Osun West Senator-elect, Engineer Adelere Adeyemi Oriolowo in this interview with RUTH CHOJI states that, the Nigerian Constitution is not functional as it should be even as he bares his mind on some other national issues.
Most people were surprised when you decided to contest Osun West senatorial seat and went on to win. Did you experience any challenge.
The first challenge was from the party when they had to conduct primaries to pick a candidate and the need to show that you are serious and deserving of that position. After the primaries, you are now faced with people wanting to make sure you meet them not just for meeting sake but everybody wants an inducement before voting for you. I made an analysis then that if you are looking for those who voted for me, about 1,000 people, if you say that on the average, you will spend N10,000 on each of them, that is one billion naira (N1bn). I want to tell you that nobody can be sustained on N10,000 for three weeks whereas, if you use that N1bn to establish a cottage industry, it will engage a lot of youths and capable hands. But people don’t see it in this light. The urge to give them money for one thing or the other is insatiable. Even after the elections, they will continue making demands on you ‘my mother died, I want to do the burial ceremony.’ ‘My child will resume school, I want to pay school fees’ and so on. It is a big challenge. These are some of the challenges I have faced and this is because our people are largely unproductive. But I discovered that these people blame it on unemployment, it is not employment alone. We need to engage people.
How can the government engage the teeming youths that are jobless?
Government must make a direct effort to engage our youths. There is no deliberate effort to get things done in Nigeria. What we have capacity and potential for in the country is what we still import. There is one idea in India that, ‘what you cannot produce, you don’t consume’. They consume only what they can produce. If we adopt that ideology, that what we can’t produce, we don’t consume, then things will get better. How can you explain that we have oil yet we don’t have any functional refinery? We have a lot of people that have studied petrochemical engineering and they are roaming the streets. They become militants when they are not engaged. Most of the people employed in the civil service today are not engaged until they rose to the position of assistant director. How did they manage to be there? We need to train our workforce. We don’t put people on jobs they don’t know anything about. In developed countries, if you go for leave of up to three months, you are trained for two weeks when you return. In Nigeria today, there is lack of capacity. That is why people end up stealing and spending the money before budget comes out.
Would you say president Buhari government is doing enough in terms of creating employment?
They are doing a lot in term of creating employment but not engagement. You don’t employ somebody that is not engaged. If for instance you employ 10 people and engage them, they will in turn engage others and this will go round. But once you employ them and drop them in government offices, they become redundant.
Given an opportunity to formulate a template on how to create employment in Nigeria, what will it be?
One of my aim of going into politics and going to the National Assembly is to make sure that we make laws that will make our constitution to be functional.
Are you saying the constitution is not functional as it should be?
The constitution is not functional as it should. If you take for example, talk about our security situation, there is enough provision in the constitution to make each governor security officer of their states, yet the police commissioner takes directive from the IGP. That is why there is agitation for state and community policing. These has led to the ineffectiveness of the security agencies. We have to look into the functionality of our constitution before we think of solving the problems. We also need educational reform. In our days, from your secondary school days, when you make first division in your WEAC, you are going to be employed immediately to teach in that school or another. The same in the university and polytechnic, you are retained as graduate assistant to teach others coming behind you. Our problem now is the waging system. Now people that are not brilliant go to the best companies while the brilliant ones are left to do petty jobs. We should reverse our policy on education. Every course should include principles of education in our institution. Lawyers be made to train upcoming lawyers, the same with doctors and we keep going until everybody is properly engaged.
Regarding the 2018 governorship election in Osun state, APC and Governor have just won the appeal. How do you feel?
We are convinced in the state that this Adeleke did not win the gubernatorial election but the incumbent governor was the one that won. If you hear of somebody that is fraudulent, you won’t want him to rule over you, will you? I don’t know why school certificate should be an issue in an election in this age and time. If we allow that to happen, the spirit of our forefather, Awolowo will not forgive us. This man is somebody with controversial secondary school certificate. If he has conscience, he will let the issue go.
But some Nigerians are still questioning the secondary school certificate of Mr. President as well…
Well the president has come out to clear his name, but this person’s certificate is still questionable. He needs to be scrutinised. In Osun, we are talking of education reform, even if eventually his school certificate is found to be okay, the trouble this will bring is that, children will want to behave that way by refusing to go further their education believing they can become leaders tomorrow. We are also looking at the realities on ground. Yes school certificate is the minimum requirement for political office but, you also need somebody with integrity, knowledge and experience to lead a state like Osun.
What happens if Adeleke wins at the Supreme Court, will APC hand over to him?
The Supreme Court has the final say and anything they say at that stage, we will accept the ruling to give out.
Source: Leadership Newspapers
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