Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-InvestAdvocate in its usual manner on January 21, 2015 sought to engage Babatunde Collins Davies vying for an electoral position as a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly Amuwo Odofin Constituency 1.
In this Question and Answer Session with him, Davies contesting on the auspices of the Labour Party said he was going to make sure he spearheads a review of what he termed as the painful tax policies in the state. Other issues discussed include educational and human capital development amongst others. Below are excerpts of a Q & A with session
What is your Background?
I’m Babatunde Collins Davies, married with children, I have worked in several sectors of the economy from banking to oil and gas, pharmaceutical, hospital equipments; but today, I run a private business that is involved in real estate, we handle procurement and sales. I hold an HND in Accountancy from the Lagos State Polytechnic, Isolo.
What inspired you to vie for the Lagos State House of Assembly to represent to people of Amuwo Odofin constituency 1?
My inspiration is drawn from the fact that we have seen the decadence and degeneration of human capital; not just infrastructure this time; but human capital. And we cannot sit back and keep complaining, we have to come out and contribute our quota, this recovery mission started in 2007. I tried to pick the ticket to the House of Assembly of one of the political parties; I couldn’t get it, I tried in another no way. In 2011, I found out that in picking ticket to become candidate of a party, there are other unseen forces that would want to protect special interest, I also see it as vested interest and if we keep following this trend, we will not get anywhere. Back to your question, our young people cannot stand on their own, they tell you they don’t have jobs; but I want to say they don’t have the required training.
Our parents have worked and ‘’they are finding it easy to get their pensions in the eyes of government, but they are not seeing it; but yet they die on queues.’’ That brings to the fore the issue of morals, virtues and values, the issue of pensions, the way our old people are looked after now makes younger generations to think of stealing and amassing wealth wherever they work. This to a large extent does not conform to the general norms that make up a formal social order.
Why are you vying under the Labour Party and not the popular one the All Progressive Congress (APC), do you think you are in the right party?
I don’t see any political party as being right or wrong, especially if the party believes in freedom of expression and good representation. Like I told you my inspiration is drawn from the fact that the human capital is going down, people are not able to work the way they are supposed to work, the direction of trading is just becoming mere buying and selling; these are the facts, but if I want to look into our environment, government and subsequent governments have been coming out with policies, but who are those behind the curtain; that we have brought out from our constituency, I have carefully looked at it, is either the people that represent us are incapable of delivering what the community wants or they lack the capacity. Our constituency has been bedevilled by so called anomalies. Sometimes they will tell you that this candidate have certificate problem or this one is a bench warmer, but I believe that everybody goes to a particular position to express their capacity; but what I’m trying to do is that I want to provide a mature, robust and experienced representation, those representing us are not getting close to the Resident Associations to know their problems. I have been in Resident Associations as a community person for many years and I know what the people want. Our representatives have been serving the interest of their Godfathers; we want to serve the interest of our people; that is the bottom-line.
What are you going to do for people of the constituency if elected aside the passion you have for human capital development?
I say we have a present government having representatives who do not know their oversight functions and I also see the budget drive only to favour the expenditure part of governance, people are not talking about how to develop human beings in their budgets. Budgets come in figures and come in the form of analysis; but what is the direction, how is it going, are we talking about schools? Or vocational institutions or trying to ameliorate the pressures of parents in sending their children to school. For example in those days, we attended public schools; but nowadays, even the artisans send their children to private schools. If government cannot build schools, what becomes of the existing public and private schools, what have they done to come in and know how to improve on them? These are very critical areas that require analysis.
If you cannot builds schools, education is the bedrock of development, if you can’t build schools, can you not come into those areas that affects public and private schools; especially their exposure to banks and other lending institutions and know what they can do to help. Then training and retraining of those who will manage the school curriculum. Also, how do you motivate the schools, in form of allowances to attract people into the teaching profession not minding tribal sentiments? I grew up in Ajegunle, when I was in the primary school, the schools we have then basically have more Igbo teachers who could deliver than the other tribes, and then they were talking about Grade 1, Grade 2 teachers, and people that had similar training; but with the computer age, what plans do they have and how do we curb those teachers who go to classes to sell foodstuff; because the primary education, is the key part of education. It is the part that talks about independence in the average general knowledge; the secondary school is that part that mould a human being, by the time the child gets to the seniour secondary school, he or she has decided on what to do.
So, what we are saying is that its psychological, it has to do with the conscience of the person who is representing and the person has to be close to where the problem is to be able to do analysis of it and look for a solution. It’s not a blanket solution; but a contingency approach that it would require and you cannot apply a contingency solution approach if you have not seen the problem. So, I look at the disposition of that person that will be in the House, the person has to be sound and be able to take decision. That is what we are lacking, it is not that the government does not have lofty ideas; but who are the people to manage these ideas.
If you win the election into the State House of Assembly, what are you going to do to make sure our government schools are in order and what would you do about the exorbitant and uncontrolled private school fees?
