In this interview with Ehi Ekhator of NAIJA CENTER NEWS, the Nollywood actor, Desmond Elliot, who has decided to venture into politics revealed why he decided to try his luck, praised the Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola and explained the kind of Nigeria he dreamed of. Below is the excerpt.
Naija Center News : What’s your view about Fashola’s administration? How would you view his achievement as the governor of Lagos State?
Desmond Elliot: I think he has been fantastic. He set the ball rolling for fast pace government and dynamism. If you take a survey or go to the polls you will find out that he is one of the most favourite governors if not the most, the most favourite governor of our time and this has been linked to several reasons. Firstly, he acknowledges the cosmopolitan nature of government. He seeks out for the best and very importantly, when he came to power, he did not initiate, totally, his own programs but built on what was already laid on the ground which leads to why continuity is very important in government. What Bola Asiwaju Tinubu had done, he built on it. So, Asiwaju’s position at that time as a governor was important, his also became even more important because he built on it. IF he had started creating from the scratch, then he probably wouldn’t be where we are today, but because he took it over from where someone had stopped, that led to a good continuity which is where we have a lot of problems even in politics. You might come with a different ideology, that doesn’t mean that whatever it was that your predecessor had done before, was totally rubbish. If that was totally rubbish, he would do but I think in Nigeria, what we should do is to capitalize more on what your predecessors have done before. You might come from the opposition party or whatever; it does not mean you totally destroy the structure because money of the people doesn’t change as government changes, what changes is the hands that manage, but the money used in building those structures doesn’t change. So the only appeal you would want to give is, build upon what your predecessors have done, it might not be all but some of it, build upon it and then carry on.
The only place where we Nigerians usually have a problem is, we always want to build our own legacy, forgetting that building upon someone else’s legacy, is the beginning of your legacy; people now know you as someone who builds on a dream someone else’s had. So, it is not a bad idea to build, for instance, you start a railway project and your time is up, you leave office, instead of the other person cancelling it, continue from where you stop even though he is from the opposition. That being said are major qualities of Fashola. One more thing I think he has done which is great is, he doesn’t matter who takes over from him. He has been able to put Lagos to the point where systems can work on its own irrespective of who’s in power. For instance, LASTMA can still work because the structure is already there for the bodies to keep working. So, being able to do that steadily takes a state gradually towards development.
Naija Center News: You are going into politics now, what exactly have you done like community development and others, for the community you love before thinking of aspiring for higher position to do more?
Desmond Elliot: This is born out of the fact that I have done not just community but humanitarian work. In politics, they say, if you have your trumpet, blow it. So, what I have been doing is unto God, I just do it and believe my reward is in heaven. I have done work internationally, I have done work in Liberia of which I use to go everywhere giving back, I have taken a lot of artist, entertainers, actors who usually join me like Rich Dominic, Klint De Drunk, Jackie Apiah, Michel Majid. buy food stuff, buy things to give back to people in poor area.
In my community, what I have done is, I have assisted within my field in sending a few to school in terms of film school, I have done service in area I live in terms of doing seminars with school children, mostly of primary schools, talk to them about career etc., which I do with them towards the end of every terms. I am as well being involved in HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, promoting safe water, not necessarily clean water, and safe water in rural and poor urban area especially in the area where I grew up and schooled in Jos. I have partners in water aid, UN habitat, I have partner with an organization called SCHEMA where we promote the awareness of sickle cell, generally just humanitarian work which is taking me to, basically to many countries, Uganda, Kenya, where we create all these kind of awareness. Back home, Port Harcourt, we visit orphanages etc. Basically, all of these bring themselves together make me to understand that, you could bring these entire energy home and change lives instead of spreading your wings too far, bring everything home, go deep into your people because we have lots of youths very unemployed, unschooled, not nurtured and already even before doing much, I am already securing admission into the open university for a lot of getting atleast support for funding from some corporate organization to sponsor a lot of our youths who haven’t been able to get into the unconventional university to at least start learning from the international open university. I have been in talk with the authorities over there, we are streamlining and we are starting the first batch of admission next week.
That being said, we are also working on the unskilled, those who like to learn some form of skills like sewing, mechanic, technicians, electricians etc. all those specific school work, we are putting that out and getting them admitted into schools. What the schools would do is also partner with organisations that are specific to those things then get them in. Why am I doing this, it’s not my main priority, by the grace of God, a legislator, but it’s a part of being in the position whereby we can actively differentiate between social responsibility for the people from corporation organization and give return because of where you are at, as an honorable or a member of the house of assembly, you force the corporate organisations, which is lobby, talk etc. When you have the kind of initiative, it helps out in leading to the growth of a society. My point is, Surulere Local government has gotten to the point where it will come up with dynamic, young; preempt idea on how to move forward in terms of education, shelter, clothing, feeding etc. If you don’t bring out dynamic ideas, we will always be where we are which is close to point O. If you feel you have something to offer, bring it out, bring it on and let’s move on. That has been a moving force for me, in order to prove that it’s possible, I started the work already.
