Kunle Adelabu
An aspirant for the Lagos East Senatorial seat and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asipa Kaoli Olatunji Olusanya, has revealed parts of his agenda if elected as Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to represent the Lagos East District.
The teacher turned politician, while declaring his intention to run for the much coveted position at a parley with journalists during the week, stated that he has already prepared his manifestoes but that he would not released them until he emerges the candidate of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress(APC).
However, Asipa Kaoli, who is presently the Vice Chairman of APC, Lagos East Senatorial District, revealed some of his agenda which focuses on education, youth development and collaboration and feedback during the engagements with journalists.
“I have quality people and sound minds around me that are going to help in the implementation of my programmes.
“In terms of manifestoes, I have a written document ready, but it will suffice today to just release the acronym and what it stands for. I don’t want to release my arsenal now. I am not yet a candidate of the party and I don’t know who my opponent will be”, Asipa Kaoli said.
“The acronym is KAOLI, my name. The ‘K’ stands for Keen which implies passionate interest in education infrastructure development. Since I am not aspiring for an elective position but a legislative one, my position will be to facilitate educational infrastructures and youth empowerment.
“Our problem is not lack of a good curriculum, but when there are no structures; no classrooms and desks, toilets, internet, how can you learn?”, he asked rhetorically.
“My job will be to facilitate all these through budgeting and lobbying appropriate ministries for projects.
“We need to motivate teachers. When a teacher sees a good environment with facilities, they will be motivated to teach. Those are what we want to do with mandate when it is given to us”, he said when asked about his programmes.
The aspirant said that he has passion for the development of youths through mentorship to inspire them.
“Youth and their development are my passion. This is my students’ hostel and I live just beside it. I do bring them here because my biological children are not here and the vacuum is not there at all. I bring them around and we play.
“I can always see that they are always inspired whenever I talk to them. I see that inspiration whenever I talk to their lives. And when they returned to their families, the responses I get from their homes is always that of thanks and appreciation.
“That means I have become a role model to them. They see something in you. They want to be like you and even greater than you”.
He revealed that he was instrumental to the setting up of a special committee by the current administration to rehabilitate and equip collapsing education infrastructures in the state.
Aspia Olusanya stated that he charged party chairmen in Lagos East when he became the Vice Chairman of APC to compile a list of schools with bad infrastructures in their areas which were later compiled into a brochure and was presented to the Governor for quick intervention.
“In terms of education, when I became the Vice Chairman of the APC for Lagos Senatorial District, I called all the Chairmen of the party in the 16 local governments and I told them that the people that are voting for us are suffering and charged them to go to their respective localities and see the state of the public schools.
“Without sound education, we will be producing an army of restless people that would become cultists, gangsters. I told them to take pictures of bad schools in their domains and we made it into a brochure of Lagos East Public Primary and Secondary Schools for the intervention of the Governor and I presented it to the party Chairman, Alhaji Tunde Balogun, for onward delivery to the Governor and Chief of Staff. We also distributed copies of the bronchre to others”, he said.
“I thank God that the Governor has set up a special taskforce on the renovation of public schools based on the report”.
He said that part of his programmes when he becomes a Senator is to intervene in some of these schools across the District and rebuild them.
“Part of what I want to do differently is that when I become the Senator, I will also intervene in the implementation of the recommendations in the document that I submitted to the Governor.
“By the grace of God, when I become a Senator, my own intervention is to pick those bad schools and rebuild them. That will be my first priority in different areas. I will use whatever fund that is available to me for this purpose”, he pledged.
“We have lost societal value and that is what we can rebuild with good education”, Asipa Kaoli added.
He also revealed that he has been giving scholarship annually and discovered talented students through the process who, according to him, are sponsored to schools by him.
“Every year, I conduct scholarship examinations in two public schools in this area. One was established in 1947 by Methodist Church at Ibeshe and the other by Jakande in Ibelefun.
“If you go to those schools and see the number of students in a class, you will know that there is no quality education that can take place there in a class of 100 students with one teacher. In my school, we have less than 20 students in a class and at times we have two teachers in our classes with less than 20 students”, Asipa Kaoli said with disappointment.
“I conducted this scholarship examination to may be perhaps detect exceeding brilliant students in those places and in a particular year, we found a child from Ibelefun Primary School who scored 100% in Mathematics.
“So, I gave him a scholarship and today, the boy is reading Medicine and Surgery at the University of Lagos. He is an Igbo boy and still sponsoring his education”, he revealed.
“That is part of the little that I have been doing. I want to serve, I want to be a change agent. I am open and available to serve. I want to represent your voice, It’s not about me because God has blessed me and I am grateful for that but if He says that you have to do more, I cannot say no”, he said.
The Senatorial aspirant also stated that he would place importance on feedback from his constituents through a functional Constituency office to address people’s yearnings.
“To facilitate feedback, we are going to establish a Constituency office that will be operational, available and accessible and manned by people who have the skill in gathering information, process complaints, communicate to me, give feedback to the society and organize meetings”, he said.
“You cannot do it alone. Once you get people with skills to man the structure, it will become so easy for you”.
Asipa Kaoli also stated that with collaboration and engagement, he would be able to facilitate projects and development to the Senatorial District.
“With good representation, engagement with seat of power and with trust established, you will get things done. We need to engage more cordially and with respect, humility and trust.
“Because of trust, engagement and collaboration with other people in this neighbourhood like Chief Babatunde Benson and Olubeshe (Oba of Ibeshe), this road (Ebute – Ibeshe road) which was once one of the worst road in Lagos State, was reconstructed.
“Because of interventions by me, Chief Benson, Olubeshe and others, Gov. Fashola agreed to do the road and look at what he did, a very solid and good road. You get things by engagement and being cordial and not by confrontation and agitation or fight”, he said.
