Mayowa Alakija is the coordinator Renewed Hope Advocacy in Oshodi Local Government Area, Lagos state. The group is committed to the re-election of President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general elections. He speaks with Blueprint.ng correspondent on the task ahead of the group
What is your group all about?
My group is part of the support group working for the re-election of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We have other groups, but our primary assignment is how can I with other groups project our principal, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu positively because he is doing a lot of work. How do we push his agenda to educate the public, to know that one good term deserves another. Though, I am not part of the people given buses the other time by governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, mine is Renew Hope Advocate not Renew Hope Ambassador. We are here to explain the good thing the president has been doing so far.
When you talk about Asiwaju Tinubu, people have divergent views about his achievements, how will you be able to convince the public to give him maximum support?
I think it is a very simple assignment because most people are aware of the positive impact the policy of the government in power has brought in terms of the economy and in other areas. In every society, we always have opposition that will have diverse opinions, it is normal, that is why we call it politics, without opposition it won’t be called politics, but from our own end, the elite, the youth and the society at large, everybody within Nigeria, they have been able to have insight into the policies of what the president has been able to put in place. I will be analysis the policies and how it has affected the students, the youth, the women, the public and every sector. It is easy because we have been able to feel the impact of the positive of it The economy is coming back. The president inherited a dead economy, we were at -0.5 percent in terms of revenue/allocation/expenditure then we were on recession. Now in Nigeria the global economy is saying positive things about Nigeria, the World Bank, IMF, the US analysis, everybody. We are now at a point the future of Nigeria is now brighter than before. It is more brighter than 30 years, because the president himself has made himself a sacrificial lamb because of some of the policies he has put in place. It is very huge, I have not seen anybody since 1999, even in the era of Obasanjo. I don’t think Obasanjo will be able to put in place that kind of policy, because it is a policy that put the president in a very tight corner. He could have looked at the economy and say let everything roll the way it was, let’s continue to print money to service the economy, let the fuel subsidy continue, let forget about FOREX let it continue. He will be living with peaceful mindset, but he said this thing is killing Nigeria and we can’t afford to go in that direction. He came up with a policy, we call it unpopular policy, but in the real sense it is a popular policy that has brought Nigeria back to life, and we can say today among international community that Nigeria is a strong economy.
What does your job entail as a Renewed Hope Advocacy coordinator?
Basically, my job is engaging the public, bringing in the youthfold, the diverse groups in terms of ethnic groups, religious groups, to assure them, to educate them, and to prepare them for 2027. Already we have our own story in Oshodi as a community, and the best thing we can do is to start early. That is why we are starting now. Election has transcended the system whereby you will say you have to go out 24 hours to the election, and you will say you want to canvass for votes. You need to start engaging the voters, that is what we are doing. We are using a kind of systemic approach log across the polling units, wards and all segments within the society. Our target is simple, within the Oshodi community, at least, we get a minimum of 100,000 votes. If we ask ourselves a very cogent question: Is it possible to get 100,000 votes? We have over 180,000 voters, our voting output in terms of turnout is less than 25 percent. When you talk of Isolo and Ejigbo we have over 300,000 voters but Oshodi community, in Oshodi local government, excluding the other LCDA, we have over180,000 voters, but calculating it, Isolo/Ejigbo we have over 370,000 voters across board. What we want to do is to tackle voters apathy which we have experienced before drastically. We will put up a structure where we can talk to people. We know the registered number of voters on each street, in each house, then the system will enable us identify them, so that on the day of election, the youth will not be playing ball on the streets,the women will not be busy cooking and doing other house chores, they will take it as a point of responsibility to come out and vote on the day of election. Not just to come out and vote but for them to understand that there is the need to vote for the president Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, that is the system we are putting in place, we are on the verge. I can tell you categorically that we will succeed, because we stand out,our system is unique,our approach is very, very, fundamental and we are doing it effectively, because we are aware that we can’t be doing same thing every year and we are expecting different result, we are diverting from the previous system.
What response are getting from the public so far?
The type of response we are getting today, if it had been two years ago, it would have been a different response, because the perception of the public at the early stage of this government was different entirely. But the public are now feeling the positive impact, and analytically, if we look at it, because I so much believe in data analysis, the facts are very clear.
What approach do you adopt in engaging the people, and what is their response?
