The drive and urge to bring even development into his immediate community and Lagos cum Nigeria brought this Computer science Engineer Honourable Dele Fasuyi to position himself for election in his state Constituency of Ifako/Ijaiye LGA of Lagos state. As a Computer Science consultant and now politician he is down to earth, humble and accessible to his people having trained a lot of youths in how to create wealth and leverage on human capital development.
His belief in the advancement of Nigeria through the election of patriotic leaders like Bola Ahmed Tinubu come 2023 General elections remains his core vision. Honourable Dele Fasuye recently spoke to Kazeem Bisiriyu, Olubunmi Orija, & Bimbo Johnson of Towncrier.ng at Lagos. Read On
May we meet you?
Actually, I am an IT Consultant, I schooled at the University of Ibadan where I studied Computer Science and Computer Security. I started my career in Software Engineering and back in those days, there are lots of digital solutions where we started with building applications and at some point, I moved into enterprise application. I was one of the consultants that implemented the Pinnacle Bank building applications in Nigeria, and other banks like Oceanic Bank, First Bank and lot of other banks. In the course of my work, I have been to Turkey, Dubai. I was working at IBM and after that, I worked at Microsoft as a Principal Agent then and I was later promoted as a Regional Manager for Microsoft covering Nigeria and Ghana where I supervised several IT based projects. These are projects some people think they can handle.
Can you be described as a very successful person having started young?
Yes, that is what I keep saying, I started early but not that I started early in terms of age, but I built my career fast. Two, three Years of my career, I was relating with executives of banks. I was the one who handled a project for First Bank which was keenly contested for by various experts and I happened to be selected as the best performer and First Bank’s MD then, Mr. Longe called for my service. It was a project of different facets and I see that as a challenge. Then I have an Indian Project Manager. He was the overall Project Manager. So, based on that, I see that as a challenge that, the Indians didn’t want us Nigerians, and Accenture was also a partner to the bank and they always felt that Dele is working for a local company, why should we be the project Manager when their company is a global brand. When we held a project defense, I came top even above the bank’s staff.
What prompted you into politics?
What took me into politics is that I have traveled wide and I also lived abroad severally. I worked in several capacities when I was seconded to projects abroad that lasted for 6 months to 1 year and I actually studied abroad, so, I’ve seen quite a lot of wreckage, some of the problems that we have including infrastructure, wealth creation as the case may be. I know that we have a lot of resources, even financial resources and if we channel them in the right directions, it will have a brighter impact in our society. We moved into the hinterlands and discovered some youths who have no formal training. We trained them to become IT experts. So, again I started looking at it as if as an individual, I could pay for people to go forward, academically and trained some people, what if I had the resources of the state, I know where our problem lies. We are not growing in terms of vocational education. We are not creating that as much as we should. So, if I have the opportunity to lead in any capacity, I want to work on our human resources to assist people create wealth. So, that’s the reason for my interest in politics. How do we create the kind of society that we want? I like to dwell on the words of my mentors that you can’t do ‘siddon look’.
Who are your political role models?
One of them and the biggest of them all is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I tell a lot of my fellow associates and mentors in a sense as well that Tinubu was somebody like we, he was purely a technocrat. He saw the need to lead and to create value in governance; and that’s what I see as well. So that is one of the greatest persons I respect most as it deals with politics and how to manage people. After that, another one is someone whose birthday is today and that is the Director General of Tinubu Support Organization and I also have a lot of Asiwaju Tinubu’s associates that are my mentors.
You aspired for the House of Assembly in 2019, what are you looking up to in 2023?
I think I will take it from the previous question which says that I have mentors and all I can say is that we’ll work closely with all our leaders and all the communities in Ifako/Ijaiye LGA and Lagos in general to ensure that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu becomes the president in 2023. That’s the first thing in my mind. In the process, if my mentor decides that, look, you are to handle this area. We need to come out and handle it and that’s why I am available in my local government area, Ifako /Ijaye. People know my antecedents’ and my CV is up there. So, I am more available. Everybody has been asking me, where do you want to go? All I know is that I am open, I am available and I have my sights on a position but the main objective for me is to see how our leader, Asiwaju becomes president.
There is this rumor in Ifako/Ijaye that you might aspire for House of Assembly come 2023. How true is that?
Am always open. The first thing that came out when our party leaders decided that somebody should be given the opportunity to head to the House of Assembly. I am for the same person who is the sitting House of Assembly member. Before this last council election, he said we would like you to be the next Chairman the people want you. So, there is always, that call and if I sense the call, it’s thick enough for me to go there and if I also feel that, it may not be that, it may be the House of Rep, I will go for it, but I need both my followers and my leaders to have their consent before I take a decision.
… to be continue on Sunday