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| Lukman Oyewole Lawal, President, Ultimate Youth Dream Initiative (UYDI) |
is the best way to describe Lukmon
Oyewole Lawal a Surulere Lagos born Politician and Policy experts famoulsly
known as LOL by friends and associates. If you have the opportunity of sitting
with this Lagos born accountant for few minutes, you will start to have the ironic feelings
that indeed ‘the beautiful ones are now born’ and presently living with us. LOL is one of the few Nigerians that
are very angry with the state of the larger Nigerian youths. For him, the
Nigerian situation is quite bad enough that a high number of young people have
turned to drug and lotto addicts and if
Government fails to act fast, it could prove disastrous for the future of the
country.
an NGO he uses to carry out what can be termed as “norms and values auditing exercise”
of government policies and their direct impact on the larger society. In this rare exclusive with Asabeafrika, the Youth development
expert shares his life ambition with us amidst the story of his humble
beginning in Suru-Lere—Lagos (South
West Nigeria) Enjoy the excerpts.
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To be honest, how do you really see
yourself?
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| LOL to Asabeafrika….’I am a concerned Youth’ |
first of all as a youth and a concerned youth at that. I was born in Lagos, Suru-Lere to be precise some 41 years
ago. I grew up in Suru-Lere. I am a chattered accountant by training. I
have 5 years of private sector cognate work experience; 5 years of public
sector cognate work experience and formal entrepreneurship experience of about
3 years as well as student and street entrepreneurship experience of over 5
years because I actually saw myself through university education. That is a
brief introduction of my person.
been tough in a country like Nigeria?
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| LOL: The Leader… |
father at the age of seven; my father is the late Alhaji Ibrahim Lawal. He
was an Islamic missioner of the Ansar-Udeen faith. By that time I
recall on Fridays my mother will call me and say ‘that is your father talking on the radio’ . My dad normally gave
prayers on the then Federal Radio
Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). He was one of the very few people to speak
in English language on the Islamic platform and translated it to Yoruba to educate the mass of our
people. I equally recall that the Ansar-Udeen society members were all
over his funeral program; they did a very huge funeral for him and they were at
the 8th day prayers ceremony as well and they held a reception in
his honor a few months after his death. And
I recall that my mother took me there to represent the family and I think I got
a good sum of money as compensation as at then.
were you his only son?
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| LOL & The GDA |
actually 1983; I was not his only son but I was his youngest son at the time
and he loved me and took me everywhere he went and a lot of people knew me with
him at the time. It was quite toug after his demise and I was taken in by my
paternal elder sister to whom I owe a lot in terms of gratitude and
appreciation because I was trained by a young woman who will not take any nonsense
from me. A woman who made me very conscious of time; a woman who made me
conscious of discipline; who made me conscious of cleanliness. I was brought up
never to leave any filth on the floor at any point in time in the day. I was
brought up never to leave any plate unwashed overnight. Even during the holiday
period, she will buy bags of beans for me to pick, rice for me to pick, just to
engage me. Wash clothes, iron clothes. So, I was well brought up, well trained
and I would not have had that kind of training if I was left with my mum
because naturally she would pamper me. I
didn’t enjoy the luxury of living with my mother while growing and it made me
to really appreciate my sister who saw me through primary and secondary
education.
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| LOL; The Future Leader |
of course, he had two wives and incidentally my sister who trained me is my half
sister from the first wife. I guess my mum was equally a very good mother to
her and she didn’t see me as a half brother in any way. She is a very big
pillar in my life’s journey. My mum is also late as well. I lost my father at 7
and I lost my mum at 17, just ten years apart. My mother Ramat Ayinke Lawal is from the Agbole-Oluwo
of
Epetedo in Lagos Island as well as the Yekini Bakare family also of Lagos Island. My dad is from Ikorodu. My sister’s name is Mrs.
