Anayo Okolie

There are five or six of you in the race at the moment, and I think you are the only woman. What is your cutting edge?

People always say what a man can do, a woman can do better. But I always say that what a woman cannot do, cannot be done. I feel that in terms of experience, I have gained a lot of that over the years. I was the Deputy Chief Whip in 2003 when I first came into the House. After that I became Deputy Speaker. Those are two principal offices as compared to my fellow lawmakers also aspiring to become the Speaker. As Deputy Speaker, I served as Speaker several times when Mr. Speaker was not available. Even when I was Deputy Whip, I served as Speaker when Mr. Speaker and the deputy were notaround. Ihavehandledmyworkwithdiligence. I continue to strive for perfection even though, as human beings, we cannot be perfect. Apart from that, my colleagues who understand how much effort I put into everything about my work in the House have come together to support me.

Like you said, you have been consulting. What has been the response?

The response has been impressive. Even when I don’t initiate meetings, some of my colleagues in the House do, that we should talk to the fresh people, and so on and so forth. You can see the zeal in my colleagues that I should lead them. I have also spoken to several notable people in the society and the response has been very encouraging.

What about the party leadership? Are you also reaching out to them?

I have reached out to them and the response is very good. Being a woman who has been very loyal to the party, being somebody who has been steadfastandalwaysofhelptomakesurethatLagos continues to be on the world map as a centre of excellence, I have been sufficiently encouraged by the party leadership to become the Speaker of the Lagos House.

Zoning is a factor in government offices allocation.The Deputy Governor is from Lagos West, your senatorial district. Can the district have the numbers two and three offices with you as Speaker?

We must appreciate that we have West, Central and East Districts. But Lagos West District is very large. The district is divided into two divisions – Badagry and Ikeja. The deputy governor-elect is from Badagry Division. I am from Ikeja Division. That is working in my favour. The senatorial district is very large, and, being that large, that is the only district that is divided into two in Lagos. Being from Ikeja Division, I am entitled to ask for the position of Speaker. However, there is no fast rule to the speakership being zoned to a particular area. We are talking about the competence of the office holder, we are talking about experience, somebody who can provide effective leadership. If some people are favoured in terms of where they are coming from, the rule of the House says as a first timer, you can’t be Speaker. We need somebody who is competent and experienced to lead the House to the next level. And I have these qualities.

You are in the House for the fourth term consecutively.You must have struck the right chord with your constituents.What is the secret?

I want to thank God that they (constituents) appreciate what I am doing. It is one thing to work hard, it is another for your constituents to appreciate it. I believe I have been able to bring dividends of democracy to my constituency. We see development in Odi-Olowo/Ojuwoye Local Government, that is Mushin Constituency1, and we see how Lagos State government has been able to do a lot of roads, put street lights, ensure water is running in the taps in the constituency. I have been able to provide transformers for several streets in the constituency. I arrange GCE and JAMB forms free to students wanting to write the exams. I pay for their coaching and most of them do well in the exams. I buy school bags for young children. My constituents appreciate it because I was doing it even before I became a legislator in 2003. As a legal practitioner, I give them my services free. I help them to get employment not only in the public service, but also in the private sector. We have a lot of graduates in my constituency and we know how difficult it is to secure jobs. All these have helped to endear me to my constituents who believe I should continue to represent them.

I started off in politics as Mrs. Tejuoso, but my father, Chief (Dr.) Smith, of blessed memory, was from Lagos. I am married to the Tejuoso William family, a royal family in Ogun State. The royal family has achieved so much. I also want to do more. I have four children.

Everything you do, you think about your family, you think about where you are coming from. In fact, my father told me to always remember the child of whom I am. That has actually kept me happily married for very many years. Some of my in-laws are also in politics. I have a brother-in-law who is a senator-elect in Ogun State. Obviously, I am portraying the family name in good light. I thank God that I have been able to serve the people of my constituency; I thank God that I am married into a family that is well known. But there is a lot of pressure on you to always do the right thing, but with the right upbringing, it is not difficult for you to do it.

having a female Speaker?

Wehavesomuchtogain.Anypositionofauthority you put a woman, she tries to put in extra effort to ensure she does not disappoint. She knows that all eyes are on her.

First of all, the home has to be intact. The children mustbeeducated.Youmustsetgoodexamples,from the home front. From the example of being able to manage the home front, a woman can manage the public office. People say when you train a woman, you train a nation because everything we do, there is a ripple effect on the people around us. Giving the office of Lagos House Speaker to a woman will open the doors for other women to excel. If you look at other states, they try to emulate Lagos. But many other states have had women Speaker – Ogun, Oyo, Ondo. For us to be able to highlight the efforts of women, Lagos is where we can actually show what we can do as women if positions of authority are given to us. Definitely, we will make laws that will impact the home, impact the society.

We have a lot of challenges of young girls growing up in Nigeria today, and when they see a woman in a position of authority, you become some role model. This encourages young girls to aspire. And their focus begins to shift from things that don’t have meaning in their lives. We should focus on things that will make our female children to excel. We still don’t have a woman governor. We were thinking of getting one from Taraba.

Something like that encourages us, it gives us hope as women that ‘if that woman can do it, I too can’. We need that balance in the society; we call it gender equality. But we should not only talk about it, we should do it. I am sure you have a blueprint for the job you are aspiring to get.

Can you let us into it?

This is a blueprint of a House of 40, a blueprint that will not discriminate on the basis of governing party – opposition. We cannot be like the PDP – led government where Lagos State was victimised because we were in the opposition. Every local government is important, and where you have a local government that is not getting attention, you have people migrating to the one that gets attention. That is not pleasant. We must thankAsiwaju Tinubu because when the local government allocation was withheld by the federal authorities, we were able to look inward to generate revenue internally. In the House, we have to work as a unit so that we can move the state forward. We must continue to make laws not only for women and children, but also for the whole society.

We must recognise those in the minority, the less privileged, the physically challenged, women, children. We need that balance in education, health, commerce and industry so that we can provide for all these people.

We need an insurance scheme. At the moment, there is a bill before the House on medical insurance. This, among others, is crucial to the survival of a nation. Medical treatment must be available for all and sundry, not just for children under five and over 60. We must have a social security system in place to cater for the people. We thank God we have the Office of the Public Defender where people can go for free legal services, but we need to have a system which can save people money that they can use for other things.

We appreciate the fact that the incoming governmentwantstoprovidefreemealsforschoolchildren. This is important because if a child is hungry, what he is being taught will not be understood. All these things, as lawmakers, we need to put the machinery in place for the executive to act on. We must look at our laws.

The criminal justice system of Lagos State is very goodcomparedtootherstates,butwearestilllooking into it to make sure it is even better. We know about rape. We have the Child’s Right Law. We have child marriage and so on and so forth. Despite the Child’s Right Law, we still have female genital mutilation. This is something we should include in the law. I have spoken to our Muslim sisters who told me FGM is not in the Quran.