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By Sunday Ani
The acting chairman of Agege Local Government Area, Obasa Abdul-Ganiyu Vinod, has reaffirmed his commitment to serve residents of the council area, provide solutions to their everyday problems and make life better for them.
He made the declaration at a media chat with some journalists in his office over the weekend.
He noted that the local government as the closest tier of government to the people should be able to respond to grassroots’ problems, stressing that in developed countries like America, council elections are taken more seriously than even the governorship or presidential elections because they are meant to address the needs of the people in the grassroots.
“We are here to bring solutions to the people of Agege, resolve their problems and make sure life is better for them. As someone who has come into this space, I am here as a service provider to our residents. They should see us as problem solvers for them.
“We are not here for them to look at us. That’s not what we’ve come here to do. We’ve come here to work like it is done everywhere in developed countries abroad. The local councils serve its people. They move waste and even provide housing. They are very powerful to the extent that the election of the local council to the Americans is more important than the presidential election because they have access to the council and we have kept an open door for our people to come in here and talk to us,” he said.
To prove that he was really out to work for the people of Agege, he took the journalists on a journey of the work he has done in less than two months that he assumed office as the acting chairman, starting from youth empowerment to education, health, security and environment as well as women empowerment programmes and voters’ education.
He said as soon as he assumed office as the acting chairman in September he convened a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss how to make Agege and its environs clean and liveable because he discovered that people were disposing refuse on the road.
He said he declared September a sensitization month, where residents were told the importance of a clean environment and what punishment awaits those who deliberately flout the environmental laws.
“We declared September a month of sensitization, so we can teach ourselves how to dispose of waste to keep our environment clean. We started talking to the Community Development Associations (CDA), the community Development Committee (CDC), the market leaders, the League of Imams and the police. And we had a good conversation.
“After the sensitisation, we started enforcement in October. We set up a task force committee that works late at night to be able to apprehend people who come out to drop those wastes on the road. We got boys from different wards to get involved; our local security officers, the Agege crime fighters were involved. We had about 30 to 40 people that move around the community every night. They are working and going around our communities to make sure it’s a cleaner environment, he said.
He stated that the council had raked in about N2.8 million in fines from about 85 people that had so far been apprehended. “We have also noted the black spots around the community,” he added.
He said the council had also engaged street sweepers, who now take care of the inner streets in Agege. “Lagos State cleans about 15 major highways in and out of Agege but in addition to that, we also have 150 inner streets being swept on a daily basis from Monday to Saturday. By December, we will increase the number to 200.
“We have 324 inner streets in Agege. By February, we believe all the inner streets in Agege will be swept from Mondays to Saturdays and we are going to employ some of our local people.
“Currently, we have 170 people employed on this local street sweeping initiative. People are sweeping and they are happy that they are taking care of their communities.
“We are one of the top ranking local governments in terms of environmental and sanitation. We started planting trees on the median of Capitol Road. There are also certain places we have identified for greenery and parks. So, these are things we are doing to keep a clean and organized community here,” he said.
On security, he said: “We are about to kick off the renovation of seven nursery and primary schools that are urgent. We have 26 nursery and primary schools in Agege. We have nine junior and senior secondary schools in Agege, as well.
“We are currently renovating seven nursery and primary schools. I have been to all the 26 nursery and primary schools. Eight are the ones that need urgent attention. One is in total rebuild; seven are the ones that need renovations. We have gone through that process, they are about to start work and we believe before the second week of December, we should be able to near completion of renovation of those seven nursery and primary schools.
“We are also looking at the normal nursery and primary schools, That will have an ICT room where all the students can have access to computers.
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“They will have a library where they can improve their reading, writing and listening skills. We are also looking at sick bay in case of any emergency within the school, so they can attend to all of these problems.”
He stated that about 350,000 materials have been shared within the community. “That’s 10 notebooks, 12 pencils, 12 biros, erasers, sharpeners and crayons across all of our nursery and primary schools. We even extended to some junior secondary schools. As of now, about 7,000 students have gotten and I am sure that before the end of the month, the other ones will get as well,” he added.
