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By Raymod Osho
A former member of the House of Representatives who represented Ado-Odo/Ota Federal Constituency, Hon Babatunde Ogunola on Thursday June 6, 2019 attributed the major challenges facing the legislative arm of the Nigerian government to lack of strong political will.
Ogunola, fondly called Tomo stated this in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital while speaking to journalists on the state of the nation, and the challenges he faced during the March 23 election.
He warned that law makers would continue to seek after personal interests rather than that of the people if the ugly trend is not tackled.
The former lawmaker who contested the Ogun West Senatorial seat under the platform of African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the last election lamented that there were myriad of challenges facing Nigeria as a nation that the National Assembly is yet to tackle.
He described the 8th Assembly as a rubber-stamp, adding that; “whatever the executive brings on board any issue, lawmakers dont challenge it, but they just approve it, they let the executive go away with so many things which was not the case during 7th Assembly”.
Ogunola disclosed that it was apparent that people have lost confidence in government and there is a need for the 9th Assembly to bridge the gap between executive and the govern.
According to him “Cost of living is too high, security is threatening the foundation of our existence. There are a lot of things that need to be done.”
He opined that; “Electing people into political offices should be based on credibility, especially those ones that care about serving the people to have the opportunity of assessing their performances in the office, and then put that into consideration by giving them another opportunity to serve.
“One of the reasons that I have observed is that there is no appreciation in good governance, my observation is that most credible and House of Representatives members as well as senators don’t usually get the opportunity of returning back to the office.
“People often neglect the good performances of their elected people into office because I cite myself as an example, I did well and I performed credibly during my tenure in office”, Tomo posited.
He described issue of moneybag politics as major challenge most candidates face during the election, explaining that money played a major role as most of the electorates demand money before picking people to vote for.
“It is quite few places that people emerged without spending a lot of money, very few, I cannot even exornerate any state or any constituency that do not spend tremendously in the last election.
“Imagine, a party that came up a month to the election and they wanted a huge votes because they spend a lot of money, they do a lot of vote buying, but we that are willing to serve are not compatible with them, so money played a major role,” he added.