Naija Center News: You are going to be a lawmaker when you win, what is it that you want to change, what law are you trying to make or what is it that you think is not well positioned that you want to change?
Desmond Elliot: There is a couple. We have issues that have to deal with our roads, we need to…. Wait, I am not changing laws but probably have to amend which I feel are very important.
Most of our roads the state government handles are very narrow. Because of population explosion and increase, they need to be expanded.
The government of today has really worked hard in terms of building and giving a lot of stuff. Today we see a lot of accommodation which is very important, now we see they are doing a lot of scheme, new house is coming up, we need to get something almost like something we have in the state called the project, we need to give a lot to deal with that specifically, giving out to the civil service, helping them, relocating them. It has started already; we need to do more on situating them so that we don’t have too many people densely populated at a place. Lagos has gotten to the point where people start going to the hinterland, start going to off state like the one in New York, partnering with other states we are close to, especially Ogun State and really making it as a point of duty, relocate people, not out of their domains. Now when we do that, we’ll see there’s need to start expanding our roads because you now spread Lagos. The truth is, to become cosmopolitan, when we are too close together, we can’t afford the opportunity to build, we are now looking at a future new Lagos. I want to be part of that prophesy, a prophesy whereby we are not just dumping people but creating the network whereby people can live not too close and not too far and that will begin developing our future city. It’s a broad spectrum with laws and build an impact, a dynamic conference that see to the future but making it very systematic and not a system that leads to the suffering of people. And while you do that, you create the opportunity for road usage. The thing about traffic we do not know about is that, it does not only shorten the life span of your car, it also shorten the life span of the people that owns the car because when you get home late, you sleep late, you wake up too early, you don’t have enough sleep, it reduces man power, it reduces energy, all things work together. Expanding road, we have to create a proper traffic system, every populated state like Lagos is bound to have traffic problem. A lot has been done; a lot can still be done into managing the problem of traffic control, making people obey laws and we have to make laws not only traffic signs but other parts like in a modern society. So, it is not in a way to make things harden for the people, we need to push in more laws, we need to now make para-military. For security purpose, we have round clock security, we give them uniform or something to make sure, even at night. We need to have a feeling of being safe, so we need to preempt, you know right now state police has not been approved, but we can have a vigilante system, we can have a system whereby we watch out for our brothers and sisters, we turn Lagos into a big community whereby we look out for each other.
Another problem we have is because more gates are close. Where there is proper security system, you open up the gate, you find out there is good network around. There are certain places and residential places where you would not allow commercial vehicles to pass through, This will begin to gradually, build a cosmopolitan city that we are looking at. I want to start with a place like Surulere where we can have network, we can have growth, we want to start to promote even a situation where we can give very soft loans to people you know that are highly business people, that lead me to my community now, not lagos as a whole. Once you can deal with what to eat, how to move, then we want to promote other means of transportation. An average Nigerian think of a car the moment he makes N500,000, we need to start promoting walking, bicycling, all those forms of transportation that a modern society needs and it’s not just car. How will that work? In my mind, I will push a bill that will create parking centres where you can actually park your car, and then you pay a token which actually go into all the streets where you can park. And if you need to go to somewhere maybe ten minutes from where you park your car, you can ride a bicycle or walk. By the time you promote these things, the traffic laws are working; you find out that you have different forms of movement and walking is a good form of exercise, people should start giving minutes’ walk and you yourself in government should prove it, you don’t need to drive everywhere. If we start to orient people on this, I want to push for a law that will begin to change the psyche of the people, so the ministry of interior becomes very important, where we will go through the radio or tv or whatever it is. We are not saying change Nigeria, but change your locality where you are. By the time you do it, it leads to a bigger effect. People do not agree immediately to change. Oh Desmond is an actor; he wants to go into politics because he wants to go change money. No, allow the cause to happen, but remain focus at what you want to do to change it.
Naija Center News: I guess the people are saying you want to steal money because they have been disappointed several times.
Desmond Elliot: Fine, who is going to make the change? Let’s try dynamic people, the little things people have done in the past, they can’t probably do this themselves. If you know someone has been there in an office for many years and changes have not been made, then try someone else.
As a Nigerian, what’s your view about Boko Haram?