Now, let me tell you, the government alone cannot finance education to achieve quality. The private schools should be assisted in terms of logistics; that was why I said we want to know their exposure to banks, we want to know why they have to charge this much and what challenges they are having. With the available public schools, we have to come to standard, we should look at the standard we want, I believe in looking at the human being that is running and entity, it’s not just about having a beautiful environment or set up; but who are those to teach in the school and who are those to manage the school? How adequately are they remunerated, are they trained in terms of capacity building, what is the school curriculum and how does it impact the average child? Back to the public schools, they have to raise their standards, motivate the teachers and other workers; then we move on. I want to believe that the budget on education is low; people are not thinking about education, they are just thinking making the economy a trading economy. Be that as it may, they believe it’s only when you make high taxes returns and you have a fat account to carry on whatever project the government wishes to execute that make the citizenry leave well; no we are looking at the quality of life of the average citizen, I see Lagos ironically as a State that is run as a man who prefers to wear big garbs ‘’Agbada’’ as what the Yorubas call it; looking elegant in it; but the irony of it all is that the children at home are hungry, not well taken care of and maybe not even in school. That is the way I see it, it is better to wear a moderate garb and make sure that those under your care eat well and taken care of.
Expatiate more on our parents finding it easy to receive their pension according to government; but yet die on the queue
What I’m trying to say here is on the issue of values, an average worker believing in his work, having that dignity in labour; seems to be eroding us nowadays. Everybody now wants to believe in what he or she can get; it’s I before others. And what kind of a bad structure do we come with that, its motivation, if the youths are adequately taken care of; especially when it comes to education, if we talk about jobs, it is not just going to build factories, you have to think about tax holidays, Lagos is not a conducive place for people to do business. Let’s put the issue of electricity aside, the tax policies are harsh, there are multiple taxations. And if you tax these companies arbitrarily, they will look for other places to go and the ones that would not face taxation will take over the factories that are why we see religious organisations taking over factories. Not because we don’t know God; it’s because the place is available. Also, that is why we see young people; they would be everywhere, moving with religious institutions, moving with Politicians, staying in parks just for survival and because the economy is no more a business; but a trading economy. Everybody comes in sells all sorts of things.
Another area we have to look at is in the area of micro businesses, is it conducive for people to carry on in Lagos as it use to be? Of course, government should stay as regulatory authority; but not with the big stick to that extent. I will also look at the time people spend trading in the market. My party sat down and looked the issue of environmental sanitation, you tell people to stay away from their market between 7:00 to 10.00 am, reasonable business time is gone. Why don’t we look inwards, as a form of integration, how do we use the issue of sanitation to create jobs, is this how they have sanitation exercises in United Kingdom, South Africa or the United States? These are military ideologies, we have to try as much as possible to be civil in government. For the fact that you are in government does not make you higher than the citizenry that put you there; you are only a custodian of that authority.
You can create job with cleaning of these markets, we can get young people to create cleaning businesses. I want to guaranty you that if you tell those owners of shops, that instead of closing the market for hours each sanitation day, you have to be paying say N300 per month per shop; so that we have funds to be able to pay the cleaning companies, before you get to your shops say around 6:30 am in the morning, they have cleaned up the place. People will even do that as a first job for the day before going to other jobs. These are the little areas we can create value in government, I will sometimes want to frown at this militarized idea of running government; maybe it is because some of us were born under military rule and we grew up with it. However, we have to enjoy some civility.
What would you do to check the high rate of taxation which you talked about if you eventually win the election into the State House of Assembly?
Like I said earlier, I’m going to spearhead a review of the painful tax policies and how do we look at it. First, the issue of double taxation started just about 12 years ago, when this revenue drive of the state government came up, I would not want to give some intricate part of these solutions; we are going online with this interview and you know in Nigeria before you make your law; people are looking out for a way to break it and they may start pointing fingers to say you see that man, that idea he is trying to introduce may affect us in billions, let us try to stop him. So, on the modalities, I will not come out with that now; but I will surely say that it will change, there are certain things you need to expose to the citizenry and the moment you are able to do so, whoever that is brandishing it will be thrown out anywhere they see them, that is what we intend to do.
What will you do to make sure that there are affordable housing for the people of Amuwo Odofin Constituency 1 and how will you check the astronomical rising cost of accommodation in the area?
I think I’m in a good position to talk on housing; the issue of housing has to do with government and their enabling laws. The truth is that they are not willing to open up; there are international institutions that would want to come in and prepare affordable housing. The problem we have in Lagos is that there is vested interest; everything goes through a particular clique. The Lagos State government attempted to peg housing prices; but you cannot price control a commodity that you don’t produce. If the government had allowed international mortgage institutions to come in, there are families that are out to give out hectares of land at a price, they are everywhere in Lagos; but is the government willing to allow them to be in business? No, they are the biggest landowners everywhere, they own shops and houses. Even when they were trying to price control housing, they excluded certain areas and those areas are dollar rents and that will tell you their interest in housing. They particularly want it to be so and that is why it’s so.
For you to bring the price of any commodity down, you allow new entrants into the market. If you allow it, the price will drop. For us, it is part of the key facts that we are talking with people within and outside and what everyone wants are the enabling laws that will make them thrive so that taxation will not kill them, when we talk about housing, agriculture, those things that affects lives directly, government should be ready to raise its feet off from it, government should be ready to give tax holidays; because these are the things that affects humans directly like I said earlier.
Advice for the electorate in the forthcoming elections
My advice generally is for people to vote for their conscience, I’m running under the Labour Party for the Lagos State House of Assembly Amuwo Odofin Constituency 1, I appeal to them to vote for my party; the Labour Party so that I can be there according to constitutional provisions. You may know Babatunde Collins Davies, but if you don’t vote for the Labour Party for the House of Assembly, you have not voted yet, so vote for me, because we are ready to give you the very best in representation.
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