Honourable Fuad Atanda Lawal, Chairman, Ikoyi-Obalende Local Council Development in this interview with Completesports.com’s ADEBOYE AMOSU speaks on his decision to build a recreational park and other salient issues…
This is no doubt a commendable project, what’s motivating factor behind this?
For me, it’s the desire to bring the people of the community together, make sure we do the right thing and in the right place for our people. Sports like you know is a unifying factor in Nigeria.
Whenever any of the national teams are in action, even if you are enemies, whenever a goal is scored, you shout and rejoice together.
In this community, we didn’t have a place we could come together to do sports, like a recreation center. A place where people could come in and have fun. There was nothing like that in the past
The only thing we could have done was to put this place together, knowing fully well that we couldn’t afford any land. This place was a dump site for several years, there were mechanics here before. We felt we can’t just turn a blind eye, there was a need to do something.
Now we have a place where the younger generation can come and play football. We are also not focusing only on football. There is also an outdoor gym here where people can exercise and keep fit.
So, the whole idea we had at the beginning was a place for people to relax and for sporting activities. It has really worked for us. I’m very happy that people within and outside Ikoyi/Obalende are very excited about this. It is a government space and open to all.
Every member of this community are free to come in here and use the facilities. Obalende is more like a developing community and we have tried to change the narratives.
People now understand the need to have a local government chairman that understands the needs and wants of the people.
I’m not here to serve myself, I’m here to serve the people and posterity will judge if we have been able to do that or not.
The beauty of any government is the legacy you leave behind. I’m not going to be local government chairman forever, but what are people going to say about me. Did I do well, is for the people to say.
We want to move this local government to a greater height. The things we have done, impacting the lives of the youths and women.
In future, we are going to have more Asisat Oshoala and other top stars come out of here. Victor Osimhen used to play in Olusosun, a dump site. Now, we don’t want people to play in a dump site.
We have changed the narratives, you are going to play on astro turf now. If it goes bad, we will fix it. I want to see people tell me that chairman there is a talent here that we can support. We will do our best to support the people.
From being a dump site to what we have now, that to me is satisfying. We have toilet and bath here where people can take care of themselves and probably to to go work for example after doing their exercise.
People want to see a working government, that want to serve the people. This is place where people can go come and do a lot of things. Imagine the kids too, summer time they can come in here and play. This place is safe, our people are here to maintain law and order.
How tasking was it to put this beautiful edifice together?
We had mechanics that have been here for 35 years and this place was deteriorating. This was done overriding the interest of the people who were here before . We needed a place, a recreational ground.
I couldn’t afford a land, there is no way I could have afford this land in Ikoyi. The cheapest land you can get in Ikoyi for this size is about N500m to N600m. We are talking about 500, 600 square meters of land here.
We can’t really afford a land here in Ikoyi, which is why we adopted this place. The first task was to take the people who are here out. Clearing this place was tasking. We have to stabilise the land, make sure it was okay for what we want to do.
Looking at what we have done here, I’m proud of my team. I have a strong team that are dedicated to the development of this local government which has helped us achieve a lot.
We have not even scratch the surface of what we want to do for the people. We are here to serve, this is a working government. A government that is more concerned about the people. This is a grassroot government.
The focus of the local government is people at the grassroot. You the three tiers of government, the federal, state and local government .
If the local government is not doing what it ought to be doing, then there will be problem. Who should people run to.
As a citizen, you want to see the local government chairman. We can see down and rub mind together, have a tete-a-tete. We talk about your challenges, how we can help you. The things you want us to to do for you.
We are here to listen, not improverish the lives of our people. We are here to make life better for residents, commuters and business owners.
We are doing a lot for our people. This just sports. We have done a lot on infrastructure, heath care, road reconstruction and other things.
We have a primary health care center that was built by this same administration in 2019. We are still going to have a permanent ambulance here to take care of any emergency.
I love what we are doing, I love what we have been able to do. Can we do better, yes we can, with the right support. We can bring in stakeholders and partner with them on projects that will benefit the people. We can do more to support people, support businesses and other things.
We want to produce talents that will be greater than Victor Osimhen, Jay Jay Okocha and Rashidi Yekini.
It’s not about football alone, we have a basketball court, we want to help people actualise their dream and aspirations. We want to catch them young and nurture these talents. I’m very happy, I have a vibrant team, I couldn’t have done all these alone without them.
You spoke about bringing in stakeholders, what has the support been like fron the private sector?
You need to put something down at times to get the support. When we came in,people have to believe in our cause That was very important. So, there was no point interacting with the private sector at that stage knowing fully well that you have nothing to show.
When we assume office in 2017, the first thing was to show capacity, do one or two projects that we can talk about. We were able to do that and we will continue to do more.
For example, we planned to have street lights in most of our areas. The big issue is how do we power it to make it functional. We entered into a form of agreement with the people in the environment. Let’s provide the the street lights, while you power it.
The thing we put in our manifesto in 2017, have we been able to do that. You go to Obalende road, where we have the problem of open defecation, we have been able to put toilets there for both male and female.
So, when we talk about partnership is not for the company to come and contribute money or put money in the coffers of the government but rather do projects that will affect the lives of people positively.
In 2021, we renovated three or four primary schools. We have 11 primary schools in Ikoyi/Obalende LCDA. The contract for the renovation was signed in a day with our partners. Together we were able to renovate Ikoyi Primary School, Saint George Primary School and Obalende Primary School.
With the right partners, right vision, you can get things going. Here, we try to push ourselves. We never want to say we have done enough . We are planning to rebuild our health care center because we renovated it, we didn’t envision the kind of crowd we are seeing there today.
If you go there now, the crowd is always massive. We need to put things in place to take care of the crowd.
You seems so passionate about sports, do you have plans of hosting a football competition here ?
Definitely we are going to host a five a side competition here. It’s a talent hunt for me, so we are not hosting for football sake. We want to discover talents and push the talents through our own league. Remember the days when we have the likes of Stationery Stores, BCC Lions of Gboko and the rest.
We need to find all these talents and not then nurture them. We can organise novelty match, but when we organise footbal competition, it must be to discover and nurture talents. It is also important to watch them grow. That’s how it should be.
Are you contemplating having a football club in future?
(Laughs) We just never know, my love for football started from school. I started following football from school, I remember the USA’ 94 World Cup, the 1994 Nations Cup in Tunisia, the one we won. I remember Senegal 1992, I remember Italia 1990, I remember Roger Milla, I remember those days. My love for football has been there from way back.
I have always been a sports lover. I love athletics too. You know in those days when we have the likes of Innocent Egbunike, Chidi Imoh and the rest.
We had all these guys then, what we are trying to say now is that, if we are able to trace our history, it will help us to know how are things are done before. Can we go back to those days, yes it is possible.
The post INTERVIEW: Why I Built Recreational Park, Plan For Sports And Nurturing Talents –Ikoyi-Obalende LCDA Boss, Fuad Atanda Lawal appeared first on pLayPLAy.NG.