It’s a situation that gives its way to a lot of cause. You can’t shy away from what Boko Haram and ISIS is doing in the middle is doing in the middle east. They all intertwined. You see the government struggling to try and curb or limit it but I do feel that, beyond that, when we are able to get the right machinery for instance, we need information. I feel a lot of information needs to be passed to the people, let us keep them informed. I do understand that a lot of organisations are really working at making sure this does not escalate to a big problem. My only prayer is that we find a quick solution and if we do not, it’s going to spread, and I wouldn’t want that.
Naija Center News: The government is saying that they want more youths to participate in politics, taking a form to contest is very expensive. Then the government stripped the youth naked, financially, if you can’t eat your three times daily meal, how can you contest for a position.
Desmond Elliot: Why not support some of our youths who are able to manage? Politics all over the world is not a cheap venture and in a country like ours where lot of corruptions have gone deep, it takes you to convince people through your heart to not wonder that you going for the money.
It is difficult for the youths to want to venture into the politics because it is almost, every step you go, you need to do something that involves finance. So the only thing the youths can have as your voice is your words, what you do and being aware. A youth must know that if we pay taxes, there must be tax return. This is why I see APC as a dynamic party that will give more to the youths, to empower people and to change, because of its diversified formed in nature. I am in a position speaking a lot might be a bit detrimental and I don’t want to be misquoted. A lot of us picture a Nigeria in the future, a Nigeria where people will actually asking for Jesus, a Nigerian where when you land into the country, people would say welcome to the country and not where people would ask bros wetin you bring come?, bros wetin dey for us? Then you wondered, what’s going on? It’s not just at the airport, you can’t also blame them, but you can see the ugly situation in our society. We have to change all that, you do not ask, you don’t give unless you are willing, there is need to let them know that there is gain in working hard through what they called kulele to become CEO.
Naija Center News: You agree with me that Nigerians do not have patients, everyone wants to be rich overnight.
Desmond Elliot: You can never overemphasize the power of the media and social media, you need to create awareness, you must cite examples of countries that was patient and are now big. Malaysia was patient and now produce palm oil. You must show the country through radio, TV, explain to them that for us to get to a point, this is what we need to do.
Naija Center News: But do you know that Nigerians blame the government for any crime they commit?, Don’t you think it is proper for the leaders to straighten themselves so the youth do not have to blame them?
Desmond Elliot: I can speak for Lagos State. Lagos state is a structured government as you can see. There hardly any law they created that is not being effected. One more thing you must see about Lagos is that, every state look up to Lagos and a bench mark for growth. We need to know more on what our government is what we want to push more and giving information to the people is very important to changing their ideology and orientation. It happened here and here and it can happen here and before you know it, it is not a short process, in the next two three years, you begin to see multiple changes.
One more thing I would do is to deal squarely piracy of every form. Piracy of creating content, piracy of entertainment in every form must be dealt with. That’s part of what I would love to do when I get there. Nigeria as a nation is blessed with diverse people, and in this complex situation, we are able to coexist and live. We need to get a forum and a program that pushes out what make us unique as a people rather than what make us different.
Naija Center News: It seems like we are more religious and tribal than being a Nigerian.
Desmond Elliot: Well, it is coming from what we have been taught by our leaders of yesterday. Oh I have a wife, where is she from? You are not asking she is from because you are just proud that your son got a woman, you are asking because you want your son to get a wife from your area.
I am a Yoruba boy, I was born in Lagos, grew up in Lagos but school in the North and I socialized a lot with the northerners and I saw a lot of things that bring us together than separate us. Then I met someone from the South, and then I felt this is what we mean by being together. Then my mother is from what you would call from the East. A fusion of all of these would make you understand we can go exist as Nigerians. Nothing makes us different, instead of killing ourselves for those little things that make us different, let love ourselves over those things that make us unique, appreciate what we have and we will be better. This is what Lagos state has displayed. You see people that are not even Lagosians that are commissioners that are not even Yoruba people because they want to make sure they put it in the best hand and everyone has a sense of belonging. You can be in plateau state and put Yoruba man as a commissioner and head of service can be from Akwa Ibom State as long as the person is loyal to government and bring peace to the people.
Naija Center News: What message do you have for Lagosians and others who think you are going there for a selfish reason
Desmond Elliot: Well, the only thing I can say is let support those who want to bring change. Change doesn't occur overnight but change starts with one person who is ready for a change. Look at my progress, look at what I am bringing to the table, I didn’t just sleep over night and say I want to go there, it is something that has been for the longest and it was just a question of waiting for the time.
If I do this and it worked, good and it doesn't work, I will continue to do what I do, give to the community and humanity the way it ought to be. The bottom line is bless someone’s life, make someone smile, improve on someone’s life and when you see people who are trying to do it, the best you can do it to help is push it forward and how you can be a decider in a dynamic society we are hoping it will come.
Read more at Naija Center Neww - http://www.naijacenter.com/news/interview/want-lawmaker-desmond-elliot/
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