In this interview with ENIOLA AKINKUOTU, the Lagos State Commissioner for Special Duties, Dr. Wale Ahmed, speaks about the forthcoming governorship election, among other issues
You are a member of the APC governorship election committee. What exactly is the job of the committee?
It is basically to educate the public, sell our candidate, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, and to sell our party. They are good brands already and are loved because of the integrity our party has. We have a good brand but we must still sell it. So, our job is to let everyone know what this administration has done and what the APC will continue to do if re-elected.
Some leaders of your party like Leke Pitan and Muiz Banire who lost out in the governorship primary have not been seen at your rallies. Won’t this affect the performance of your party at the polls?
Not at all. Everybody is campaigning right now. Everybody cannot mount the podium at rallies, it doesn’t work that way. I go to Agege more than I appear at rallies because that is my constituency and my people know me. It is division of labour; we all have to handle different aspects. So, if you do not see certain personalities, it does not mean that they are disgruntled. We conducted an open and transparent primary and an overwhelming majority of party members said yes to one aspirant and returned him as our candidate in the full glare of the whole world.
So, what is the selling point of your campaign?
The first thing that differentiates our candidate from others is experience. If you compare him with a person like Jimi Agbaje, Ambode has worked as an accountant at the local government and state levels and at various positions before he rose to become the accountant general. He rose through the ranks. Agbaje belongs to a noble profession but nothing in his work experience could have prepared him for the governorship of Lagos. It is not a job for beginners. Another difference is that people saw the circumstances under which Ambode emerged as the APC candidate. There was no rancour and all other aspirants have rallied round him. Then of course, the factor of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Governor Babatunde Fashola – two people Lagosians have come to respect and trust are standing by him (Ambode) and that makes a lot of difference. When Tinubu started in 1999, I had the opportunity to work with him as a member of the House of Assembly. Tinubu did creditably well in eight years and then handed over to someone he could trust to continue and Fashola has not disappointed Lagosians and Lagosians have seen two performers who are now presenting the person they trust to continue with their legacies.
You were the chairman, House Committee on Health. But the PDP candidate, who is a pharmacist, says the present government has mismanaged the health sector.
I don’t know which aspect he is talking about. I know that between 1999 and now, things have changed. When you evaluate a government, you should start by asking what was on the ground before that administration took over. Without prejudice to the fact that no administration can do everything because if it was possible to do everything, there would be no need for elections every four years. How many general hospitals were on the ground before 1999? Look at the services we render now: the maternal and child care centres we are building now with 100 beds each to bring a reduction in maternal mortality; the cardiac and renal centre in Gbagada; the extra training that our doctors and nurses are receiving in even relationship management with patients.
Before we came in, if you take accident victims to hospitals, the victims would be delayed and asked to pay first but I moved a motion in the House then that anybody involved in an accident, if taken to any of our hospitals, should be treated free of charge at least for 24 hours because according to research, anybody that we succeed in stabilising for 24 hours usually survives. The critical period is the first 24 hours. When this motion was sent to Tinubu, he immediately made it a policy of the state government and called on the then Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr. Yemi Cardoso, to factor the cost implications into the budget of that year in the mid-year to tell you how eager he was to achieve that. It was on the basis of this that the state government established the Accident and Emergency Medical Centre at the toll gate. Go there to investigate and find out if anybody will ask you for a penny even for a hospital card.
But the PDP also claims that Lagos could have experienced more developments if not for the “vested interests” of certain party leaders.
Which vested interests? I saw a picture on the pages of newspapers where Chief Bode George and Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe were hugging each other as if they had won a Nobel prize because they were able to defeat Senator Musiliu Obanikoro. They celebrated because Agbaje is their candidate and from what we read in the newspapers, Obanikoro alleged that on the day of the PDP primary, they (George and Ogunlewe) introduced about 58 names into the delegates’ list so that they would be able to defeat him. But at the end of the day, if you subtract the 58 names, they still beat Obanikoro but they have let us know that Agbaje is their candidate. So, that implies that if Agbaje gets there, he will be controlled by these people because they gave him the ticket. In our case, Tinubu was not even at the primary but our party members voted openly and it was transparent. So, what they are accusing us of is what they are guilty of.
Source: Punch
