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No Lawmaker Is Bigger Than APC – Hon. Dayo Saka

Hon. Dayo SakaHon. Dayo Saka is a third term lawmaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. In this interview with EJIRO ROMAN ADIGBO, he spoke on his plans for Ifako Ijaiye people and sundry issues. Read on…

As a third time lawmaker, how has the experience been?

My experience as a lawmaker has been quite eventful, full of intrigues. Lawmaking is a serious business and a lot of people don’t really appreciate what lawmakers do and stand for. The people of Lagos and Nigerians in general should appreciate that there is no democracy without the legislature. Now, if legislature is the fulcrum of democracy, legislature should be accorded its rightful place in the scheme of things. The basic things that legislators do, what the 1999 constitution has amended; what it stipulates is for legislators to do lawmaking, representation, oversight of the executives and legitimizing of appointments and other government policies.

What has the experience been?        

The experience in Lagos House of Assembly I will say has transformed me to a better being. Over the years, I have gone through several trainings and capacity building that have improved my abilities in service delivery.

What do you think compelled your people to vote for you for the third time?

The people of my constituency appreciate my humble effort and contribution to the growth of my constituency. Before I became a member in 2007, there was no major road in my constituency, Ifako Ijaiye. As at 2007 there was no major road that you can brag of, therefore commuting became so difficult.

Is that the reason why you decided to join politics?

What actually made me to join politics was borne out of my desire to effect change. I have seen representation in my local government area and I feel I could offer a better solution to the problem facing the people. I grew up in Ifako Ijaiye, I was born in Ifako Ijaiye so I know where the shoe pinches the people of Ifako Ijaiye. It is very easy for me to quickly identify the needs and articulate my effort towards achieving that need. To a large extent, I will say the road from Pen Cinema to Elliot was facilitated by me. I was the Chairman, Works and Infrastructure then, so I did all I could to divert the minds of government to my constituency and to the glory of God I will say that I was able to accomplish that during my first tenure. Apart from that, my second tenure opened up windows of opportunities for this very one because it was in 2010 the former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola approved some network of roads for me in Ifako Ijaiye, so, that actually opened up the entire area. Sometimes, when some areas are not being developed, people feel the governor does not like them, it is not the governor, it is usually whoever that is representing them and the commissioner. It is what the commissioner presents to the governor that the governor will approve.

Ultimately, during my first tenure in government I had issue with the SA who was in charge then, so there was no remarkable development. But when Dr. Femi Amzat came on board, he was more than a fantastic being. He is man with a listening ear, a man that will empathize with you if you make him understand why you are agitating for your people. As a Legislator, the reason for being here is for your people; the interest of your people, you don’t have any other business than to represent their interest. So, he saw my side of the story and the governor himself complemented his effort and in no distant time, we were able to transform Ifako Ijaiye, that is why Ifako Ijaiye is a home for the APC. The last election, we had over 20,000 votes that contributed to the total votes of the state. I am only telling you the difference between our votes and that of PDP, it is not the total votes cast, it is only the difference. So, if such a local government can do that, by the time this dispensation will be over, I can tell you that we will gather more votes that you can ever imagine.

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Don’t forget that my main aim in tackling the infrastructural need of the people is by opening up the entire area so that we can remove time wasted in commuting from one point to another. I was able to convince people that I understand their needs coupled with what I have been able to achieve over the years. I have the ICT institute, fashion institute, free bus ride for school children, etc. there is nothing that bothers the mind of the people of Ifako Ijaiye that Dayo Saka does not get involved, I have been able to weave my effort around their hearts and collectively they decided to give me their mandate to represent them for a record third time which is unprecedented.

What is your take on the recent event at the national level, both at the Senate and the House of Representatives?

