Interview: Makinde is a Leader Guided by Logic and Data, PDP Will Pick Right Guber Candidate – Hon Boladuro
Hon. Olajide Boladuro is the Director General of the Oyo State Gaming and Lottery Board, an agency of government that regulates games, lottery and promotional activities in the state, in this interview with Nigerian Tribune, he speaks about the workings of the board, efforts at enforcing the laws guiding the sector and moves to prevent underaged children from involving in betting. Excerpts:
It is like not many people are aware about the activities of your agency, can you give us more details about its activities?
I disagree that many people don’t know, but I will answer the question by explaining for those that don’t know because it is not everybody that knows. Oyo State Gaming and Lottery Board is an agency of government that regulate the business of gaming in the state. It is the punters and the operators that do business in the state, I don’t want to mention the name of any company but we have different categories of gaming and lottery, we have sport betting, lotto, casinos l, scratch cards, victuals to name a few, we even have promotional lotteries such that multinational companies that do adverts that say “buy this, you won this”, play this, you win more minutes”, the telecommunication companies, even the banks that run promos are supposed to be regulated by us, they are supposed to be licensed by this board if they are doing something that is promotion, once you are giving something to get something it falls under gaming and lottery, it falls under promotion, those are the people we regulate For instance, and if someone gambles or bet with a company and he is not paid or there is a discrepancy this is where they will report and this is where we will resolve it because all the licensed operators in Oyo State, not the unlicenced ones are compliant with this board and for those that are not compliant they know they are doing illegal business.
What measures have you put in place to make sure that the pundits that are not captured are registered and licensed by your board?
Few years ago there was a discrepancy between the Federal Government and the states under National Lottery Commission which is now proscribed, on who should regulate the business of gaming and lottery in Nigeria. A 16 years case was put to rest on the 22nd of November, 2024 when the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that it is the states that have the right under the 1999 Constitution as amended to regulate the business of gaming and lottery in the country. A lot of these operators have hid under that in the past and claimed that they have paid to the proscribed commission in Abuja and can come to our state to operate, that is why I said they are unlicensed because they were not licensed here, because they were not licensed here, some of them were licensed under the proscribed national lottery regulatory commission. Now that the federal commission is no more they have to do the right thing and get licenses from individual states, if you want to operate in Oyo State you come to Oyo State to get the license of the state board, if you want to operate in Cross River State, you have to get the license of the state or Lagos State as the case maybe, you can approach individual states to be licensed and this is not my judgment, it is the judgment of Supreme Court. So for the ones that are unlicensed they know themselves, we have measures, penalties, they cannot advertise on Google, Apple or on Meta because those platforms are recognized the state and they cannot do physical advert in our state, a company that is not registered cannot come and do business in the state. These are the things we are facing with the unlicenced ones, but slowly and surely things are getting better, most of them complying now I am sure eventually we will eliminate unregistered operators in the state.
What benefits does the state stand to gain by setting up this board?
Making sure that there is sanity in the gaming and lottery industry is the primary goal, I use to tell people that it is always regulation before revenue, when you do that of revenue will come If you are licensing an operator that is compliant they will pay to the government coffers, they will have to pay to get licensed, they will have to pay what we call the good course levy, so the business that they do in Oyo State a certain percentage of the money goes into the Oyo State government’s coffers on a monthly basis so that is what the state gains.
Has there been any situation where your board intervened on behalf of people when they have issues with these game companies?
One of the cardinal; priorities of the state governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde for this agency is to make sure that we promote responsible gaming, we don’t allow people that are under 18 to get into the business of gaming and lottery, that is very paramount to us. Some of the achievements that we have been able to record in almost six years of sitting on this seat is that many people that engage in gaming don’t know that there is an agency where they can cry to or where they can come to when they have problems. There is the story of a particular company few years ago when a punter had issues with it, it involved one of the licensed operators in the state, the young man stake his bet one minute to the start of the game and he actually won, he won over 4 million and he was not paid, so he came and reported to us, he filled out a form, we investigated and we found the company culpable and we reached out to it and within 48 hours of us reaching out and mediating it was resolved and he was paid his money. So I want to let our Oyo State citizens know that we are here for them, that is why they need to go on our website to check who the licensed operators are, you don’t go and gamble or spend your money on a company that is not licensed because if anything happens it will be hard for us to go after such company, but for the one that are licensed it is a bit of the cake for us to mediate and resolve any grievances that might have occurred between the punter and the operator.
