and betrayed Mandela. So what are we talking about? I have said it before now that one of the problems of the black man is that we don’t sustain development, we always do something we can’t measure. For example, how do we measure somebody’s faith? I don’t expect a sitting governor to be a nice man but rather should be efficient in his approach to problems. For now, it’s very wrong to start attaching religion or ethnicity in the state. For instance, in Ogun State, since it was created whether military or administrator, there has never being a Muslim governor except their current governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. All the governors in the state have always being Christians and we did not have a single agitation, so why should that stupidity start in Lagos? It’s absolutely ridiculous and as people, we must not allow this nonsense to happen in Lagos, we should rather embrace on how to move the state forward. Well, I may say I’m a Christian, but you don’t know what I did this morning in my house, this is a country that have thousands of churches and mosques, rituals is still order of the day, so what we are saying?
How would you react to imposition issues in APC?
Well, the truth of the matter is that everybody will have specific interest. A leader like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will have his own candidate, he is also a human being but he has only one vote. Another thing you can do is lobbying. For instance, in the United States Congress, they lobby anytime they want a bill to be passed in the senate and they pay for it, and some say it’s outrageous but that is the reality. For me, I don’t worry myself with those frivolities, what I’m in for is to present what I have for my party people and the people of the state and put my faith in God, and whatever happens is the will of God.
What are your chances among other aspirants and what do you have to say on the recent comment of Oba of Lagos that no candidate from Ogun State would rule Lagos State?
I don’t do things if I don’t believe in it, and I’ve been lucky enough in life, I finished my PhD at the age of 26, which is very hard to come by. So, if I don’t believe in what I’m doing you wont see me here wasting my time. Let state confidently here, in November, I’m going to win at the primaries. Secondly, I wouldn’t like to discuss Kabiyesi’s issue here. To interest you, Kabiyesi tells me more about my grandmother than my mom because my mom and Kabiyesi are related. My mother is from Ita-Egbe in Lagos Island. So I will not like to comment on that issue. Let me give you a brief history about my background, I’m from Ajeborishade family from Epe area of Lagos, Hamzat just happened to be a middle name, which the family changed many years back because of religion. You know these days people tend to change their name just because of their belief. For example, like Faleke becoming Olaleke. As of today, there is Ajeborishade in Epe and the first military administrator of Osun State is General Ajeborishade who is also from our family in Epe. It’s just interesting how everybody forget the dynamism of Yoruba race. So the reality, my tree, my leg is Lagos.
So, why the allusion to Ewekoro?
What happened was that he lost his father when he was 9 years old so he had to the mother side which is Ewekoro. He lived all his life in Epe with the current Olu of Epe. Even when he was given a chieftaincy title in Ewekoro, he was given Akiborisha First, so it’s still the same tree just that people move around but the root is Epe.
Is that not going to be an obstacle to your ambition?
No, it’s not. I have integrity to protect and my dad is a public figure as politics is concerned in the South West region of the country. This is a man that was a secretary of a party in a ward now Mushin and Odi Olowo LCDA. This is a man that was a councilor in Mushin and, later member of Lagos State House of Assembly before being given a commissioner in the 70s in Lagos, common give me a break.
You said by November, you will emerge APC candidate. Would you move to another party if you fail to pick the ticket?
No, I was not trained like that. You must stand on your believe.
How old are now?
I will be 50 on 19 of September but I will only mark it because I’m planning to celebrate later with 50 special people from different less privileged homes in Lagos. I have also contacted my friends of high caliber in Nigeria like Alhaji Aliko Dangote to join me and identify and support these special people in our society.