Hon. Felix Tejumola Agboola, is the candidate of the Action Democratic Party in the forthcoming election for the position of Lagos State House of Assembly for Ojo Constituency I. In this interview with The Unique Model magazine, he speaks about his programme for the youths in Ojo if elected and many more.
Excerpts:
Sir, can you introduce yourself?
My name is Felix Tejumola Agboola, I am the candidate for the Action Democratic Party, and I am vying for the position of House of Assembly for Ojo Constituency I. And we are here to meet with the Eze Ndigbo of Ojo, to solicit for their support so that we can affect our community and our neighborhood. That is our mission here today and to have collaboration with them. That is why we are here today.
Definitely, you have a livelihood, what informed you going into politics?
Governance affects every aspect of our lives, when the elective position is right, we don’t need to import another president, government, house of assembly from another country. God has given us the capacity within the African contest within Nigeria, Lagos state and other states to contest, so that we can make things right. So that we can make things right, and that is why I am putting myself out, that while other political parties have failed because they have been in power since first Republic, we have not seen a visible development or progress rather the same is going backward every day, and our children will ask us questions, one day and say father, what are you doing to help the nation, state or the local government? I put myself forward so that we can correct all their wrongs and we can make things right. We can do for ourselves, because we don’t have any God father to report to.
The electorate are our God father because with their votes, we can do a lot. That is why I put myself forward to make Ojo great again. Not only that, that people over there can live a comfortable life. And I want to represent them in Alausa, so that their voice could be heard. That is why I am contesting.
In the event that you win, what aspect of the challenges in Ojo will you start with because you cannot handle everything at a time?
The major thing is that, if you look at the population of Nigeria, we have a lot of youths, and that is why we have youths restiveness, we have youths misbehaving, and other vices too because they say an “idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. So, we are planning to engage the youths meaningful, in empowering them. Whatever capacity that we can do, not only in skills, Nigeria youths are making us proud through music, and some people have the platform to showcase themselves, so we are looking into that, anybody that has a talent, can come to us, we will empower the person to be known and to be recognized.
And in the area of job, we will create job for them now Nigeria produces graduates, without nothing to fall on. In Ojo here, we have a very good platform which is the electronics hub in West Africa in Alaba International market, I believe China does not have this opportunity that we have. I will train men on how to couple electronics, how to work on so many gadgets by the time we use all these means to help ourselves, we will go a very long way. We just need a structure on how to do this thing, in a well organised way and the one that wants to go to school, there will be a scholarship, some may be partial or full to encourage them to be in the University and to come out well and help themselves and the community.
Anybody doing well will not think of thuggery, unlike what we are experiencing now, every faction you see thuggery, you see youths carrying wood because they have to fend for themselves. So, we are to ensure we curtail all these things. We want to make Lagos work again.
Ever before you come out for this position, have you ever contributed in any way to the development of Ojo?
Yes, many years ago, I never know that I will contest one day. I believe when the country and the state, local government is working well, I just tend to relax, and they should go ahead and do things correctly. I stay in Ojo for more than 22 years now, almost 30 years now and in my street alone, I am the secretary of my Community Development Association (CDA) and the Landlord Development Association, I am the secretary. I have seen that the landlords here cannot do much, the little one we can do, by dredging gutters, keeping roads okay, that is the one we can do, that we feel is not heavy for us to do, we did it. Even now, people are still enjoying what we have done for them in that aspect and when we have a large platform, I believe, we will do more for the people in Ojo.
What is your message of appreciation to Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Ojo whom you visited today?
I really want to appreciate the Eze, Eze Unuegbu. This is my first time of meeting the king, so my experience today was so overwhelming, the way the king gave us a warm reception and the way the king addressed us and encouraged us even the council of elders and the Chiefs was so warm. I really appreciate the king and God will bless him and not only him, God will bless every official that put this meeting together. God will also give them long life and prosperity. Eze Ikenna, l love you! Ohanaeze I love you, I tell you, if they want to do the census in Ojo, the Igbo must carry all, the development we experience today came from them, so they cannot be put aside. So, we need to work with them.