Apart from betting, how does your board monitor or regulate other promotional activities embarked upon by various companies?
Apart from the telecommunication companies, there are other local players in the state that are involved in promotional activities; you will see some of them saying they are giving out Keke or Okada, sewing machines and so on. What we do is that they will have to come to us, you will tell us what you want to do, we will inspect those prizes, the board will want to see the prizes to ensure that those companies don’t deceive our people, that is part of the regulatory functions that we perform at this board, that is why we say we must license them, we must be sure, we will go through pitch and see the model of what you want to do, we will understand it before we issue you a licence to go ahead and that includes us seeing the prizes that you are putting up. For the telecommunication companies and the banks, we must see the model of what they want to put out to the public before we let them go ahead and advertise.
Has there been any time that your board had issues with religion organizations because of the kind of activities you regulate that the two main religions in Nigeria preach against?
To the glory of God, it is a blantant no and why is it like that? Governor Seyi Makinde has created an enabling environment in this state and in the last six years we have witnessed good governance like we have never seen before in Oyo State, there has been no religious issues, Christians are going about their activities, so also are the Muslims, you would not even able to tell whether the governor is a Christian or a Muslim. So we riding on that platform have not seen any issue, we preached responsible gaming which we know the governor is a very serious advocate of, we want people to be responsible, we want people to understand that loose change is what you use to bet, you don’t go and use your savings or the money you want to use to pay your school fee, or do major project in your family to gamble, so these are what we preached, we talk to parents, we do a lot of sensitization in the mosque, churches, schools to let them know that gaming and lottery are hazardous and can be addictive and they need to keep it to the minimum, just like cigarette , it is written boldly on the pack “Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health”, but people still buy them and smoke. We just got an approval from the governor for us to do advertising campaign to let people continue to know that it is plus 18 that can do this business and they have to do it responsibly.
How are you able to monitor and ascertain that only people that are 18 years and above involve in the business of gaming and lottery and what is the punishment for under 18 involvement in it?
It starts with the platforms where punters go to bet, so if the company sets up a platform and they want us to license them, out technical team and the legal team will go on their site and see how their registration processes are set up. Their registrations processes suppose to ask for verifiable ID, who they are, what they are, their age and so on, it is when all these are ascertain that they can be able to register and proceed on those sites. So we use that as our guide, technology has evolved and will keep evolving, the state has been very supportive when it comes to that, we make sure that the people that are registering on site to bet are actually 18 plus. For the ones that are retail, our officers go out and make sure that any of those people that have retail shops don’t allow under aged to bet. We disguise, we go to the shops and if we find anybody that is under 18 in the shops, it is a million naira fine, so there are fines and they done want to be paying that, if we find five children that is N5 million and I am sure they will take steps to curtail that and we go out at random without them knowing to make sure that they are following what the law says and what the regulations of the board say.
As a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, do you think the party, with its present situation stand a chance to win elections in 2027?
Absolutely, to God be the glory, it a general saying that it is God that makes leaders and not any man, people can aspire and do all kinds of dirty things, if God has not ordained you, such person can never get there, we have seen people in this state, although I won’t mention names, some of them are late, they have ran for gubernatorial elections multiple times and they never made it, so everybody stands a chance, other political parties, stand a chance but PDP is well positioned to assume the highest office in the land at the Villa come 2027.
Even with the crises engulfing the party?
I don’t see any crisis, during the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP had 31 states and things happened, some people for reasons best know to them left and went to other parties, but you don’t know what is going to happen next, next year is 2026 and we are talking about 2027, we still have like two years till another president assumes office, the God that woke us up today, we pray that he will wake us up tomorrow, I approach life as it comes, you have to do things by the day, by the hour because we don’t know what is going to happen in the next hour, only God knows. Yes, there might be a few scratches here and there in the party, our convention is holding this month and I am sure there is light at the end of the tunnel, God willing.
What is your take on the agitation for power shift in Oyo State come 2027?
Again, I work with a governor that is very intelligent and he is blessed with lots of knowledge and wisdom, sometimes it amazes me how he does things, you can remember the time of Covid-19 when they were shutting down everywhere, it was only Oyo State that the governor said he is not closing down, he is someone that looks at data and uses those parameters to do things, the political party will be conducting a primary and may the best candidate win, if the person is from Oke-Ogun or Oyo, or even from Ibadan, equity, fairness and justice is the premise that the governor is going to ride on, I am sure the right man will pick the ticket of the PDP when that time comes.
Nigerian Tribune