On roads infrastructure, he said reconstruction works are ongoing on about 11 roads and drainages within the local government.
“Go to Elikana, Adegbola, Ajakaye, Imamojoku, Alowunle, Bodetodbo and Kagiri; those are places known for flooding if you know Agege well. We have started work on those areas. Those are not road drainages within our own council but we see the problems our residents are going through,” he said.
On health, he said the local government was poised to tackle prevalent cardiovascular ailments such as blood pressure, stroke and kidney diseases as well as diabetes malaria through the establishment of health booths across the 36 zones in the seven wards of the area council. “We are trying to have health booths across the 36 zones. We have already provided 10 out of those 36 zones. You can check your blood pressure at any time.
“You just need to walk four or five streets’ away and you have booths right in front of you that you can have access to. That’s what we are trying to do across 36 zones but for now till December, we can only provide about 10.
“By next year, we hope to complete all of the 36 so that our people can check their blood pressure, check their sugar levels and treat malaria right from the booths. And we are not just doing that in isolation; the booths will communicate with the primary health centers. So, if you have an issue and you go to the health booths to say, I have issues with my blood pressure, they will communicate with the doctors at the PHC,” he said
He noted that the council is equally providing health insurance to residents; a development he said would help the indigent residents, particularly pregnant women who need CS and have no money to pay for it. “We are building our own theater to solve the problem of Caesarean Section (CS) for our women. Because that is not yet ready, we have also provided, in the short term, insurance policy for our people. If you are pregnant and you are poor and vulnerable, we’ll make sure we do our check so you can have access to this insurance policy in collaboration with LASHMA, which is the Ilera-Eko scheme. And we are paying that for our people here in Agege to make sure that once you are pregnant, we put you on the health insurance, and when it’s time to give birth, you are able to have access to health care, so you don’t have to run helter-skelter when it’s time to give birth. Those are things we are doing with regards to health,” he added.
He added that the council is equally not neglecting immunization as about 5,000 women have been immunized against cervical cancer. “Those are issues that are prevalent among women. We are kicking off immunization for our kids soon,” he added
On education, the impact of the council is also felt. “We shared about 250 GCE forms. Not just sharing forms, we are also keeping tabs on the progress of the students,” he said.
On youth empowerment and social development, he said the council is aware that the young people make up about 60 percent of Nigeria’s population under 30 years old; stressing that any leader that wants to succeed must carry the young people along. Hr said the council already had a programme for young entrepreneurs within the ages of 18 to 35.
“We are empowering 100 young people today with N200,000 to start small businesses. Not just to start small but for the ones that have existing businesses to augment the business that they’ve been doing and improve.
“We want to improve the local economy by encouraging entrepreneurs that already exist and bringing in new entrepreneurs. The issue is that there are jobs in the places where we are all meant to get the job.
“We are renovating a lot of our vocational skill centers, trying to bring proper improvements to gain proper tutors that will teach our young ones. We are creating our own Agege Tech Hub where they can learn tech skills because tech skills open doors to jobs like coding, graphic design and programming. So, there are a lot of things that young people can learn and improve on,” he said.
On sports development, he commended the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa for introducing Obasa Games in the council.
“Through the Obasa Games, we have been able to identify about six young people who have made their journey overseas and are now playing professional sports in Europe and everywhere in the past three years. The games include football, boxing, tennis, scrabble, chess and athletics,” he said.
He said the council also subsidises food for the people of Agege, noting that in two months of his leadership, covering September and October, the council has provided subsidized food for about 5,000 households. “By the end of December, we want to double that number to about 13,500 households that will get cheaper food for themselves.
“We do this because our poor and vulnerable people spend 60 percent of their income on food. We believe if they can buy food for 50 percent off from the original prices, they can have more disposable income to take care of other things for themselves,” he said.
