Senator Obanikoro had tours of duty in Nigeria, Ghana and the United States of America. Amongst the various positions he had held are supervisory role at the Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas and Little Flower Children Service, Brooklyn, New York. He was elected Chairman/Chief Executive of Lagos Island Local
Government and served from March 1997 to July 1998.
From 1999 to 2003, he was Commissioner in the Lagos State Government Executive Council as Honourable Commissioner for Home Affairs/Culture.
From 2003 to 2007, he was senator representing Lagos Central in Lagos State in the National Assembly. As a distinguished Senator, he served in several committees. He also participated in impactful legislative activities.
In 2008, he was appointed Nigerian High Commissioner to the Republic of Ghana and served in that capacity till April 2012. He was also appointed Chairman of the Industrial Training Fund in May, 2013.
He has undertaken several courses, toured many countries and attended numerous seminars. The recipient of the Prestigious Kwame Nkrumah Leadership Award, until recently, was Minister of State for Defence.
The athletic Senator is happily married with children and grand children is currently aspiring to be governor of Lagos State under the People’s Democratic Party.
How much trouble are we in, security wise?
As bad as any (occurrence of) insurgency can be anywhere in the world. There is no way you can moderate what we have here.
Terrorism is terrorism. It is not an easy challenge. It has never been, anywhere in the world. But, what is important is for us as a people, to come together to confront this challenge. People should not see it as the president’s challenge
or that of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It’s a Nigerian challenge that we must all come together to overcome.
Nigeria is said to be ill equipped. How bad is it?
We are ill equipped to the extent that, in the last 25 years, we didn’t make the necessary investment in that department. But in the last two years, the president has turned that around, ensuring that the right investment is made. I am very hopeful thatsooner or later, we will see a ray of light.
This is not to say that it will go away overnight. I want to assure you that we know the depth of the crisis we have at hand and we are giving it our full attention.
On the fate of chibok girls, six months after, is it a forgotten issue?
All hands are on deck to see that the girls are brought back. The Nigerian military is ever ready to play its part. The president has said all efforts are being made to get them back. When the president makes a pronouncement, it behoves on everyone working under him to ensure that what he said is brought to pass. To that extent, the search is still alive.
We may have been lacking before in the area of equipment, but as at today, the president has decided to take the bull by the horn and make necessary investments to equip our military; even beyond this present challenge.
The mistake of the past is that futuristic investments were not made. So, the president wants to ensure that while we are dealing with the now, we plan for the future.
Though you are minister of state for defence, you are being accused of doing more politicking tha defence work.
That is not true. I have been balancing the two. Without politics, I wouldn’t have been minister of anything. What I have been doing is even more of defence. There were elections in Ondo, Ekiti and Osun States. We went to support the party. We spent more time doing other people’s work than doing politics but the opposition will want you to believe the reverse.
They accuse the federal government of militarisation of elections. What do you say to
that?
There was no militarisation. Today, we are talking about free and fair elections because the military was there to ensure that people didn’t carry ballot boxes
away.
They ensured that people were not intimated. We ensured that the president’s promise of one-man one-vote was a reality. It should be commended and not criticised.
So, what happens during general elections?
What we are trying to do is to change the culture of violence that is always associated with elections. Once the message sinks in, it’s clear, it will help us. An average Nigerian will now go and vote, knowing that there are standards.
Unlike in the past, where you have rowdiness and thugs sponsored by some politicians to disrupt the process. This, we have not had in the last couple of elections. This is what we are hoping to achieve.
There seems to be cold shoulder with your former boss, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu…
There are some fundamental issues that we disagree on. It is normal in life to disagree. It’s nothing personal. It’s about politics. I don’t like his politics. Sometimes, you have to be careful when you talk about your former boss so you are not accused of kiss and tell.
The battle for lagos – what is your strategy; seeing that the soul of Lagos has been taken over by the ruling party in the state?
They have not taken over the soul of Lagos. As a matter of fact, they have violated Lagos. This time around, the people are fed up.
You can deceive people sometimes but you cannot deceive them all the time. I think their cup is full. And this time, they will meet their waterloo at the polls in 2015. People of Lagos are wiser; most of the promises they made were not kept.
To that extent, what is more important to the people is being violated every day – displacing people without alternatives from their homes, the markets – banning here and there, raising school fees for two years and realising few months to the election that it was a wrong thing to do and weakly run back to say ‘we have reversed ourselves’.
People can see through all that; that they are not sincere-that immediately after the election is won sincere – that immediately after the election is won again, they will go back to their old ways. The arrogance in government, today, is unparalleled in the history of Lagos State.
What is your strategy and agenda for Lagos?
The number one agenda I have is that we are going to put people first. We have a government now that has not put people first. They’ve put themselves before the people. We are going to put the people first.
I am coming from a background that there is no pain that an average person is going through today in Lagos State that I have not gone through in my life. I was a vendor, factory packer and a floor cleaner. So, when I am talking about creating a Lagos that will be sensitive to the needs of all, I know what I am talking about.
