Hon. Mudashiru Obasa is the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. In this interview monitored on TVC, he speaks on the recent 10th constituency stakeholders meeting that held simultaneously across all 40 constituencies of the state and the gains of the Renewed Hope Agenda in Lagos, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

What would you say is the most important outcome you want Lagosians to remember from this year’s constituency stakeholders meeting based on the feedback you got?

Well, let me start by saying, that this is the 10th year of the stakeholders meeting. It was an idea that was born out of the intention to serve our people who we are representing in the House of Assembly. It’s also important to know that amongst responsibilities of our representatives, I think representation is the most significant one out of it.

We have lawmaking process, oversight function, and the rest of it but representation is quite very important because you create opportunity for the people, for interaction, engagement, conversation, through which they will understand what the government is all about.

For a representative, it is an opportunity to do what we call feedback, to brief the people on what you’ve been doing, and to listen to them as well on their hopes and aspirations. And this is not limited to the people that supported you during the election, even those who were against you because you are representing the entirety of your constituency.

So, that is why it’s very important and that was what informed the stakeholders meeting. Why we do it simultaneously is because we don’t want to create time for this honourable member this week, and next week, another honourable member. So, we said, okay, let’s do it together since we have different constituencies, and I think it has become a kind of household name.

After 10 years, you have people looking forward to it every year. So I think we are making progress and it’s something that has been very helpful because most times, the outcome of such exercise are documented and given to the executive to make them part of the annual budget.

Is it also open to the public, especially the things that your colleagues have achieved?

Yes, of course, it is. And in order to reach out to the people, we have a journal that we print quarterly, which states what we have done. Largely, as you know, our job is to make laws, represent and oversight but I think what is missing is the support of the people. I think we are yet to understand what they call governance.

What we do is to go out and vote and immediately after voting, we surrender it all. The parliament derives its power from the people and when you give power to a set of people, you still need to give them that backup. You need to support them. You need to allow them to grow.

Mr President knows what is happening because he has his eyes on the ground. He has his source of information that’s why he’s doing everything possible to address the issues

If you go to the United States, the Congress is the most powerful arm of government. In the United Kingdom, it is the Westminster. That is why you see people going to these places instead of going to the executive side. I am not saying that the executive is not important. But if you go through the constitution, you will realize that the parliament is given enormous power.

This year’s edition focuses on the gains of the Renewed Hope agenda. Would you say that Lagosians have really enjoyed renewed hope in the past two years, especially at the grassroots?

Definitely. So, we have been doing that regularly. You talk about resolution. Most times we’ve done resolution on issue of security. I’m sure you are aware of that. You have some of your people with us. And we’ve spoken about security solution and most especially, urgent projects.

That is on behalf of the people of particular areas. We’ve done that by encouraging the executive to make sure such things are done immediately.

We’ve also dealt with petitions, mostly where you have confrontations or conflicts over property and the rest of them. I want to appreciate the executive on this because most times after our resolutions, they were able to act on them.

There’s a long running debate about constituency projects, especially in the wake of autonomy for local governments. Some civil society groups now argue that legislators doing these projects go against the separation of powers. They insist that lawmakers should rather stick to oversight and lawmaking, not project execution…

Well, it depends on what you mean by constituency projects because we don’t do that in the Lagos State House of Assembly. We don’t dabble into the functions of the executive because we cannot be legislators and at the same time members of the executive.

We have to supervise the executive. We have to watch them through oversight functions. But when we are not involved in the activities, how do we do that?

So, what we do in the House of Assembly, like I said, during the stakeholders meeting, we listen to our people, issues that have to do with projects, they raise, we now surrender them to the executive for them to implement.

On constituency projects of the National Assembly, do you think they perhaps need to learn from what Lagos is doing?

I think what they do is also similar to what we do at the state level. I have not seen where any of them embark on projects making or construction of any project.

You have the rights to influence as a legislator. It depends on the relationship between the House or an individual member of the House with a specific ministry.

The law allows you to influence for the interests of your people. So, I think that is what they do at the National Assembly as well. I’ve not seen where each of them has been in charge of construction or otherwise.

How effective is holding the stakeholders meeting once a year?

Representation is very important and it’s the main thing when you talk about duties of a legislator. But the annual thing is just an avenue to bring everybody together to share ideas, to say the way you feel about issues. Most times, it’s not about projects. It’s not about construction of roads, construction of drainages and all that.

But you just want to hear from your representative as to what has been happening. And for the representative also to assure them by giving them hope that, well, we are doing well and we have more to do.

You have occupied elected positions since 1999, first as councillor, before joining the House of Assembly in 2003. If you were a civil servant, by now you should be preparing for your retirement. Are you planning to retire from politics?

Well, no, not yet.

Now that you’ve weathered the political storm, returned as Speaker, do you still rule out a 2027 run for governorship?

Well, I’m not denying that. But let me just explain. You see, now we are talking about politics. And you have to be a member of a political party. If you’re a member of political party, you have to believe in the leadership of the party. So, you get to a stage where you cannot determine what is next for you.