If I must comment on that, I will tell you that what the party (APC) Senators did to the best of my understanding, displayed a high sense of disloyalty, they have betrayed the confidence we pose in them. You see, parliament is different… Legislators, we are different. We are different in the sense that for you to be an elected member of a senate; either House of Assembly or any of these, you must be sponsored by a political party and that seat you are occupying belongs to your political party. If you are to vote, you are expected to vote according to your party’s interest and not your own personal interest. There is no legislator that is bigger than the party, if we fail to agree at the party level, it is better you go back and resolve it internally than going out to display what I will call ‘show of shame’. So, how do we differentiate ourselves from the failed PDP when the commencement of a new legislative year was marked with political intrigues. If the senators are not averse to Saraki, the senators should find a way of convincing the party why he is a better candidate and all of them must toll in the line of the party. There is no independent candidate in the senate; all of them belong to one political party. But for you to now conspire, jettison the interest of your party and now form alliance with an opposition party to the extent that you now surrender the office of the Deputy Senate President and also the senate leader. What we are saying essentially is that the process, though I am not in the position to fault the process because for the president to have allowed the letter of proclamation to go into the upper chamber is a sign that you guys can start your business, it is an authority given to them. So, what the clerk has done was just to ensure that they have form forum and they can go ahead and to swear in because it is not stated anywhere in the constitution that for you to start such a process, all senators must be in attendance, it is not written anywhere. Based on that, he took advantage of the chances and decided to conduct the election; that I am not going to query. But what I am not happy about is giving of the leadership of the house to the hands of the opposition party, how many members are PDP and many members are APC? The majority is APC, so, how can you now have David Mark as the leader of the Senate and he’s from the minority.

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So, we have to ensure that they do the needful; for instance, the area of leader of the house, majority leader is what is in the rules of the house and the leader of the majority leader is the leader of the majority and it has to be an APC senator.

This is your third term in the house, what are your plans for your people?  

I intend to use motions to get the resolutions of the house, if possible we might have a bill that will ensure that our road infrastructures are properly audited.

From Excellence Hotel to Jungle road, there is one big bump at Idiagbon near one Primary School which was purposely built to reduce speed of vehicles on that road, though no life has been lost but properties have been damaged. There can’t be less than three or four accidents that have occurred on that same spot because it is too high. Aside being high, we do not have enough road signs to ensure protection of lives and properties. The street lights might not be on sometimes, there are no signs to indicate such a thing, there is no speed breaker, there are a lot of issues that we need to tackle and that is not the only road. We have to keep our roads safe, that is what I intend to do when the house resume fully.

More importantly, I want to see how I can bring more infrastructural growth to the local government. We also want to see how we can make the local government responsible to the people; we want to hold them accountable. At meetings, we discovered that the problem we have during the last election was created by the local government. We have to make every level of government accountable to the people and if there is need to amend the local government law, this house will amend it.

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Asides all that, I will continue ICT training of my people; there is also the fashion institute and free school bus. I also noticed that not all of us know our right, most of the time the right of the average citizen is been tackled. In view of that, I know that Lagos State has a centre here, ADR where dispute are being resolved. My own is that when any one has issue that relates to infringement of their fundamental right, I have a law firm with team of lawyers that can take care of that, it is free, I pay the bills myself. So, these are things I have been doing. I recall there was a time an 80year old woman was taken to Kirikiri, she was arraigned, they could not perfect the bail conditions and they have to put her in Kirikiri until I sent a team of lawyers to bail her.

By and large, Ifako Ijaiye is quite a large place; I respect the views and wishes of the people. It is only people who are out to make a difference in the lives of others that should be given the opportunity to represent the people.

What is your advice to other politicians?

You understand the fact that every politics is local, each member should look at the peculiarity of their local government and see how they can find their way into the hearts of the leadership and the people, because my own election; after the primary, I was just getting endorsement from everywhere. Like the story I told you when I wanted to do graduation for the ICT and fashion institute students, it was one small girl that identified me and called Saka before you knew it other children started rushing out of their classes to see and have a feel of who Saka is. At the end I had to take them back to their various classes and spoke to them, they were very happy.

I am grateful to all the leaders in Ifako Ijaiye, I am grateful to all the political classes, I am grateful to the special delegates who voted for me even when I did not give them money. I also want to say thank you to my wife for being there and my immediate family, my mum and people that are always there to lift me up when I am down.