Sarah Adebisi Sosan

Sarah Adebisi Sosan (born 11 February 1956) is a Nigerian politician and former teacher, she served as deputy governor of Lagos State from 2007 to 2011.

Quotes

• I enjoy inner peace. When you are in Christ, everything is possible. I take each day as it comes. I am conscious of what I eat.
  • Is there a secret to this calm and youthful look?
• I have a small consultancy firm where I deal with educational issues. Once in a while, I go on speaking engagements. I attend a lot of seminars in and outside the country. I attend development programmes as well because as you age you still have to constantly renew yourself. I still do a lot of reading and writing.
  • You have been quiet since you left office as deputy governor. What have you been up to lately?
• I am from Badagry in Ojo Division of Lagos State, which gave me the opportunity to serve my people as a politician.I studied English Education. I am a teacher by profession. Ironically, going into education was accidental. I never intended to be a teacher. I went to collect a form for a cousin of mine, and from there, my passion was fired and I just said why not try it out. I found out it was my calling especially when it comes to improving the lives of young people.
  • Can we have an insight into who you are?
• He really supported me. He even took it more seriously than I did. He served in the Navy and knowing the family I come from it wasn’t a big deal for him when I was called upon to serve. When the time came there was no way I could run away from it.
  • What was your husband’s stance on your going into politics?
• The retinue of aides was for protocol sake and it is for a certain period of time. I still have my aides but on more humble and quiet side. It is natural for everybody to enjoy the glamour of office. Outside it, you still attract that respect; you still get honour from a lot of people. Remember that life and power are transient and the only thing that is stable and constant is change.
  • You were in the limelight for four years with a retinue of aides. Is there anything you miss outside power?
• My husband supported me which made life easy for me while in office. My children were also grown up: My last child was already in the secondary school while the first two were in the university. We had a family meeting to agree on how we are going to balance it. I was in touch with my family all through. I was able to keep my home and was stable in the office as well.
  • There is a notion about female politicians neglecting the home front once they occupy positions. In your case, how did you balance it?
• It was not convenient especially when I had to work late into the night. Oftentimes, he came to my official residence and I visited my home regularly. My husband didn’t live with me in the government house because it wasn’t convenient for him.
  • There is a notion about female politicians neglecting the home front once they occupy positions. But your husband didn’t live with you in your official residence?
• He knows that nothing can move me or take me away from him.
  • So your husband was not afraid of losing you to politics?
• Of course, I did. You know men would want to do that husband thing. He would say ‘Please, can you cook that my vegetable for me?’ He loves it so much. And I would cook it because the difference is in his wife’s hand. I did that once in a while, not all the time.
  • Did you sometimes handle his food while in office?
• I will continue like my father did it till he breathed his last. Politics is not something you can quit once you get involved. I will continue to be of service to my people because I come from the riverine rural area that is always marginalised. It is only through political participation that their plight can be addressed and their voice heard.
  • Has Lagos politics seen the last of you?
• Well we came in, like I said, there were a lot of challenges, especially having to do with infrastructure of the schools. We knew what we wanted immediately. We felt to do this the funding in previous years was increased. In previous years a ratio about 50%.
  • What was the process like to begin to build the political coalition to get this through. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of difficult choices.
• No, not of the total budget. I mean, what is allocated to education in previous years, we have to add more to this. There was an increase, a large increase, to what is allocated to education. That has helped us in doing most of these things. But nevertheless, funding is still a challenge to us. Even with the increase, it is still very difficult for us to provide all those things we wanted. As a result of that we said, "we can't just fold our arms and say by the time we utilize what we have-." Let's find other ways of getting funding, because it is the greatest challenge. If you want quality things-you want the best things-it costs money.
  • Of the total budget?
• Like I said, even the government has a ten-point agenda-infrastructure, education, water provision, and so on. It wasn't that difficult because for allocation of funds, to budget for it, you have to see, look at what comes in, what we can generate generally. You have to look into that and see how you want to allocate. You know these are social services. Healthcare is also there. People need-in that part of the world we also have to improve, provide a lot of healthcare for our people. So, that is one area that takes a large chunk of money as well, and education as well, is also a social service and needs a large chunk.
  • What about increasing the budget with the legislature, was that a difficult process?
• Not that it wasn't possible-not that people never knew that education is the necessary thing-but before, people they tended to believe that to get to the people in charge then, that it was not easy. Unlike now, that they can access people like me. They can access officers that are in charge, so that's a big difference. The openness of how we do things now has been a great change from what used to happen before. Even at the offices, there has been a sort of restructuring. That means that departments that are in charge as well, you reassess people.
  • Why do you think it was possible now and not before, when people presumably before knew that education should be a priority? Why has it been possible to get this done now and not before?
• You see people, you tell them "I'm doing this." They want to see it. That way we have been able to prove in this state, that "we want to do this." This is our budget. This is what we spend the budget on. So, you go around and you see the manifestation. You want to see a lot of roads that have been completed. You want to see a lot of changes that are taking place. You see schools that are being rebuilt, that are being rehabilitated. You see the books, you see the physical things.
  • How did you go about convincing people that this was a government that could be trusted? That sounds like a very tall order to go about. What was the plan to convince people, voters, as well as other parts of civil society?
• Sure. You mean, when we were going around to say "vote us in, you will not be disappointed?" Yes. You know, even before you come in, like a democratic government there are things you want to tell your people that we're going to do or we're going to improve on, and these are the areas-. We continue to have free education and we even provide the quality, not just education. We make roads for you. We provide water for you. You will access free healthcare and you now see all these things that we said. We said it and we are doing it. After four years-within two years, you've seen all these things manifested.
  • In the early discussions about what the general plan for governance would be, was that part of the discussion to say look, we've got to get some things that are very visible that people can see?
• We need people to know what we are doing, so that we continue to get their support. We welcome ideas on how to even do it better than what we are doing. We are very lucky to have a leader that is young, dynamic, committed, and focused-it has really helped our government. The people of Lagos, they are very happy. As I said, they have not made a mistake in choosing him as a governor to lead-they have not made a mistake in choosing all of us to work with him, as well.
  • I've taken up a lot of your time, thank you very much.
• Thank you very much and I hope it will be useful for your studies.
  • Well thank you very much?