Their response is positive now. Over three years ago, during the last presidential election, we know the category of people that never supported the president, some because of the Muslim/Muslim ticket, many clamoured for a Christian as Vice President and as such did not support him. The elite had a divided mindset during the last general elections. Now, the elite are now having a different perception entirely. We have done a research, we have spoken to people we have sampled data of 500 elites, we asked them in the last election who did they vote for, and who will they vote for in the 2027 election? The feedback was 25 percent to 75 percent three years ago. The response we get now, we can say we are moving positively because 70 percent now say they will vote for President Tinubu in 2027, why? It is because they can see, they can interprete the positive impact of the administration on the economy. They know that President Tinubu made strong policies, and such policies were needed at that point in time. Their response is positive and very, very much positive. The approach we adopted by using data, we know the system very well, the above the line structure of using social media, we talk to people. Online system has been transcended by direct engagement, talking to people, and if you want to achieve result, positive result, you need to ensure that you work with data. We can’t afford to wait a month to the election before we start this work. What we are doing now is different, what we are doing is that, we have started engaging people; we have started engaging the community influencers. The community influencers that are not part of our party, that are neutral but they have sympathy for our president, they know, they have interpreted the policies, they are willing to go extra miles. They are community leaders, they can speak on behalf of the community and the community will respond accordingly. These influencers can call 10,15 or 30 people within their community and ensure that at the end of the day, they are responding, the community is responding. I have to specifically thank the chairman of the local government, Otunba Kehinde Almoroof. It is him that is putting the structure in place, I am just executing the programme, he put all the structure in place. He has taken the president as his god father, and as such he is deploying every resources that we must start now. We must not wait till a month or two days before the election before we start. That is what we are doing, we have started within the community, I can display the data of how many people we have spoken to. Over time, we will know what the influencers are doing, before we talk of vote canvasser. What is the job of a canvasser? They come out on the day of election. Now we call people that are working ‘voters manager’. We are using different terminology entirely. What is their role? The role of a manager is to ensure that he plays his role in managing people assigned to them, so that they deliver at the end of the day.
Don’t you envisage that INEC’s role is the major determinant of your electoral success?
I will quote the new INEC boss that elections cannot be 100 percent perfect, and we know. Even in USA, Australia, United Kingdom and Canada, the US president will continue to shout that they rigged him out, they rigged the election. The question is, do you have credible personnel in charge of the affairs of the electoral body, I will say yes. The APC as a party believes in the position of INEC and so believes that the election will be free and fair and will give positive result at the end of the day.
You said the policies of the president endeared Nigerians to him, can you mention any of the policies that will persuade Nigerians to vote for him?
I will talk about the economy,we have micro and macro economy, before the president came on board Nigeria was already in a recession, the situation was nothing to write home about, we are more or less borrowing, taking money from the Central Bank to fund the economy and all those things. On what has been done positively, Nigeria then happened to be a walking dead country, but today the story is different our revenue from CBN no longer service the budget Before what we earn is about 96 percent of the debt we are paying, how can any country in the world survive under such circumstances, it is not possible. What was being done then was that, we were feeding the super people within the society.
When the FOREX regulation was removed at first the populace suffered it, food price, prices of everything increased, today we know prices of food items have come down. Even the opposition parties – Peter Obi confirmed it, when he said food prices have gone down, but said farmers were now suffering because of the prices that have come down. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we are running an economy that is benefiting the rich, not the middle class or poor people. We can’t survive like that. If we want to survive our policy should not be based on short term, we must consider the long term implementation of our policy, that is what the president is doing.
The new insurance Act, the new banking sector Act is to secure and protect the populace at large. Those policies is not what an average person, somebody who does not have mind of himself can put in place. That is what the president has been able to do so far. We have so many of such policies in place. If you look at it,State government now earn more money than before, the president just told Nigerians not to hold only Federal Government accountable, but they should also hold the state and local government accountable, they have the money to ensure that everything works better. In terms of balance of trade it had shifted,you can see different private refineries springing up, foreign direct investment has also increased, all these things mentioned are as a result of good policy. Look at stock market too, it has never happened in the last 40 years. Stock market increased by more than 400 percent and investors have strong belief in investing in Nigeria,the impact of the good policy we are feeling it gradually. When you talk of the youths, he made provision for students loan, that is there for people who don’t have somebody to finance their education, they can take loan. In terms of technical engineering, we have dearth of professionals, because Nigerians don’t believe in going to technical schools. The president looks at it and identified it is as a major flaw, and then made technical education free and even pay the students allowance while in school. To us, that policy is minor, but it is a policy that will shape Nigeria’s technology growth. That is what the developed world, China, Japan, are riding on.
This is a policy the private sector should invest in and support the federal government. We need more youths to go into technical education.
Since the governors are getting more allocation from federation account and the populace don’t feel the impact, don’t you think it may affect the president chances in 2027?
We can admonish the state government, encourage them to reduce the workload on the president. Thank God the president has made his view known by telling Nigerians to hold their state governors accountable. That also leads to local government autonomy, it is very fundamental progressive policy. No nation can develop without direct impact contribution at the grassroot level. Before President Tinubu came on board, local government has been left redundant, because allocation meant for them was not getting to them. Now that money gets to local government, we have started feeling the impact, we feel the impact in our local government, Oshodi.
