The immediate past Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Sanai Oyeniran Agunbiade, has stressed the need for Nigerians to attach importance to experience in the legislature.

Agunbiade, who represented Ikorodu Constituency 1 in the Assembly from 2007 to 2023, told journalists that the more a legislator stays in office, the better for the society and his constituency, saying that he enjoyed his stay in the Assembly, while it lasted.

He said: “I love legislation and I enjoyed every bit of my stay in the Assembly. It’s unfortunate that our society is yet to come to terms with rules of the legislature. The more you stay in the legislature, the better for legislation and for the society.

“You get to know more by being a legislator. But our people still see legislature as where you just go for one or two terms and go back to your constituency.

“This is a waste of resources because you are trained and the training should show in your performance, in the type of law you make, in the quality of laws you make and in your focus.

“Here, they see it as turn by turn thing, and that you have been there for so long.”

Agunbiade, who commended Agege Constituency for voting for the Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, year in year out for six terms, stated that it’s not easy for a person to be sent on errand by votes, adding that such individual needs the confidence of the people and that Obasa is the most experienced person in the Lagos State legislature.

When asked why the people of his constituency did not have confidence in him and return him like the people of Agege did for Obasa, he said that confidence is relative and that every community has its own peculiarity.

He said: “When you are in a community and you served diligently, it does not stop some people from people from contesting against you. They have contested against you on some occasions and you defeated them, they would be anxious to be there.

“They don’t know how herculean the job of a legislator is. As many times as you go, you would be having armies of defeated candidates, if they are many, they would form a formidable opposition against you.

“They would say you ought to have left that are you the only knowledgeable person. If they have the attention of some bystanders, they would say they should be given the opportunity to go there.

“Some people still see elective offices as jobs for the boys, they see it as employment, believing that the more years you spend the more denial you give to other people, but it’s not so.

“No community or system changes the best hands, but that does not apply in politics. Unlike the executive, where the constitution provides a specific tenure, you can’t spend more than two consecutive terms as a Governor of local government chairman.

“They left that of the legislature loose because the drafters of the constitution know that the more you stay there the best for the legislature. Many people look at remuneration, they look at gains for individuals and not gain for society.

“In my community, I am the first person ever to spend more than two terms, most people only spent one term and they are removed. So, they do not understand why I had to spend more than one term. So, the peculiarity of the constituency matters. You also look at the diversity and the orientation of the leaders and how tolerant they are to people serving for more than one term.

“I thank God that I am not serving another term in the assembly. I am still the longest serving political office holder in my constituency. I give glory to God for that, I thank the members of my constituency for the number of terms they gave me to serve, it cannot be forever, it had to end one day and I thank God for the way it has ended. I thank God that I came here alive and I am leaving alive.”