Oluremi Cole (Nee Lawal) she is
a trained nurse, she retired as an apex chief matron from Orile Agege General Hospital under the directorate of Lagos State Health Service Commission.
shaped your personality while growing up?
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| The Elders of Surulere loves LOL & his vision |
want to bless God for my life; in those days in Suru-Lere the society was a lot more serene and we would play a lot
and we would also read a lot. I started school at over six years old; I never
attended any nursery and primary school or any private school in my life. I had
public primary education at Jehovah-Jireh African Church Primary school
between 1982 and 1988 from where I proceeded to Berth Freeman High school
between 1989 and 1994. And I recall that I used to run from school when I was
in Primary 1. My school was directly behind my house; so as a spoilt little boy,
I would sneak home to come and eat with my dad and I saw school like a
punishment until the day one of my elder brothers was became furious that I was
hanging around 12 pm in the afternoon and he beat the hell out of me and ran me back
to the school and pupils were made to sing for me “Isan-Nsa ma tun de o, a le ko lo kole lo” from one class to the
other; they took me round all the classes, singing for me and that ritual
became the end of my being a truant and always running away from school.
And I recall also that some of my mates at that time will hold my hands
to write something in my book.
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| LOL; The Social Engineer…. |
I was so lazy and my mother will cry and tell
the teacher to kindly put me through. Funny enough, the teachers of those days
were a lot more committed; they were a lot more tolerant and they were a lot
more detailed. So my teacher at that time will deny me going for break time,
she will sit me on her lap and will take time to explain to me the basics at
that time without taking any money or gratification. Nothing like private or
after-school lessons, it was just her personal efforts and her passion to help
because indeed children have different receptive abilities. Some kids get
things fast while some need extra coaching. So, by the time I got to primary 2,
I was a lot more settled and i started being one of the first 5 most prized
students and at primary three, I was about the best and I started becoming a
class captain at that tender age; through out my primary 3, 4, 5, 6, I was
class captain and I took the same level of intelligence to the secondary
school. That is Batch Freeman Secondary School.
And I must really commend the kind of competition we had in Berth Freeman High school. We used to look
forward to prize giving days; I was a prize winner and I also used to come
first in class. I was also a class captain for most part of my education life
at Berth Freeman High School. It was a
very wonderful experience at Berth
Freeman because we were very keen on academic excellence, we had prize
giving days and it made us very committed.
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| LOL honors Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande….First Executive Governor of Lagos State |
We want to know who will score the
highest in a particular subject and at different times we would commend
ourselves that ‘oh, you got more than me’
or ‘I did more than you in that
subject’, a kind of healthy rivalry. I really can never forget the kind of
apt it built in me to strive and I have discovered that everywhere I find myself;
wherever there is healthy rivalry, it is a moral booster for me as a person to
want to put in more efforts and to want to do better than my colleagues. From
there, I wrote JAMB in 1995 and I gained admission into Ogun State University Ago Iwoye.
like?
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| LOL: The Orphan… |
wanted to study law but somehow I
started with philosophy; so I studied
philosophy for one year but somehow
at that time, accounting was a very popular profession and my sister was like ‘you got to read accounting’ because it
was quite attractive and very prominent at the time. So, I wrote another JAMB and then started accounting at the
following session and that made me to be a graduate of accounting. In school, I
started a phone business center and it was what I could say helped me to make success in my educational
endeavor because it was quite challenging at the time; my sister had her own
kids growing up and trying to settle and I thank God I was able to succeed with
the business at that time.
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| LOL to Asabeafrika….’Nigerian Government will not spend to develop the minds of the youths but will spend large budgets to keep them locked up in prisons’ |
I had a leeway with the business and it also gave me
a social lift in school. I was seen as a very popular person, I became very
popular because I provided a platform for people to phone their parents and
nobody would have ever looked at me for one second that I was an orphan. I
never had that kind of outlook and I never bordered to tell people. I really
thank God for the period because it really shaped my persuasive skills,
communication skills because I had to make people come to my business center; I
was loved by so many people. I was seen as a very friendly person and I was
able to sharpen those skills while I was
studying as an undergraduate.
look at our education sector, what crosses your mind?
