For the Chairman, CDA Mile 12 Central district, Mr Sowande Lam Adeshina, being in the helmes of affairs and conduct of his CDA has been an experience worthwhile, tasking  as well as mind blowing… He takes us into the pros and cros that makes his community stand out amongst many, and the solutions the CDA was able to proffer to Maidan primary School attack  in this interview…

Thus far, what has been the move and stand of the CDA on the recent attack of Maidan primary School?

I don’t want to talk about the issue on ground concerning the CDA because of the issue on ground happened in the Mile 12 community, of which in this community we have about 7 CDAs in the community and the School belong to all these CDAs. When it happened, we were all notified, a call came from the School head teacher to the School Board management committee (SBMC), led by the Lagos state government of which I am the vice chairman, we also have the Parents’ Forum, we were all informed, the information also went to the Baale who summoned a meeting with community elders along with the parents’ forum and the school management committee. We were all there and a 10 man committee was set up to look into the matter and work out a solution, luckily, I am also the chairman of that committee and we have our members around, when we had our first meeting, we went to the site where it was buried, we exhumed the ‘voodoo’ and we did justice to it, thereafter we had another meeting, in our meeting we resolved that we should contact the Police, let them be aware of the problem we have here and to mount their security. Aside from that, we also resolved that we shall go to the state universal basic education board (SUBEB) at Maryland to meet the authorities and complain to them officially. Some of our complains is that the School fence should be well erected, they are all getting dilapidated and the school compound is too porous that everybody is just going through. We want the authorities to assist us by putting the speed-breakers on the roads, when the children are closing, that will reduce the speed of vehicles coming in that direction.

As regards the high rate in crime in Mile 12, what measures have been adopted to curb these acts?
We have been trying our best, as I have said earlier; we are working in conjunction with the Police, the major problem we are having in the school is the fence, because we believe we don’t have any fence here now and that is why we are clamouring for the erection of those stuffs so that these miscreants won’t gain access into the school. Apart from these hoodlums, there are reports of rape cases in the school compound, when they come to School in the morning, the teachers complain that they Bra, Pants, condoms and so on, which shows that there are some activities going on there. The major issues is that we are praying for the government and the authorities in charge to kindly erect a befitting fence for us and let the school be free of these activities, if possible they give us guards to watch over the school at night also the Police should mount their surveillance.
When you talk about the community in general, one of our major problems though, I don’t want to get into that discussion because this is an obvious problem that everybody knows about, because of the existing market in our community and you know the size of the market, it is one of the most popular market in west Africa, we want a proper security because the nature of a market, people come in and bring their goods late in the night, offload their goods late in the night and you find people patronizing them as early as 4am, so I believe the government should know what to do about that and we are also praying that they should increase their surveillance in terms of security and to talk to the market authorities as well to sanitize the area, when you and I are asleep, you can imagine what is happening there, look at the newly constructed Maidan-Agiliti road, it is a shabby place, looks as if we have been using it for the past 20 years, this is quite obvious that everybody can see, these are some of the problems we have, we have been trying our very best, but it is beyond our control, we want the government to come to our aid.

Have there been any attempt to meet with the market authorities on this?
We have been having rapport with them, sincerely there is no cordiality and there is no much cooperation from their part, aside from them, we have been trying our possible best on our part but we need a government intervention because it is beyond our powers.

Would you say the market has been a major factor to the high rate of crime?
I wouldn’t say that, but at the same time, the number of people we have here, we have miscreants around, we have hoodlums around, the hoodlums around are so many because they are making their living around here, so we should expect all these illegalities and crimes as well and that is the more reason why we need more surveillance on the part of the Police to curb all these activities.

Presently, do we have executives of the CDA among market authorities?
No, we don’t have any. Usually we had a kind of mandate at a time so that we can come together to manage the community with the market, but sincerely, I don’t know may be because of the problems they are also facing in the market, it didn’t work.

May we know the CDA’s vision for Mile 12?
Our vision is as good as the vision for Magodo and other GRAs around, we want to go to that standard, unfortunately like I have told you and the peculiarities within our community, we are still striving to meet up.

What message do you have for Mile12?
It is a general problem and this is why we have been clamouring  for a good leadership, possibly by the grace of God, with the new government, things will change. The community should come together, team up, go for CDA meetings regularly so that we can share our problems together and we can solve it together, I think that is the only way out, without coming together, there is nothing we can do, there is going to be movement and progress when we move together, we urge everybody to continue the good works, so that we can move forward.

What message do you have for the newly elected officers?
I don’t have any message for them, good enough the electorates are now having their say, we pray that whoever is in a public office today should do well, in another 4years, they can get re-elected but if not they are on their way out.