About Ijesha South Federal Constituency

Ijesha South Federal Constituency is made up of FOUR local government areas – Ilesha East, Ilesha West, Atakumosa East, Atakumosa West.  The Federal Ibadan Ilesha Road cuts through the heart of the constituency. 

The Federal University of Technology in Akure is 25 minutes to the East and the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife is 30 minutes to the West.

The constituency hosts the Prototype Engineering Development Institute of the National Agency for Science, Engineering and Infrastructure, The Federal College of Health Technology, The Adulawo Technology City and a host of other tertiary institutions. 

Ijeshaland is known to have deposits of Gold and has witnessed various mining activities in the towns including both artisanal mining and industrial mining.

Agenda For Ijeshaland

JFK will deploy his skills, charisma and passion to represent the interests of all the sons and daughters of Ijesha land in the National Assembly. These interests will be pursued through constituency projects sited and located within the constituency which will be within the purview of the office to oversee and through the business of lawmaking together with other members of the green chambers. These interests will include the following:

Basic Amenities for all rural areas like

WATER – No Community should exist today without clean, drinkable water for our citizens. He will deploy the constituency project budget and partnerships with other companies to ensure that clean water is accessible to ALL

RURAL ELECTRIFICATION – No community can prosper in darkness. It is time to ensure that more communities become urban and companies can thrive in them. Jude will focus on overseeing the World Bank REAP Project in conjunction with the Ministry of Power for the benefit of our constituency

EDUCATION – The next generation will only become valuable to our communities when they can produce value which can only come from quality education. JFK will use the laws to mobilize more finance specifically for teachers welfare so that more teachers can happily teach our children no matter where they are born in Ijesha Land. JFK will also work to ensure Ijeshaland can have a federal university presence.

SOLID MINERALS – Solid minerals are the resources divinely endowed by God to prosper his children. JFK will ensure that the Committee on Solid Minerals at the National Assembly and the Ministry of Solid Minerals will work properly to ensure that our gold deposits benefit all the children of Ijesha land instead of a few foreign Chinese citizens who take all the benefits away.

JFK will work to ensure that through the power of partnerships and legislation, Ijesha land will become the hub of technology in the south-west creating 10,000 jobs in Ijesha South Federal Constituency alone in four years – (2500 per LGA). This will be done by deploying appropriate budgeting towards the following which as a member of the House of Representatives, JFK will  propose and oversee 

1. 1. Public private partnership with edtech companies to train students on data science skills
   2. Establish digital training centers hosted in technical colleges of education and health technology
   3. Refurbish computer laboratories in public schools with emphasis on locally assembled computers and locally developed software
   4. Organise hackathons with prizes for winners

Agenda For Technology Ecosystem & Creative Industry

As an innovation policy consultant, JFK has worked with several government institutions including the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy on policies relating to the technology ecosystem – from policy formulation to implementation. JFK believes that more than the engagements that technology companies and startups have now formalized with government agencies, the ecosystem needs a voice in power to speak for it, to educate, nudge, oversee and correct anomalies when it comes to technology policy. The stakes are too high to be left to chance and reactionary responses.

Broad Long Term Goals:

Make Nigeria the technology startup capital of Africa over the next 10-years by incentivizing over 10,000 local and foreign innovators to setup their startup/technology companies’ core operations in Nigeria through the grant of Pioneer Status to breakthrough software or hardware technologies and social innovation models – with special focus on the local ones with smaller QCE which currently excludes them from the subsisting Pioneer Status regime.

Exercise better oversight function over 17 key agencies in the ministry of Science & Technology to ensure they are delivering on the targets they were set up to accomplish especially the Sheda Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO), National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), and the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) which sadly has had over 25+ Technology Incubation centers across Nigeria since 1993 consistently performing sub-optimally.

Aggregate between N500bn and 5trillion for technology and innovation development/ commercialization by incentivizing the private sector to invest in Research & Development yearly

Exercise better oversight function over the approximately N14bn annually allocated to research & development by government agencies and create legislative frameworks that ensures government-funded research are carried out with better collaboration with the academic sector. This will promote uptake of research outputs from Nigeria’s academic institutions for societal and commercial good.

Ensure transparent, accountable and competitive access for all cadres of researchers (undergraduate, postgraduate & faculty researchers) to approximately N140bn research grants allocated annually by the federal government.