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| LOL to Asabeafrika….’I am sad for the state of Youth Development in Nigeria’ |
system, my brother, what I saw rattled me. In my primary two, primary three of
the public schools of those days, we were able to learn and read. But today I
did a survey and the results were shocking. Only four out of ten public school
pupils of JSS1 to SS3 could read. We set a reading skill text; I am not talking
about reading culture because if you don’t have the reading skills, you cannot
imbibe any reading culture. I am talking about reading skills; imagine a system
where we have pushed a pupil from Primary
1 to SS3 and he cannot even read?
These are the kind of young people that will fail WAEC year-in-year out. For the private schools, we got 7 out of 10;
the private schools also have different categories and I will now look at those
children; in Lagos today 63% of pupils in primary schools attend
different classes of private schools. I met some primary school teachers who
told me that their own kids also attend private schools. The 37% in terms of enrolment are the ones
in public-primary schools and we keep pushing them. 80% of secondary school pupils in Lagos are in public secondary schools while 20% are in private secondary schools not to talk of those who found
their ways to Federal Government Colleges and even outside Nigeria.
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| LOL to Asabeafrika….’Nigerian Prisons are congested with young prisoners’ |
Now, those pupils we keep pushing and pushing, one day, I
pray it does not happen. They will meet with our own children that we have sent
to schools abroad, that we have protected, that we have given the best of
education. When they meet someday, somewhere, somehow, sometime, they will
either meet for the good reasons or for the bad reasons. The other day, I
visited the prisons and there were lots of congestion and who are the
culprits? It is the same youth. People, who I knew by mere interacting with
them, were not given any opportunity, any qualitative education, any positive
social inclusion, any good mentorship. The system that they met threw all kinds
of negatives at them and unfortunately they are already in prison, awaiting
trials and some serving sentences for different kind of flimsy and minor
reasons.
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| LOL honoring First Civilian Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande as Jamiu Abiol (L) watches and a veteran Surulere Politician |
So, it is a shame that today’s Nigerian system does not look after its
children. It is a shame that you will leave a child to have a negative thinking
between the ages of 0-to-12, between
the ages of 12-to-18 and you now use
those funds you are supposed to have used to develop them while they were
growing up, to fund the police to be arresting them, to fund the prison to keep
them in jail. The prison system today is so bad that every month more than 10
to 15 inmates die because of the poor condition. We have to say no to all
these, we have to rise up and come together as leaders of this hour. We must
shun corruption and not be tempted by the kind of poverty of the mind that has
bedeviled our present day leaders who dragged us to where we are now.
youth?
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| LOL & Some of his Youthful Friends in Surulere (Fuad Laguda in shades) |
pained that a lot of youths of my generation are wasting away, drinking Ogogoro from morning till night, doing cultism, becoming lotto
addicts, because they don’t have any viable alternative. From my research
findings, I have discovered that 70% of our problems today can be solved at the
governance level, within that corridor. Because professionals like me have
taken a back seat over time, we have had all kinds of people ruling us either
as executives or as legislatures.
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| LOL & His Friend & Youth Leader, Fuad Laguda |
I have beautiful models that can intervene in
the educational sector because the first panacea against poverty and ignorance
is quality education. My workable modem I believe would address those bunches
of problems that we have in the education sector today. I also have workable
models that gives wealth creation; that will built trust in the army of youths
that are wasting away in cultism, robbery, lotto addiction and other criminal
acts. I have a workable modem on talent enhancement; people who want to exhibit
singing talent, acting talent and I have a very good notion because I know that
if you don’t have sincerity of purpose, if you don’t have a clear good conscience,
you will get into the murky political water and fall.
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| LOL….Also cares for the Old Ones in the Society |
