Government Need to Ensure the Proper Payment of Top Priority Judgment Debt Incurred by Ministries Departments and Agencies Through Promissory Notes.

Hon. Arc. Lanre Okunlola a chartered Architect, Businessman and a Politician, currently a member of the 10th Assembly. He represents Surulere II Federal Constituency of Lagos state, bestowed with the Fellowship Award of the Institute of Criminological Studies & Security Management, Nigeria, an Affiliate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife alongside Professionals in other works of life including Security and Legal Experts in the year 2021.

Nassnews:May we meet you?

My name is HON. Arc. Lanre Okunlola . I’m a chartered Architect by training, and I’m also a lawmaker. I represent the good people of Surulere II Federal Constituency of Lagos state.

Nassnews: what was your childhood like growing up?

Hon Lanre: Interestingly, I had the opportunity of experiencing life in a more urban setting. I was born in Lagos. I went to one of the best primary school in Lagos, which I will say laid the foundation for who I am today, the reciting of the national anthem and pledge is quite memorable. It gives the feeling that I’m a Nigerian. The pledge shows commitment towards building and serving Nigeria with all strength. After primary school, I had the opportunity of going to one of the best secondary schools in Nigeria, I went to Methodist boys high school in Lagos. This school had given this country platforms for role models. That was the same school Nnamdi Azikiwe went to, with the likes of the first Chief Justice of Nigeria, late Justice Fatih Williams and so many others. There’s unity in diversity Nigeria, with the multi ethnic languages that we have. I was able to have my university education in the north at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, where I studied Architecture which I started practicing after my graduation and today I’m a lawmaker.

Nassnews: As a lawmaker, What motivates you?

Hon. Lanre: I think the first thing is the fact that I’m representing my people which is like a selfless service. To represent my people, to be the voice of my people and the indices that drives me is the fact that i want to serve my nation and contribute my own quota towards the development of the country. That’s what keeps me going, the ability to recognize our issues as a country , what we can do to leverage developments in Nigeria , how we can play our roles as legislators and drive policies towards making sure that Nigeria is a world class country.

Nassnews: So back to the motions you made today, Sir. What instigated it?

Hon. Lanre: the motion is self-explanatory, The motion deals physical with judgment depths, Over the years the MDA’s, that’s the ministries, departments and agencies have been faced with a lot of judgement. And over the years, we’ve not been able to articulate how payments of this job debt should be done. And with the idea of using promissory notes so that it won’t be extreme to government in itself. You know when when you have a debt and you’re expected to do a lump sum payment on it, it definitely would be a string to anybody. Do you understand? But if you have a program whereby you can actually break those steps into some bits or pieces for a longer period of time, it gives you the level to show credibility. So the idea is that every area that is of constraint to government, we should look at it and see how we propel solutions to it, so that things can start working and Nigerians can start benefiting from the dividends of democracy.

Nassnews: What’s the Benefit of this motion to Nigeria and our country at large?

Hon. Lanre: The benefits are enormous. In terms of budgetary consideration, it means that instead of looking for a lump sum payment to do, you can actually do it in pieces in line with your budgetary consideration, which won’t strain you in terms of planning but instead help in planning appropriately. Secondly, in terms of leveraging on negotiations, one can leverage negotiations. There are some kind of debts that will want to claim or take over, but the motion will give a leverage on negotiation using an economic stability that will help to stabilize the economy, so we won’t have any legal issues or further penalties occurring to those debts.

Nassnews: What’s your agenda for the constituency?

Hon. Lanre: My agenda is to make sure that my constituents have a voice in the House that they can rely on or call on. How best i can provide in terms of facilitating those things that are necessary to drive policies for my community, for my state and for Nigeria as a whole. So basically my agenda is to represent them. It has to do with what their needs are, and also their feedbacks which would help in driving my agenda. I represent them, So whatever their needs and their yearnings are, needs are to be used to drive policies. That is my agenda.

Nassnews: Bringing you to the security we have in the country, What would you score the security that we have in Nigeria?

Hon. Lanre: Well, there are several postulations, firstly is the idea of community policing which is very important and has to be leveraged on. We need a lot of data, intelligence gathering and technology to achieve this. These are the various indices that we need to put in place then we can start measuring security performance, if not, it will be difficult to measure security performance.

Nassnews: so talking about your 100 days in the office. We would like to know the achievement that you’ve made so far?

Hon. Lanre: Well, as a lawmaker, our primary objective is to make laws and to drive policies in line with what the yearnings of our people are. Like I rightly said earlier, I have personally been able to leave 14 bills in the floor of the House, of which one of my bill was also on the floor of the house today on venture capital and startups investments. This is targeting the youths on how to leverage on venture capital and startups. Which will be a policy to drive the next level of the fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence and several others. And one of my bills is the National flood insurance, I’m sure that you’re aware that over the past two or three months the issues of flood disasters in some selected areas in Nigeria if not all, after my research I was of the opinion that we have flood managers and insurance for both the pre and post flood cases to take care of compensations and every other thing that goes with it. There’s going to be a technical team that looks at that logistically to make sure that some of these flood are prevented and when they eventually happen, there should be a compensation. Also within my 100days I have been able to facilitate training and empowerment for our women and youths in areas that are of interest to the community and several other facilitations that the community will benefit from. Also within my 100days achievement, i have been able to provide solar lights for 11 streets in my constituency, and some few motions I’m pushing for them. I’m also engaged in overside functions with a few of the adhoc committees, the farmers, headsmen, public assets and a few others helping to make sure we ship policies along that line.

Thank you

EHIOROBO QUEEN IVIE

Published by Lucky Kenedy