In a four-year tenure as a member of the House of Representatives, JFK will ensure the following:

• Establishment of a dedicated committee on digital economy
• Consolidation on the passage of a national startup act
• Passage of the national research and innovation fund bill
• National science foundation act
• Amendment of the patents act, 1976
• Passage of the electronic transactions bill
• Amendment of the company income tax act to incentivize companies to redirect investment to research & development of new technologies, innovation & inventions
• Review of the National Film and Censors Board Act to better open up the film industry and remove absolute discretionary powers.

On oversight functions, JFK’s committee membership will focus on overseeing ministries and departments with mandates related to ICT, digital economy, research and innovation. This committee work will involve:

• Review of suddenly announced top-bottom policies that hurt ecosystem players
• Oversight of designed programs and initiatives that do not meet their objectives and impact
• Monitoring and evaluation of policies put in place for years that have caused even more problems and solved none
• Review of proposed laws that may hurt the technology ecosystem
• Detailed explanation and education for lawmakers on expected benefits from proposed laws to the country
• Lobbying other lawmakers for support on initiatives that will benefit the ecosystem i.e amendments, repeals and introduction of laws.
• Lobby the nigerian governors’ forum on an innovation diffusion program to create incentives for technology startups at state level

Agenda For Civic Space & Governance

A country where democracy thrives, prosperity thrives. JFK will sponsor and support laws that ensure democracy continues to grow stronger in Nigeria through legislation that limits the power of the executive to abuse the loopholes in the constitution while denying Nigerians of their fundamental rights. Beyond this prevention of the abuse of power, governance reform bills will be pursued in the 10th National Assembly. Below are a few of these

A BILL FOR AN ACT TO AMEND THE CODE OF CONDUCT BUREAU AND TRIBUNAL ACT

The Act should be amended to allow the Code of Conduct Bureau to disclose asset declaration data of public office holders in open data format on a yearly basis and upon request by any citizen. The law should also be amended to extend the category of persons who should declare their assets to include persons who hold funds in trust for the public but are not government workers. Such persons include heads of religious organizations like churches and mosques, trustees and principal officers of NGOs and charitable organizations.

A BILL FOR AN ACT TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION TO MAKE ANTI-CORRUPTION BODIES ALLOCATION A FIRST LINE CHARGE:

To preserve the Independence of Anti-Corruption Bodies, the Constitution should be amended to include the EFCC and the ICPC in the list of bodies entitled to receive their allocation directly from the consolidated revenue account. This gives them the same level of independence the National Assembly & judiciary currently have, thus insulating them from interference from the Executive and the National assembly.

SPONSOR THE POLICE OFFICERS & ANTI-CORRUPTION PERSONNEL WELFARE & RECRUITMENT REGULATION ACT

This bill shall contain provisions for the Improvement of welfare and capacity of all Police officers & anti corruption personnel. The bill shall propose the following:

• Free education for 3 of their children up to masters level (children of judges enjoy this privilege to Ph.D level) and priority access to mortgage for home ownership, as when they die in the line of service, their families are always left homeless.
• Provide performance based incentives for personnel.
• Improve recruitment strategy to attract the brightest and best minds.

SPONSOR A BILL TO PREVENT THE ARBITRARY BAN BY ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY ON THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE FREEDOMS WE ARE GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION E.G THE TWITTER BAN.

The bill would lay down a framework that any agency or department will be required to go through before such an action limiting the freedoms or preventing the access of Nigerians to certain rights can be carried out, before the court of law and will be easily challengeable or defendable by the people.

SPONSOR THE PUBLIC OFFICERS HARMONIZED EMOLUMENT/PENSION BILL

One of the most burdensome governance challenges bedeviling Nigeria is the overwhelming cost of governance. This problem is further worsened by the duplicated sums being paid to past elected/public office holders.

There are 17 ex governors serving as senators, 5 ex governors, 2 ex deputy governors and 1 former acting governor serving as minister and all these earn double salaries enabled by relevant laws. There are also retired military and police officers who are now elected or appointed public office holders earning both their pension for their past jobs or positions and earning remuneration for their present offices. This has greatly increased the percentage of government wasted on avoidable recurrent expenditure at the expense of capital expenditure.

A BILL TO MANDATE THE INPUT OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE PROCESS OF LEGISLATION BEFORE ANY BILL PROPOSAL IS PASSED AND FORWARDED TO THE PRESIDENT FOR ASSENT

Democracy at its fundamental level requires the participation of the people not just during elections, but especially in the formulation of laws and policies, holding leaders accountable and ensuring that democracy thrives. The current legislative procedures do not mandate the input of the public before laws are passed. This is an anomaly and does not bode well for the interests of citizens.