Shina Elijah Adeosun, popularly known as Shinor, is one of the aspirants jostling to become the next Chairman of Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State in the forthcoming Local Government Elections in the state.
Adesoun was born and brought up in Itire, Mushin and presently superintends his business interests in the area with over 80 workers. He attended Onipede Primary School, Eleja, Mushin from 1984 to 1990, as well as Nigerian Model High School, Alakara, Mushin, from 1991 to 1996, and thereafter attended University of Lagos for first degree in Public Administration.
Still in pursuit of academic excellence, Adeosun has in his educational kitty, certificate of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economy from Harvard University; certificate in Critical Thinking & Problem Solving from Rochester Institute Of Technology (NY); Basics of Projects Management from International Business Management Institute, Berlin, Germany; certificate in Leadership & Communication Skills, from the Chartered Institute of Business Managers & Administrators, USA; Associate Chartered Public Administrator from the Chartered Institute of Local Government and Public Administrators; and Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Administration of Nigeria.
On specific plans for Mushin, Adeosun said: “As someone who is readily available, I just want to impact positively on my immediate society. I believe in open and inclusive government where the people will be at the centre of every decision and policies of government. In Mushin, we have 10 wards, I intend to have 10 governing bodies at each ward where a certain amount of money is allocated to them on a monthly basis and they can decide what they want to do with that money each month. Imagine if we give N5million each to every ward in a month, that’s N50million in a month and if Ward A for instance have N5million in January, they can decide to do what they want with it maybe improve on the security, construct borehole, clear the drains, fix some of the streets that are bad, economic empowerment and poverty alleviation and so on and so forth. The next month, the N5million will be deployed into other areas and before you know it, development will get to the grassroots. For instance, if they do poverty alleviation to the tune of N50,000 per person and do for 10 people every month, that’s N500,000. At the end of the year, you have done poverty alleviation for 1200 persons in the council. The people that will benefit will be chosen from the communities that make up the wards; they will be thoroughly screened and ensure that people like petty traders, recharge card sellers, kerosene sellers, people that are into mobile banking, and so on will be empowered through the fund, to alleviate the level of poverty.”
In terms of job creation, Adeosun said: “We plan to have Mushin Transport Company and buy an average of five different types of commercial buses and give out to our people to pay on installment without interest. This will be done on a monthly basis and will be supervised by the Transport Company. Before you know it, we must have bought like 500 of such buses before the end of the year and by so doing creates job for our people and the cost of transportation will also go down significantly. Another plan is to positively and properly harness and utilize the free money that is always available in the filling stations. We can create Point of Sale Arena where we would partner with most of the filling stations around to utilize their cash through a direct debit or cash transfer. That will generate some work and employment.
“We also plan to have our own mini recycling company where we encourage people to pick recycling products and gather at a particular place and we use our influence as local government to sell them out. We can come up with a committee to manage that and further create job for our people. There are so many people on the road who don’t have jobs and the most important thing for us is to create jobs for our people. We plan to create as high as 20,000 jobs within the period of four years by capitalizing on the huge opportunities in the emerging markets and economies. The youths are the future of tomorrow and we will be concentrating on creating opportunities for them.
“Another area which we intend to take seriously is to encourage companies to spring up in our local government. We can even guarantee N20million to N30million credit facilities from banks for companies within the council to spring up and even for the existing ones to expand their operations so as to employ more of our people
“The Ward Offices we plan to create will also be useful in further bringing government closer to the people. We will ensure that the Ward Offices can attend to all issues so that you don’t have to come to the council before issues are resolved. We will create a WhatsApp platform and i-reporter platform for each ward so that people can voice out on any issue and it will be promptly addressed.”
On Healthcare, he said: “Primary Healthcare is very important. One of the best ways to get best healthcare for our people is to enroll them into Health Insurance Programme. This will be readily available at every ward. We will put deliberate policies in place to improve significantly on infrastructure and ramp up healthcare delivery.”
On Education, Adeosun said: “Education is key; the future of any young kid is education. We have big plans to improve enrolment in primary schools and even the secondary schools. We are going to have regular road shows to sensitize the public about the importance of sending their children to school. We will set up a Committee that will work hand-in-hand with SUBEB (State Universal Basic Education Board) to ensure that our students are enrolled into schools. We will assist parents; especially those who cannot afford to pay for uniforms, and build more schools, while also improving on the existing schools. We will also look into afternoon feeding and teachers’ welfare. We will ensure that the guidelines for primary school teachers by SUBEB to ensure quality education are followed.”
For the Environment, he said: “This is very key. We need to create a body that will be actively involved in managing our drainages, especially by looking into all drainage channels in all the wards, and ensure proper waste disposal.”
Markets: “This is another important area. Most of our markets are nothing to write home about. We will partner with the leaders of each market to ensure that they put in place cleaning committee that must, at least, be made up of two per cent of the total number of traders in the market. They must clean the markets from time to time. Also, we will have a technical team that will be going round to enforce standards in line with guidelines of the Federal Government and the Lagos State Government.”
On Youth Development and Sports, he said: “We need a robust programme for our youths. We need to ensure that they stay away from violence, drug abuse, fraud and other social vices. How do we plan to achieve this? We must have a Youth Empowerment Committee. Again, this will also be available at every ward. This will look thoroughly into the welfare and needs of every youth in our council. In terms of recreation, we have a proposed ground for a Recreation Centre. In building on that, we must have a Mushin League where we will approach companies in Mushin to be our sponsors and that will be a fantastic recreation centre that will become a Games Village. The Games Village will be a total recreation centre where you can eat and drink, swim, dance and watch football, among others on weekly basis. We will have a Mushin League where each ward will present at least a club each, and that will engage our youth in sporting activities and be a great platform to discover talents. We can have football league, basketball league, volleyball league and other selected sports so that we positively and productively engage our youths.”
On the final note, he said: “One of the reasons why I am putting myself forward for the chairmanship position is because I feel the pain of the masses and I believe that not running an open and inclusive government is the reason why the government is far from the people. It is very key that the government has to be close to the people, and one of the ways that the government can be closer to the people is the governing body per ward that will be constituted and put together to address the issues affecting the people. I am going to be available; I am going to ensure that our networks of roads are better than what they are presently; we are going to run an open office where we will create a Customers’ Relation Team and publicize that anybody at the local government can call us to lodge any complaint or discuss any issue with us, and I can assure the people that the issues will be promptly addressed.”
