Buhari's Body Language Suggests He Wants State Police Kolawole

Buharis Body Language Suggests He Wants State Police Kolawole

Kolawole
Hon. Taiwo Kolawole is the member representing Ajeromi/Ifelodun Federal Constituency at the National Assembly. A former deputy speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, he was in the House of Assembly between 1999 and 2015. In this interview with AKINWUNMI KING, he spoke on his experience after losing the 2015 election, which would have made him become the Speaker of the House. He also spoke on other issues of national interest.

In 2015, you contested the election to return to the Lagos State House of Assembly but you lost that election, which would have seen you become the Speaker if you had won. What exactly went wrong that made you lose the election?

It is a very sad incident that I dont always want to talk about, though I have overcome it but I think what really happened was that our people decided to act funny because of intra party issues. You know I was so very confident of winning that election but because we had internal issue in our party, some of our supporters went to work for the opposition.

Also, Jonathan came into Ajegunle with a lot of dollars and they shared money among the people, which ended up forcing them to go and work for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Everyone close to me believed that the election was going to favour me; we never thought that the PDP would end up carrying the day, but eventually because of some internal wrangling that we had in the party then, the election went the other way. But I have actually put that behind me because it is over four years now and thanks to God, we have moved on even to a higher place.

For a person like you who spent four terms in the House of Assembly and planning to return for a fifth term but ended up not realising that dream, what was the experience like, having to stay out of office for four years?

That is another terrible experience. I was in the House of Assembly for 16 years and in my last term there, I was the Deputy Speaker and when we finished the election in 2015, they had to call me to come and pack my things, they gave me just one month and I was not really prepared for it but I had no choice than to quickly adapt and went there to move my things.

It was a bitter experience because things became so very difficult that I had to return to the farm, something I was not used to. I am not a farmer so I really dont know anything about but I had to get use to that as well. It got to a point that I had to use my Prado Jeep to take feeds to the farm. Another experience was when the whole farm was submerged to the extent that the water level was enough to sweep someone away. At the end of the day, we had to sell the birds at very cheaper rates because that period was not a festive period, had it been it was a festive period, we would have made gains but it happened at a time when nothing was happening. I went through that for some time before the former governor later appointed me to be chairman of Ibile Microfinance.

So it was not really about not being in office for four years but having to stay away from something you love doing. I learnt a lot of lessons during that period, which has kept me going and in all, I just want to give thanks to God for all that has happened.

Now you have moved to the House of Representatives, how would you compare the experience with that of the House of Assembly, where you spent 16 years?

At the House of Assembly, you have just 40 members but at the National Assembly, we are 360 so it is a whole new experience entirely, even though what we do in the House of Representatives are almost the same with the House of Assembly, which include, making laws, carrying out oversight functions and so on. But the difference between the two is that it is always very easy to manage the House of Assembly. At the House of Representatives, even when people are having side talks and they are doing it at the same time, it becomes noisy and if you are the one making contribution at that moment, you get distracted.

There are some times that, maybe you have the floor and you are addressing the Speaker, the next thing, someone will just stand up and go and meet the Speaker, in that kind of a situation, the Speaker is distracted and who are you talking to? So that is one of the differences between the House of Representatives and the House of Assembly.

While you were at the House of Assembly, you were passionate about the call for a special status for Lagos. Now that you are in the lower chamber, what are you and other colleagues of yours doing to ensure that this call is achieved?

We are hoping that we can achieve this but dont forget that we are just 24 out of 360 members. And as we are asking for special status for Lagos, other members from other states also feel that their own states also deserve another kind of special status but we will continue to agitate for it. Remember that Senator Oluremi Tinubu pushed for it in the 8th senate but at the last stage, the senators opposed it. However, we are looking at another direction in which we will move for special status for the whole South West, just like we have the North East development commission and Niger Delta development commission. If we can get something like that for the South West as well, then it will go a long way.

The security situation in the country has become a source of concern and many people have continued to clamour for the creation of state police, while some others have been talking about security summit, which of these do you think will address the issue of insecurity in Nigeria?

There is nothing else that we need than state police, it is long overdue. Looking at President Muhammadu Buharis body language, one could see that he wants the idea of state police. Everywhere in the world, state police are used to combat crimes. With the current policing system that we have, we cannot address the security challenges confronting us. We must allow states to have their own police to tackle crimes at the state level, we are not saying we will do away with the federal police; they will be in charge of cases that are beyond the states.

Take for instance, the FBI in the United States, they deal with issues that are beyond their local police. When we have this kind of system, it will be easier to tackle crimes; each state will be able to have their own people in their police apparatus. Also don't forget that we are using states criminal law to prosecute criminal cases, so it is time for us to allow for the creation of state police.

But there are arguments that state governors could take advantage and use the police to fight their perceived enemies, what do you say to that?

We need to stop this myopic way of thinking. I see that as a myopic argument that state governors will take advantage and misuse them. Why dont we start first and see if it will work or not, let us see if the governors will misuse the police apparatus. We should do away with that thought, like I said earlier, we are not totally doing away with the federal police, they will be there to handle cases that are too complex for state police to handle.