Hon. Afeez Oladeinde Kasunmu, one of the Chairmanship aspirants, Surulere Local Government in upcoming council poll slated for July 22, on the All Progressives Congress (APC) platform, has stated his poise to turn the polity of Surulere around if favourably considered for the job, Lanre Adesanya had a close up chat with him. Excerpt:
If your political fortune brightens in the local government electoral process, what particular things will you fix quickly?
Politically there are so many things to fix in Surulere, political appointments and elective offices are not well spread, Surulere is not a place for all and I’m coming to make Surulere a home for all, where everybody will belong and benefit from whatever comes from the government politically speaking in the local government.
What are the edge you have above other aspirants, your distinguishing features and qualities?
Like I’ve said amongst all the aspirants, I am the only person that has transverse between the executive and legislative arms of government in Surulere local government. I’ve been in the corridors of power or served in various offices in Surulere between 1999 and 2011 around that period, I was a Personal Assistance to the chairman, Special Adviser IGR, Special Adviser on roads and drainage, a councilor and a Chief whip, leader of the council, became a Secretary to the Local Government, also one time coordinating supervisor over all the departments, this is my third time of aspiring to be chairman of this local government. I have seen the local government in and out, so I know what it is to be a chairman in Surulere local government. That is the difference nobody has this record amongst us except me.
Can you assess the kind of problems confronting Surulere polity?
There is no way you will use government money to train supervisors and they vy to return and pay back their quota and leaders in a particular place says, no, he cannot return, he now looks for fresh hands that does not even know the way around. Taking everything back to the drawing board, you see we need to develop people from the grassroots to grow. Assuming you are a councilor, probably two terms you go from there, having been in the system to become the vice chairman in Surulere once you are a councilor and they see that you are trying to aspire higher, they feel intimidated and they don’t want to see you again in the scene and it is affecting us, so what I want now is generational growth, from one office to the other, the same set of people that were trained should be able to give back to the community, where they were trained, as a councilor what you have learnt,give it back to your community after your first term, by the second term you perform better but if you are not allowed to go the second time, they bring in a fresh hand, how do you expect them to succeed? No it is not possible.
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How will you address the peculiarity differentials in the community vis-a-vis the task of upgrading it for future benefits?
The peculiarity in Surulere is this, politically let everyone have a chance, in terms of job opportunities, we have so many corporate organizations here and most of the people working there does not even reside in Surulere, we need to start from there, we need to talk to them to employ our people on merit, this will take a lot of people on merit and also take a lot of them off the streets. Surulere is a cosmopolitan local government, like a gateway to other local government and it is a city. We have two stadia in the local government with which we should be able to train our youth, get the talent out of them through the stadiums, you see there are so many things here in Surulere that makes it different from any other local government.
What is the relationship with political top shots in your locality and how do you plan to leverage on that for rapid development.
My relationship with elected political figures at state and Federal level representing Surulere is cordial; however I believe the local government belongs to the council chairman. He is the one that is there and knows where they need to develop infrastructure, human capital wise and others. The only way one can leverage on the existing political powers is to liaise with those in the house of Reps and Assembly that this are the needs of the people how do we get to meet it. Take advice, you don’t see yourself as an Island. Let people think for you liaise with them and seek to actualize their dreams at the end of the day the glory comes to you, but there is no way you do away with the Assembly man and the man at the Reps and succeed. No! You have to work together. Synergy will arise when I relate with them and we coordinate each other in Surulere. The most important thing is to make use of the fourth tier of government; the CDC and CDA, you will observe that in the past government we sit in our offices not knowing what happens in various CDC and CDA and say we want to tar this road and fix that drainage but we don’t invite the people concerned the immediate community to ask what are their needs, is it drainage, light or the road? If it is road and drainage, we okay say you cannot have the two, in our budget this year we can only accommodate the road while the other wait scale of preference comes to play, you give them the opportunity to be part of governance, so once you have done that for a period of time the following session you take another one and within a matter of time while in office you will even have satisfied their needs but in the past government they just jump into project today it doesn’t add any credit or advantage to the people. It is important we work with the fourth tier of government, listen to their yearnings and demands and find ways we can actualize that for the people of Surulere.