INTERVIEW: With “Akinwunmi Ambode in Lagos As Governor”, A Bird At Hand Is Worth More Than 20Million Birds In The Sky-----Hon. Rotimi Agunsoye.

Hon. Rotimi Agunsoye
Memeber, House of Representatives.

No one would meet Honourable Rotimi Agunsoye without being completely won over by his charm and charisma. A complete gentleman who has no pride around him, even as member of the House of Representatives.

Ofcourse, the very first thing you get immediately you encounter him is the God in him, which radiates around him and this is what sets him far apart from modern day politicians we all know.

A former Special Adviser, a former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters and now, Member, Federal House of Representatives, representing the good people of Kosofe Federal Constituency, a worker in God’s Vineyard and a graduate of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu School of Politics.

In this abridged version of our interview with him, he spoke on issues that might interest your reading cravings, and as we plan to comprehensively bring you the final version, we hope this part will give you an idea of who Hon. Rotimi Agunsoye is.

Excerpts.

QUESTION: Some of your colleague politicians profess God in the public, but in their private places, they are different kind of human beings. What is your take on this sir?

ANSWER:

Thank you very much Precious.

Right from the unset, when I was very young and growing, that was when my faith in God was harnessed and till date, that faith is still growing stronger. I don’t worship any other thing apart from God and by the special grace of God, I attend the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Victory Chapel Parish, Magodo in Lagos. I am a worker there, a protocol member and even at the National level, at the camp ground, I am a protocol member too and I have said to God that the day I worship any other thing apart from Him, He shouldn’t answer my calls and prayers again.

He should not listen, He should not harken to my voice of request and thanksgiving anyday I, Rotimi Agunsoye deviates from worshipping Him to worship anything made by either man or even angels.

Life is not about life and death, whatever you want to do or achieve, put them in the hands of God and at the right and appropriate time, flood gates would be opened by God who holds the key to everything in life. People would say things are being delayed, yes, things maybe delayed for you to live longer and things may delay probably because of sinful attitudes of ours, so, if one has the opportunity to address those areas where one is going wrong, the better for us and we should appreciate God for even the little things He does for us.

Joy and sorry work together, at this moment you can be joyful and the next moment, you can be sorrowful, just as the sun and rain falls on everyone of us, whatever comes your way is your destiny. Even Jesus Christ we preach today suffered for you and I to live.

QUESTION. You have been Special Adviser to the Enigmatic Politician, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters under Babatunde Raji Fashola and now, Member, representing the good people of Kosofe in the Federal House of Representatives. What would you ascribe the success of your political career to?

ANSWER:

Number one, I must be sincere with you Precious and because of my humble background, I wouldn’t want anybody to suffer the way I suffered. Number two, which is predominant, is the kind of leadership I have. I have a leader who believes in the people, a leader who believes in service to humanity, a leader who will not eat until other people have eaten and that is the person of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

When you move near this leader of mine, you will understand what I’m talking about. So, he is my mentor, my role model and I have learnt so many things from him and if you look at his products, I mean people occupying various positions of authority and responsibility, we all went through the best of tutelage from him and we are still learning from him because we all cannot fully exhaust all the qualities embedded in Tinubu at all.

QUESTION: But Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is one man who has had pictures of him painted in different lights by people who don’t even know him at all.

Cuts in.

ANSWER:

I will tell you one thing Precious, even Jesus Christ who paid the supreme sacrifice for our redemption was betrayed by even his closest disciple and one thing I have realized in life is, ONES YOU ARE ONTOP, you became the topic, to the extent that even those whose lives God had used you to touch will be the ones leading the group of people maligning and talking ill of you, backbiting, backstabbing and doing all sorts, but that shouldn’t debar you from doing good to people because that is the commission we all have from heaven, especially when God graciously puts you in a position where you can touch as many people as you can with what God Himself has put in your hands to keep and Tinubu is such a leader.

QUESTION: Apart from making people, what are some of the other attributes or qualities of Tinubu that some of us who are not close to him do not know about.

Answer:

Well, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an enigma, he works round the clock for the people, he doesn’t sleep, he rarely sleeps, and you will see that some of us his products are following him steadily in our desire to do exactly as he does in the emancipation of the people we all represent, at the ward, community, state constituency or at the federal levels.

Things can only get better and I promise you that if there had been two of the kind of Tinubu in this present Nigeria, raising leaders as he does and making sure that dividends of the democracy he fought for with his life are distributes evenly, this country would have been a semi-heaven of sort by now.

QUESTION: You are on ground in Kosofe Federal Constituency as I live in your constituency and your political structure in Lagos is overwhelming, attributable to the fact that you were a Commissioner in charge of Local Governments here. How would you rate the performance of the Governor of Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode?

Answer:

You see, Lagos is fortunate to have Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode as the Governor of the state at this very point in time because he went through the school of the leader I told you about earlier as well. So, whatever he is doing in Lagos today is part of what that leader had taught us.

Akinwunmi Ambode believes in the people and apart from the fact that he is a financial engineer, having worked at various times in the local government level and as Accountant General of Lagos State, he knows how best to manage resources. It is one-thing to have the money, another thing to know how to appropriate it and another thing to use the money meaningfully. Ambode you must not forget rose through the ladder of leadership in Lagos State, which prepared him for what he is doing today.

Having worked in the local government, there is nothing you will tell him that will look new to him and at the state level, he knew it all before becoming governor, so, he is grounded and well equipped for exactly what he is doing today in Lagos.

With the knowledge of Lagos that Ambode was equipped with, he knew exactly what his cut-out job was and took the bull by the horn immediately he assumed office as governor and as you and I can attest to today, he has touched every facet of Lagos with his developmental strides and anyone who wants to contest with him in 2019 will be chasing shadows as there won’t be anything meaningful to campaign against him with. What I will tell Lagocians now is that, A BIRD AT HAND IS WORTH MORE THAN 20MILLION BIRDS IN THE BUSH.

We have seen the performance of this governor and he is still there, my prayer for him therefore is for God to bless him with long life and enablement to deliver and fulfill his destiny for Lagocians.

The complete interview would be coming to you soon.