One Year in Office: Renewed Yaba is our major target, as we assure residents of more dividends of democracy—-Adefuye

One Year in Office: Renewed Yaba is our major target, as we assure residents of more dividends of democracy—-Adefuye

Yaba Local Council Development Area (LCDA) in Lagos State has assured its residents of more dividends of democracy and renewed Yaba LCDA as the council celebrates its one year in office.

Dr Bayo Adefuye, the Executive Chairman Yaba LCDA, gave the disclosure while giving his scorecard to the journalists in his office.

Adefuye said that he has focused on both human and infrastructural development since the beginning of his administration.

The council chairman said that the first thing he did was to do an assessment of the work to fulfill his campaign promises to the people.

According to him, We visited roads, canals, the Primary Health Centres (PHCs), and some school infrastructure for proper rehabilitation and development.

“First of all I would like to say a big thank you to God Almighty and the Yaba people for voting me into the office, because without their votes I couldn’t have reached here.

“Then having said that, coming in was quite an interesting event. People had different mindsets about me then. Some people were for, some people were against, some people said they didn’t know what I was going to do. And of course I had my campaign promises that I made during the electioneering.

“So as soon as we got in, I went about trying to fulfill those campaign promises. The first thing we did was do an assessment of the work we had to do.We visited some of the development on ground.

“And all in a bid to galvanize everyone and ensure that everyone was on board with our developmental agenda which was tagged Yaba ‘Tuntun’ which means the renewal of Yaba.

“And the renewal had to do with so many concepts. Infrastructure renewal, empowerment renewal, renewal of the way they do politics, and renewal in the access the people had to governance.

“So all these things we wanted to change and change the mindset of people,” he said.

The council chairman said he first tackled the challenges of flooding by clearing the drainages and canal for free flow of water during downpour.

“When we came in there was a lot of flooding happening. So we set about trying to decongest canals from weeds, from shrubs, from refuse that had been dumped as we got excavators working in all the canals and clearing them out.

“Also, we went about desilting drains because of the flooding and this was not an easy task.

“We also tried to sensitise the people against indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the drains.

“When people dump refuse in the drains and cause flooding, they now start blaming governments for what they have caused themselves,” he added.

Adefuye noted that he went to also lift the people economically by having an empowerment, which was believed to be one of the best in the community.

“We have given about 250,000 to over 1,000 residents because that was our promise during the campaign.

“I told them I don’t do empowerment of 50,000, 10,000, that’s not empowerment It’s money for you to eat on the weekend.

“A real empowerment allows you to be able to do something with the money you have been given that will be meaningful and I felt 250,000 is a baseline that we can use to start.

“At least if you use 250,000 well, you can start something. It may not be too big, but it will help you start something that will allow you to be earning some income. And thank God that the people really responded

well to this empowerment,” he added