Olota seeks resuscitation of House of Chiefs
The newly installed Olota of Ota in Ogun State, Oba Adeyemi Obalanlege, has advocated for the resuscitation of the House of Chiefs to check what he called the excesses of the National Assembly. Oba Obalanlege, who made this call in a chat with newsmen at a reception organised for him in Ota, Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government, […]
The newly installed Olota of Ota in Ogun State, Oba Adeyemi Obalanlege, has advocated for the resuscitation of the House of Chiefs to check what he called the excesses of the National Assembly.
Oba Obalanlege, who made this call in a chat with newsmen at a reception organised for him in Ota, Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government, by members of Ota Club, argued that such a move would reduce, if not eliminate, the frequent friction he observed was always brewing in the National Assembly.
The monarch explained that the House of Chiefs, which was made up of traditional rulers, would act as a check on the parliament, as he said was the case in the First Republic.
He said, “The traditional rulers do a lot of work in maintaining order in our communities, but you will find out that with the present way the government is structured, we have two Houses of Parliament – the Senate and the Representatives.
“The Representatives are more or less doing the same job as the Senate. They represent political parties with the same ideologies and they hardly oppose each other in decision making.
“For fair representation of our people, we should constitute the House of Chiefs, like we used to have in the olden days, which we had as the second legislative chamber. They didn’t belong to any political party and only represented their people. I strongly hold this will be a good check on the Senate.”
On the high rate of unemployment, Obalanlege said he would consult with the private sector in his domain and the state government with a view to taking unemployed youths off the streets and giving them jobs.
He said, “One of the main reasons I became the Olota is to liberate my people. Despite Ota being an industrial hub in Nigeria, youths in Ota are yet to benefit from it. Other people come from outside Ota and get the jobs in these industries. We do not quarrel with this.
“I have started taking steps to address this by talking to the Chief Executive Officers of these companies on the need for them to employ Ota youths. I am not talking about the lower cadre only, but also at the management level. I am also talking to the management of the Crescent University, Abeokuta.”