Hon. Musibau Kolawole Taiwo, popularly known as HKT is a former member of the House of Representatives from Ajeromi-Ifelodun Constituency in Lagos State. He has indicated interest to return to the Green Chamber of the National Assembly in 2027, having served previously from 2019 to 2023. In this interview with JOY ANIGBOGU, the former lawmaker speaks on the recently held National Convention of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), how the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government is addressing security and economic challenges, why the state governors should consider establishing state police, among others. Excerpts:
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) held their National Convention recently despite contrary court pronouncements and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) derecognizing their leadership, what’s your view on this?
I don’t like the way the oppositions are behaving. When we were in the opposition, we made sure we did things appropriately. What they’re doing now is exposing themselves to a situation whereby they won’t even have any candidate in the 2027 general elections. You know it’s a process, you cannot say that the INEC is biased, they didn’t take the party to court. It was some members of the ADC ab initio that took them to court that they had come to hijack their party. The court now said that they should go back to status quo ante bellum, that none of will be recognised. They’re not deregistering the ADC, they’re only saying that they won’t recognise any of them pending the outcome of the applications. I don’t expect that to lead to going to the Appeal Court, they should just wait for the outcome of the court process. They’re saying that their problem is the ruling party, is it the ruling party that took them to court? The Labour Party is there, when the PDP were destroying themselves you could see what happened. Now, they have put themselves together and they organised a National Convention that wasn’t witnessed by the INEC. I don’t know why the people in the ADC are blaming the INEC. INEC said that there’s a pending judgment that said that they should not recognise any of the factions. They didn’t say that they are deregistering the party, they only said that they would not recognise their leadership and if they don’t recognise their leadership, why did they go for a national convention. The law states that the INEC must be present at the National Convention, it’s not about the ruling party, it’s about the law and the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act states that the convention is null and void if the INEC is not present. Why are they not adhering to the rules instead of giving excuses? We’ve found ourselves in this kind of situation before, when Comrade Adams Oshimhole was removed as the National Chairman of the APC and we appointed an Acting Chairman. We knew that the Acting Chairman might not have the authority to present candidates or sign their forms, we called ourselves and at the National Assembly we called a lawyer that we would take the party to court. They later came together so that we could move forward and they now organised a National Convention to have a substantive Chairman.
But, the ADC has done their National Convention
They’ve not done any convention, what they did was a social party. It’s not convention.
Isthereanylegalimplicationtowhattheydid?
Of course, there’s a part of the law that says that you must inform the INEC and they must be present at your national convention, so they haven’t completed the process and the uncompleted process has nullified whatever they’ve done.
But people are saying that probably the ruling party is witch-hunting the opposition, which is why there are over 30 governors in the ruling party now
Do you know why they’re saying that, it’s because when most of them were in the ruling party that was what they did. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to witch hunt some people, it wasn’t to fight corruption. We were in the opposition, they used style to take over all the states in the South West then, we didn’t even use any style to get the governors to our side, they joined us voluntarily.
But with all these issues on security and the economy, people feel that in 2027 they would prefer another party to the APC, don’t you think they’re right?
Sometimes I wonder why people think like this. Governance is beyond security though it’s part of their duties. On the economy, even the World Bank has downgraded the growth rate. It’s not limited to Nigeria, yes, we’re an oil producing state, but we operate a free economy. Dangote Refinery cannot produce all that we need for consumption. He is producing to full capacity, but not producing to satisfy Nigerians. He also exports some fuel products to get foreign exchange. The capacity is not enough and their internal policy may not allow him to sell all to Nigeria. But we can see what is happening in the oil sector due to competition. When petrol was selling for N500 per liter, some filling stations were not having fuel and people would go to the black market that can sell for as much as N2,000 per liter and they would be happy that they were able to get fuel. Now, we have petrol regularly because all our filling stations now function and you can see the prices vary due to competition as the market is active. This is unlike when we depended solely on the marketers. Compare our situation with most African countries, except Libya where they still enjoy relative low prices. But when you compare their population with the number of cars that they have to ours, you’ll see that we need more fuel. So, I’ll say that our economy is improving. The World Bank said that Nigeria is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. You can see that we have a stabilised currency. Look at the exchange rate, the government made it a free market and we now have a stable currency more than before and naira is still gaining. It sold for a little above N1,000 recently. What we’re requesting for in Nigeria is something that is not even available abroad. Currently in some countries abroad, the government is not giving them anything, they only control the prices of goods. Inflation is high in the United States of America now and Liverpool Market has disappeared in London. People are talking about electricity, when President Bola Tinubu became the governor of Lagos State in 1999, he didn’t say he couldn’t solve the problem of electricity, he knew it wasn’t within the purview of the state. But he went abroad and when the black caucus asked him what he wanted, he said that he wanted electricity. He planned to build 27 megawatts electricity capacity that would have been sited at Ijora Eledu, but former President Olusegun Obasanjo frustrated it and told them to go to Egbin, where they would cross about two bridges from the port. That means they would need to lose the items to get there. When they even tried to do it, he said they shouldn’t use diesel that they should use gas. At the end of the day, some people went to jail because of that. They had three months to do it but it was delayed for over two years. Due to this, Tinubu couldn’t go further to embark on the Orugbo 560 electricity megawatts that would have solved the problem of electricity in Lagos State. Now, President Tinubu has decentralised electricity, we now have state laws for electricity. So, if you talk of electricity you should ask the Governors what they’re doing. Even on security, we’ve been calling for state police, he decentralised it and none of them has started.
But, it has to be in the constitution
Nothing is stopping the Governors, even to combat insecurity in Lagos State, we improvised and we have agencies that are performing the functions of the police now. So, don’t say they haven’t been allowed to do the job. Insecurity perpetrators wouldn’t inform you that they’re coming and they wouldn’t stay for more than five minutes, so you need information. You cannot get information about the police in Lagos State, when you’re in Abuja. For instance, few days ago, one boy removed something from my car in Mile 2, when I was coming from my constituency; I called their bosses and they got it for me. The same thing happened in Alaba and I pursued the guy, but he ran away, I called their ogas too and they got the boy for me and he returned my motor part, you can see how important state police can be. This is me getting to the root of insecurity in my area. If I were to be the Divisional Police Officer in Ajegunle, there would be no crime in there because I would know the criminals and their hideout. We’re only playing with security, the President has told them to go and start state police. That was one of the reasons he brought Tunji Disu as the new Inspector General of Police because he believes in state police. You cannot solve insecurity problems from Abuja.
Can you tell us about your ambition to go the House of Representatives?
I’ve declared that I’m coming out. Recently, I went to visit some of the project sites that we facilitated there, but three of them have not been completed. One of them is a five storey building. We have the castings that you would think are for 25 storey building. I brought a market there, it’s also half way. I was in a school and I saw the dilapidated state of the school and I felt bad. I saw the water tank we were building, they’ve stopped it. If I’m given the opportunity of going back, I would complete the projects. The five storey building would finance itself when completed. We have a multi-purpose hall for events, we have CBT Centre for examinations, we have a studio for AJ Radio and for musicians. Many people were calling me to come out to continue with what I was doing. The day we went round, we visited 21 project sites and they were shocked that I had so much to show. I went to the National Assembly to work, we had one year of COVID, but that didn’t stop us from working. We did a lot of empowerment programmes. They called a meeting of the women in the area, when we went there and 80 of the women said that they participated in our empowerment programme.
