Access Bank PLC
INTERVIEWSPOLITICS

State Police Is The Best For Nigeria – Lagos Lawmaker, Olumuyiwa Jimoh

First Bank Nigeria

With the current challenges in the country, a lawmaker in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Olumuyiwa Jimoh has reiterated the need for state police in the country.
Jimoh, who is representing Apapa Constituency 2 in the Assembly, added that Nigeria should re-direct its focus on revenue to other areas and that President Muhammadu Buhari has started the process of re-building the country.
He speaks on some other issues in this interview he granted yemojanewsng.com’s Ayodele Oyekunle recently.

Would you say we are ripe for state police with the state of security in Nigeria today?

You need policemen to provide security for the people all over the world. As you have the London Police, you have the Metropolitan Police. So, state police is the best for this country. Within us, if we have state police, it would give more hands to our security men. The merits of state police is more than the demerits. It is only in this part of the world that people feel that politicians would use state police to fight their opponents.

But do you think some state governments can afford to finance state police with their dwindling resources?

Must the security collapse, are they not surviving? When they are finding it difficult to pay salaries, it shows that our focus on resources should be changed. We should look elsewhere for survival, there are some countries that survive on sugarcane like Cuba and they have the best medical facilities in the world. They go to schools, virtually all Cubans are educated. Our own focus is on oil, we should redirect our energy to other sectors for survival.

People are saying the reason everything is at a standstill in Nigeria is because of what your government met on ground at the federal level. What is your take on this?

It is one of it and that is even partially, the former president messed up this country. He allowed his people to steal our oil with impunity, he has forgotten that he swore to an oath under the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He just allowed them to do whatever they wanted. What they sell at the official rate is higher than what those who steal the oil sell because it was free for them, they could sell at any price. It is important that we go back to the basics, problems are like plants, they have roots. When we were younger, we knew the policy of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) then. Agriculture was paramount, Malaysia was in Nigeria some years ago to pick seedlings of palm oil, now they are best producers of palm oil. When you go to our supermarkets, you would see imported palm oil from Malaysia.

Do you think the way the Federal Government is handling corruption today is normal as some people believe that President Buhari is only targeting PDP stalwarts?

The issue is that he must start from somewhere. Those who were arrested, are they not guilty. Remember that President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulaniman and the henchman of the security fund is also a Fulaniman, so we should stop being parochial about this. No matter what you do, people would read meaning to it. You cannot satisfy man, even God cannot satisfy man.

How can you assess the government of Buhari in the last eight months in the areas of health, security and all that?

A lot of the things we see are accumulation of what have been happening over decades. But he has started well, these are problems that have been there for a long time and the solutions are gradual. By the time he recovers all these money, they would not pump them to infrastructure, they would go to our external reserves and this has even jacked up the value of naira in the international market. This means the rate of dollars to naira has fallen.

What are the challenges in your constituency in Apapa 2?

There are two opinions to that, what affects my constituency affects virtually all the constituencies in the state and in Nigeria. In Lagos central, people have a misconception of our roles as lawmakers. Access to infrastructure is there, we need more roads. The government has started by building some roads in the area, but human wants are unlimited. It is our responsibility to tell the people about the responsibilities of the government and their own responsibilities. But if you don’t make any attempt to inform them, you are not doing anything.

What are your major activities as the Deputy Majority Leader of the House?

Part of it is what I want to go and do now; committee works, principal officers meeting and business rules. Business rules is my major activities, I should assist the Majority Leader on Motions, Bills and others.

What have you been doing for your people as their representative?

What I have been doing is a kind of social relations with them. From June 8, 2015 till date, I have trained over 500 people on computer literacy. I have also been educating them on our responsibilities and those of other arms of government so that they would know their rights. I am planning with the Office of Public Defenders (OPD) so that they could have access to free legal services.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button