You may want to aspire to become one thing or the other but if you have respect for the party and the way the party is being managed, you should know that the party leaders will sit together and decide who will be what. It’s all about consultation, engagement with the party leaders.

By 2027, you would have spent about 24 years in the House of Assembly. Do you see yourself being speaker in another four years or a member of the House of Assembly?

For you to be a speaker, you have to be a member of the House. Not really, that’s what I’ve just said. You know there’s life ahead. So, let us concentrate at living that life.

What’s your relationship with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu like?

He is my elder brother and my colleague in progress. We’ve been around together for a long time, serving the people of Lagos state and we are still doing that. He has been very active at working, and serving us. We are cool.

We really can’t have this conversation without revisiting the extraordinary and historic way you returned as speaker after your removal. How do you reflect on that six months after?

Let me appreciate my colleagues in the House of Assembly, my brothers, my friends, very dedicated with high level of commitment to the service of people in Lagos. They’ve always been there, we’ve been together and they are doing tremendously well. I’ll just say even within a family, we have misunderstanding.

When you returned in March, it was described in some reports as a commando style comeback. Looking back at that incident, do you consider that manner of return a show of strength?

No, I don’t think so. There was nothing about a commando style. The contention was about following due process. We have rules in the House. If anything has to be done, you just have to follow the rules. And mind you, thereafter, there was a court judgement, which was in my favour. So as I said, I don’t want us to reflect on the past.

What has that really done to the relationship with your colleagues?

We are very close. We are close and doing well. During the celebration of 10 years of my speakership, you saw all of them, and they all spoke on the floor of the House.

Have you really forgiven them? Why shouldn’t I?

They’ve always been there. You know, we started since 2015 and from 2015 to this period, how many years? So if you have an issue, it’s not enough to feel bad. It’s not enough to be against them. It’s not enough to wish them bad.

They raised issues of gross misconduct and abuse of power. Have you been able to address these issues with your colleagues such that they can earn your trust again?

The trust has always been there, still there as we speak and it will always be there. It’s just like, say, we call a dog a bad name. But, we have resolved everything and I don’t think I would like to revisit it because by trying to exonerate yourself, to explain, to convince people, the responsibility of peeling the healing wounds and so on.

I’m not worried. At least we’ve been doing everything together. The stakeholders meeting we just spoke about, we all had it in our various constituencies.

In the 2023 presidential election, Lagos voted differently with the Labour Party winning the state. What does that result say about your party in Lagos and reconnecting with urban voters ahead of 2027?

Well, it was an unpleasant result but I want to appreciate our party leaders. We took the results, we analyzed it and broke it down to identify areas of the state that we need to look at and address issues concerning our failure. We’ve been doing that, and I’m sure such is not going to happen again. So many factors came to play during the elections.

If we look at the people we call Gen Z, when Mr. President was the governor, probably most of them were not born or they were too young to really understand and appreciate him. There were many things like that. You consider the religious and ethnic factors as well. All these came to play during the election.

But there’s also the issue of governance and the performance of your party because many believe that 2027 will be a referendum on President Bola Tinubu’s performance… I mentioned something like that. The question is: Do we really understand what they call governance?

That is the question because I don’t understand why people keep saying they’ve not done anything, they’ve not seen anything, which I beg to disagree. Let’s start from the local government. As we speak, we have 57 local governments.

Let us assume that each one of them, each one of them tarred a road in a year. If we multiply that with 57, how many roads do we have? We have 57 roads, which is impossible. So, let’s say at least in a year, two or three times 57 in a year times four.

And you look at the state, the governance at the state level, you look at the construction of roads, schools, infrastructure, so many. So, it is highly irritating when you hear people say that they have not been doing anything. You cannot address issues in isolation. You have to understand the root of it, the cause of it.

You also need to be fair in your judgement. When you have a problem, it’s like somebody being sick, you cannot get well overnight. So, you have to address it gradually. And for me, I strongly believe we are moving forward. Gradually all these things will happen, but there’s no magic anywhere that can turn things around.

You are considered to be close to Mr. President. What kind of feedback do you give him? Do you say, sir, you’re doing well, or you have a lot of ground to still cover if you’re going to win a second time?

Yes, he’s doing well. There’s no doubt about that, but that does not mean we will not report what we have seen. He knows what is happening because he has his eyes on ground. He has his own source of information, so he knows all about these and that’s why he’s doing everything possible to address the issues.

We’ve heard about the market peoples’ money, farmers’ money and the students’ loan, as well as so many other things. Allocations to the states and local governments have increased . What is the essence of such an increase in allocation if not to reach out to the people.

All things being equal, you are going to be speaker for the next two years. What new vision or dream do you have?

We will continue to serve our people, particularly in the area of infrastructure development and security, which I think we are doing well, because if you gauge, I mean, if you have security in Lagos, I think we are doing well in Lagos State.

And eradication of poverty, I think it’s an issue that we need to look at to study and address. Because most times, our efforts, it seems to be not yielding success, as we speak, you know.

So, we have study the people and learn from them. What actually do they want? And I think self-employment is also important, because to this generation, I think most of, we do respect to them, they don’t want to do anything like hard labour and all that, which I think is not good at all.