While speaking in an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Monday, a Federal House of Representatives candidate from Eti-osa in Lagos state, Olubankole Wellington, popularly known as Banky W, pledged to support the establishment of state police if elected.
The Wedding Party actor who disclosed that he was willing to publicly delcare his assets if elected as a lawmaker to represent Eti-Osa constituency, said his destiny is to stay in Nigeria and make his community and the country better.
Banky added that he decided not to leave the country, at a time many Nigerians are running away to seek greener pastures because he believes he is meant to empower the young people around him.
He said; “For me, it is about destiny and impact. I have lived outside of the country for a little over half of my life and I have had those opportunities and they are still there for me if I wanted to take them but I feel like my destiny is here.
“I feel like I have been given the success, the platform, the following and the relevance that I have because I am meant to use it for a greater good. I am meant to use it to impact my generation. I am meant to use it to empower the young people around me. I am meant to use it to make my community and my country better.
“At the end of the day, if it’s the will of God and the will of the community, then we willl win but if it is not, then we are okay with that because we have been playing our role in trying to improve our community and that is never going to stop, whether we get the seat or not,” he said.
He explained that the reason he chose to run on the platform of a new party is because his party does not want people to handcuff their message and vision.
“That is (why) we have set up our own political party. We have set up MDP. It is a new party. It is self-funded because we do not (want) to answer to the powers that be. We just want a seat at the table of governance. We want to bring our own chair so that the only people that we will be answering to, are the people who put us in office – which is the community.
“And I think that marks a difference between what we are trying to do and what other politicians are doing.”
When asked if he supports state police, he was affirmative. “Absolutely. I think that Nigeria is too big of a country to be policed effectively on federal basis. I think that there are so many issues that are going on in our communities now that I think states should have the ability to run their own police forces.
“I know we have really great police officers but I feel like they are underfunded and not really supported and the bad ones make everyone else look bad. So, I think there is some reform that needs to happen in the police as a whole and I would encourage us to look towards state police.”
While stating that he will publicly declare his assets if voted into office, he said he does not have any political god-father.
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