My mother didn’t have money to send us to school but another person made it possible for us to go to school. I will never forget that. There were opportunities to be something in life and we took good advantage of them but they are no longer there today.
These are some of the promises that we intend to fulfil in order to give the people of Lagos a state that they can be proud of; a state full of hope, a state that will be a model for all other states to emulate. That is what we are looking at.
We are not interested in the things that are not substantial, things that are not transformational, things that are just cosmetic. Look at education; the standard of education has fallen to the point where we cannot beat our chest and say ‘this generation will perform at a higher level’.
Any investment made without proper training is a wasted investment. That is what they are doing now. We will correct that by ensuring that education becomes our number one priority. Without knowledge, you are nothing.
Whatever it is that we are enjoying today anywhere in the world, is knowledge-based. And that, to me, is the key to unlocking the creativity and the sustainability of development in this great state of ours.
So, you plan to offer free education?
I am not talking about free education. I went to the university in the United States. Education there was not free but government provided the kind of subsidy needed for the children of poor people to survive.
Those are the kinds of things we will offer the people of Lagos. By the time we get there, we will ensure that the poor masses of the state are supported and subsidized to the point where their own children can go to school and receive the best education so that they can aspire to become anything in life.
You look young and gentle but people say you are a trouble maker, how true is this?
It is a wrong perception. The truth of the matter is that as you have said, I am a gentleman to the core but I do not tolerate injustice. I fight injustice anywhere I see it.
In this country, they don’t like people standing for anything because most people don’t. Hardly can you tell which side of the aisle most people stand. I am not one of those people.
When there is an issue, you know where I stand.
That is the hallmark of a gentleman. If that means I have to be vociferous about it, I will be. So, if at the risk of being called a trouble maker, you expect me to be quiet, I will not be quiet. I will stand up for something. It is better to die for something than to die for nothing.
I am not Gani Fawehinmi and I am not close to that but when he was alive, he was called a
trouble maker because he stood for something. I am that kind of person; you can tell where I stand any day. It is not a common virtue in this part of the world; so I am not a trouble maker. I am just principled.
Do we desire Nigeria the way it is?
This country is not going to break. Yes, Nigeria deserves better. The truth of the matter is that to every generation, there is a challenge. The challenge before us is how to bring Nigeria together and also grow Nigeria into one of the most promising and progressive societies, not only in Africa, but in the entire world.
I think it is a challenge that God has abundantly blessed this country to overcome and I believe with the Transformation Agenda of President Jonathan there is no doubt in my mind that, that will be actualized.
What is the problem of leadership in Nigeria?
The leadership problem is not a thing of today. It is a cumulative challenge which we’ve had over time. Luckily for us today, the president is providing the kind of leadership that will encourage us to perform optimally.
However, I don’t want you to look at leadership from just the top. I want you to look at leadership also from bottom up.
Every community deserves a strong leader. Leadership at the community level is even more important than the one at the national level. Don’t forget, we all leave our individual communities to go to the centre in Abuja and the centre in our individual states.
All the tendencies that we have taken from our communities are brought to the centre; at the state, local or federal level. So, these are the things that have militated us and until we recognize some of these shortcomings and do something about them, we will continue to have serious challenge of leadership.
We should encourage leadership from the community level to rise and confront the challenges
within their communities.
There are certain things that you cannot legislate. You cannot legislate on morality but at the community level, if you raise a moral standard and begin to ensure that impunity that is the major challenge in Nigeria today is removed; that for any crime, there is a consequence, then, we will begin now to take control of our lives.
As long as we have people getting away with murder and doing things without consequence, we won’t have a society that you and I are labouring for or aspiring to have. We can only have it when you do crime and do time; if you go against the rules of the game, you get punished. As long as that is not the norm, we won’t have a different society from what we
have today.
How is your fitness routine like?
When you came in, you mistook me for my son because I look young. It’s because I work out a lot. I’m an exercise freak and I watch what I eat. I don’t just eat anything. In the last ten years, I’ve been very careful. In fact, my children think I am crazy.
What do you eat?
I eat a lot of vegetables and I don’t take anything sweet. I have reduced my carbohydrate intake to the barest. I hardly take carbohydrate and I drink a lot ofwater. It has worked well for me. I want to suggest it to people. Drink a lot of water, stay away from alcohol and smoking.
How do you relax?
I read a lot of biographies and that has really shaped my life. I have been encouraged by the lives of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Martin Luther King Jr, J. F. Kennedy, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and a host of others.
What is the greatest book that you’ve read?
I have about three that I can consider to be the most beautiful ones: The Voice of Wisdom by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, From Third World to First World by the former leader of Singapore, and the last one I just finished reading….
What is your philosophy?
Live and let live. Take life very simple. We didn’t bring anything to this world and we are not going to take anything out of this world. That is my philosophy of life. And, love one another.
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