Mr. Ernest Olabowale Kasunmu is one of the chairmen of the 57 Community Development Committees (CDCs) in Lagos State representing the Community Development Areas (CDAs) across the 20 local governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs). In this interview with OLADIPUPO AWOJOBI, the CDC Chairman of Agbado Oke-Odo Area discussed the need for the government to engage youths to curb crime. Excerpts:
As CDC, how many CDAs do you have and how do you operate?
The Community Development Committee (CDC) is supervising the Community Development Areas (CDAs) in every local government and we have Community Development Advisory Council at the state level that supervises the CDCs. In Agbado Oke-Odo area of Lagos State, we have over 320 CDAs and we are the largest in the state. The CDAs developed the local government before the government came in. We bought land from the land owners. The state, through the Ministry of Rural Development in those days, gave some CDAs transformers. Some CDAs also bought transformers themselves and we had private individuals that bought transformers. In the time of some past chairmen of the local government, the council gave us transformers and even the current council chairman bought transformers for the CDAs. But most of the development was done by the CDAs. I am the overall chairman of the CDAs in Agbado Oke-Odo area of the state.
What is the relationship among the state, local governments, the CDCs and CDAs?
We are under the local governments. The local government ought to fund the activities of the CDC. The CDC ought to act as the advisers to the council, when there are issues. The CDCs are the fourth tier of the government. They are on ground and they know what happens in every nook and cranny of the local government.
You said you work with the local government and there are fears that with local government autonomy, the Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) might be scrapped. What is your view on this as Lagos State has only 20 local governments and 37 LCDAs?
Lagos State has a structure on ground for the operations of the local governments. What is lacking on local government administration in Nigeria is monitoring. We have 20 local governments and 37 LCDAs in Lagos State. For example, in Alimosho Local Government, when federal allocation comes there, it would be divided into six. There is an arrangement in the state that the parent local government has about 2 or 3 percent of the funds higher than the LCDAs. But the problem has to do with the proper monitoring of the funds from the federal government.
How do you mean, are you indicting the governors?
Lagos State is different, we have a joint account committee that divides the money when it comes from the federal government. What the people really want is to see commensurate usage of the money on the streets. Add the money to the IGR from the area and use it for the people. These are some of the questions that we ask. That was why I talked about monitoring.
Do you have any fear if LCDAs are scrapped in Lagos State?
We don’t want LCDAs to be scrapped in the state. For example in the old Alimosho, we had only one council chairman, we had one vice chairman and we had only two councillors in Agbado Oke-Odo then; Wards M1 and M2. That was when Ward M1 consisted of Agbado Oke-Odo and Mosan Okunola. Now, Agbado Oke-Odo has a council chairman, vice chairman and we have other officers and civil servants being promoted as and when due. We have a replica in Lagos State during the time of President Bola Tinubu as the governor of the state, when Rt Hon Adeyemi Ikuforiji was the speaker of the state house of assembly. Then, President Bola Tinubu created education districts and teachers started having promotions and some of them could become permanent secretaries unlike what used to happen in the past. The thing has gone to healthcare now with about six districts. What we want is proper monitoring of the revenue that accrues to the local governments. The cost of running government is too much.
How best do you think we can make our local governments work?
The LCDAs have come to stay, we had a stakeholders meeting recently with the Personal Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Community Affairs, Hon Omotayo Khadijat. The President should engage the community on a regular basis. The problem of the country starts with not engaging the community regularly. If you engage them regularly, you will know what goes on there. An average CDA person will tell you what is happening in his community. A problem known is a problem solved. Part of what is bedevelling Nigeria today is non engagement of youths. If you are not engaging the youths, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. Over the years, we know how the government has neglected youths. Who are the people perpetrating these acts that lead to insecurity, they are youths, I mean jobless youths. When we were young, the government of the old Oyo State engaged a lot of us, so, we were unable to go into social vices. Look at the statistics of those days and now. Today, many youths are not engaged. We need to engage the youths properly through sports, we can earn foreign exchange through this, and it would create a lot of jobs. People would be selling and doing businesses around the stadium, the athletes would earn a living, but where you don’t have this there would be problem. During the era of former governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, during the era of the late Ademola Adeniji-Adele, the then commissioner for youths and sports in the state, he engaged the youths through sports. He organised sporting activities in the state simultaneously. Go and check the statistics and you will see that at that time the youths were not engaged in social vices. He engaged the area boys by building centres for them to curb their movement. We have five divisions in Lagos State. Let us assume that in Ikeja Division, they host boxing competitions for the entire Lagos State this December, in Ikorodu, let them host table tennis, let Epe host basketball, Badagry can host football, and Lagos Island hosts Judo simultaneously. That week, crime rate would go down.
It’s is being suggested by some people that local government elections should be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rather than state independent electoral commissions to eliminate manipulations, what is your view on this?
Let us go back to when Professor Jerry Gana was the Director General of the Mass Mobilisation for Social and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), he was able to campaign and changed the orientations of Nigerians on the need to vote and vote rightly. Whether the state or federal government conduct the election at the local government level or not depends on the individuals. If they know why they should vote, they would vote. You have voter apathy because people no longer believe in it. But if the National Orientation Agency (NOA) do their work diligently, Nigerians would go all out and vote. The late Chief MKO Abiola could win Alhaji Bashir Tofa in his backyard in the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election because of the activities of the then MAMSER. Let the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) conduct the local government election and let the proper information go out to the people that their votes would count, they would come out. Each polling booth has not less than 500 voters, how many thugs will dislodge that number of people. They would count your votes in your presence.
Do you support state police?
Yes, I do because if you bring someone from Maiduguri in Borno State to come and police Agbado Oke-Odo, how long will that person study the local government. We have about three police divisions here, any division that you post a police officer that is not from this area to he has to study the place first. By the time he has studied the place for about a year or two or he could be transferred again. But a police officer from Abule Egba here, let’s say he is posted to Ile Epo or Meiran, we all know him. Agbado Oke-Odo is about 2,700 streets, we know ourselves. If a stranger comes in, we know. The moment we police ourselves, anytime crime is being committed, the person would be exposed. Nobody would want his area to be a den of criminals. In advanced countries, they have local sheriffs, local government has their own police, the state has, institutions and they have different schedules for them. Federal, states and communities know their boundaries.
