Workplaces
Founder, Chairman
Afara the Bridge for Community Development Initiative (Since 2016)
Senator Babajide Omoworare’s response to the huge gap and consistent yearning for jobs and engagements of youths in his constituency on one hand and his visualization of supporting community development through private initiatives was the establishment of Afara the Bridge for Community Development Initiative (ABCDi); as a Non-Governmental Organisation. ABCDi is mandated to act as the community catalyst and capacity development agents for underserved women and young persons in the areas of leadership development, digital inclusivity, technical and vocational skills development and Community Intervention Programs. Afara the Bridge for Community Development Initiatives addresses the vision of promoting sustainable livelihood through the four planks of H.O.P.E. Health Development, Organized Youth Development, Poverty Reduction and Effective Education.
ABCDi mid-wife AfaraHub which is also Co-founded by Babajide Omoworare in 2020. AfaraHub is a collaborative centre focused on capacity development and cultivation of innovative ideas to enhance employability, engender entrepreneurship and support business growth.
afaranigeria.com
Presidential Advisor
National Assembly [Senate Matters] (2019-2023)
After spending two decades working passionately as a parliamentarian, policy strategist, legislative strengthening advocate and lobbyist he was appointed in 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari as his Senior Special Assistant on Legislative Matters (Senate). In this position he was the head of the Presidents Legislative Office and the President’s major liaison to the National Assembly promoting the President’s initiatives and appointments in the National Assembly and building and maintaining effective working relationships between the Executive and Legislature. In four years, he diligently advanced the administration’s legislative agenda, promote its policy priorities in the Senate and advanced Mr. President’s constitutional responsibilities in the National Assembly.
In contra-distinction to what ensued during President Buhari’s first term, Senator Omoworare engineered a seamless working relationship between the Legislature and Executive (Presidency, Ministries, Departments and Agencies) during the second term of President Buhari (2019-2023), which resulted in the smooth passage of Executive Bills at the National Assembly in this period. He effectively utilized his vast parliamentary knowledge, Nigerian legislative environment expertise and circumstantial network of contacts in the National Assembly as a positive and outstanding resource to his office by creating formal and informal Executive and Legislative engagements to ensure mutual understanding.
His immediate impact was to work with the ministerial team to develop an Executive’s Legislative Agenda & Strategy as a compass for the administration. He established an effective Bill scrutiny mechanism and contrived an efficient Bill tracking and progression chart that was not in existence before, which assisted the smooth passage of Executive Bills at the National Assembly. While in the Office, he also attained Ninety-Nine percent (99%) success in the eventual screening and confirmation of Presidential nominees presented to the Senate for clearance. He was critically involved in the adjustment of the Budget Circle to January-December for the year 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 Budgets.
Serving as the SSAP (NASS-Senate), Senator Omoworare displayed knowledge about and experience on the cooperation of the Legislative, Executive and Judicature arms as the most viable channel of creating enduring policies in governance that can allow government to provide effective and efficient services to the people.
Senator representing Osun East
Senate, National Assembly (2011-2019)
Babajide Omoworare served two term in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In the 7th Senate (2011-2015) he was the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs (with oversight functions over some agencies under the presidency) and a member of the Senate Committees on Rules and Business, Judiciary, Petroleum (Upstream), Health and Sports. He later became the Acting Chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs. He was the Secretary of the APC Senate Caucus of the National Assembly. Senator Omoworare was not the opposition leader but he was known to have led the opposition to PDP government on the floor of the red chamber. He will be remembered in the 7th Senate for his historic call for Division of the Senate (Order 73, Senate Standing Orders) in respect of the Rivers State Crisis; his Call for Probe of the Kerosene Subsidy; contribution on what the real role of Legislature is on budgeting; opposition to the fraudulent African First Ladies Peace Mission house and others in the FCT budget. Senator Babajide Omoworare is a true party man, his contribution and defence of Party position include but not limited to the Screening of Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Senate Session with Prof Atahiru Jega on card reader and opposition to the PDP agenda against the card reader.
In the 8th Senate he was made the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules & Business, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters and also member Senate Committees on Culture and Tourism, Water Resources and Anti-Corruption. Within a year of his Chairmanship of the Committee on Rules & Business he introduced legislative innovations that positively affected parliamentary workings of the Senate. He started Bill Scrutiny, a measure that ensured quality control of all Bills before they are slated for first reading in the plenary. He created a Bill Progression Chart Flow that encapsulates all Bills at different stages of their passage. This process afforded the public the opportunity to monitor the Law Making process. He started the Electronic Circulation of Legislative Notice Papers. This concept ensured that Senators were duly served the Order of Proceedings ahead of time and thereby were aware of topical issues and are able to prepare to engender robust debates on the Floor of the Senate. Omoworare also commenced the introduction of the E-Parliament, which was meant to digitalise the plenary proceedings.
Omoworare had running battles with the Senate president’s Office on its disrespect for parliamentary procedure, disregard for Order Papers and interference with the scheduling of the business of the Senate. However, his differences with Senator Bukola Saraki became irreconcilable after he sought that his name be expunged from the list of eighty-four members that gave the Senate President their vote of confidence. “My name is listed as number eleven. Let me say that I don’t know how my name got into the list. I therefore say I am not part of it.” In a mild reshuffling of the chairmanship of committees that followed immediately after the imbolgio, he was removed as the Chairman of the Rules and Business Committee to the newly-created Legislative Compliance Committee. He was adamant in his response, “I have remained objective and sincere to every assignment and responsibility since my days even as a state lawmaker and I must tell you that has not changed and if my sins are prejudiced on my allegiance to the prospectus of party supremacy or my inferred alliance to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, so be it.”
Apart from law-making he will also be reminisced as a fierce debater on the floor and a principled parliamentarian with a knack for parliamentary rules. True to his legislative focus and determination to contribute qualitatively to Constitutional, Judiciary (including Prisons), Police, Health, and Education sector reforms and the legislative and budgeting process in Nigeria, He was actively involved in the process that birthed the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. Amendment. In the 7th Senate, Senator Babajide Omoworare sponsored 8 (eight) Bills and several Motions, Conspicuously, he sponsored SB 222 being “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Criminal Justice (Release from Custody) (Special Provisions) Act Cap. C40 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 enabling the Comptroller-General of Prisons to make monthly returns to the Chief Justice of Nigeria to Order Release of Awaiting Trial Inmates who have spent longer time in prison were they even convicted. For ease of legislation, this provision was enshrined as Section 111 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015. Fourteen (14) Bills and several Motions were presented by Senator Omoworare in the 8th Senate, he actually has the highest number of Bills passed by the National Assembly to amend/alter the 1999 Constitution. Most instructive: amendment of Third Schedule Item I (20) of the Constitution to democratize National Judicial Council.
Projects implemented in his senatorial district are testimonies to his resourcefulness and capacity for delivery. Through different Federal Government Agencies, he has been instrumental to the construction of a Skills Acquisition Centre, construction of blocks of classrooms, renovation of blocks of classrooms, VIP toilet and boreholes. He facilitated one Injection Power Station and provided (300 & 500 KVA) transformers, illuminated several urban streets and rural communities with Solar Power lights and constructed Primary Health Care Centres. With his Constituency Project Fund, Senator Omoworare led other Federal Legislators from his senatorial district to construct the Multimillion Naira Ipetu-Ijesa Waterworks, constructed three ultra-modern new schools and carried out intensive renovations in five other schools.
Honourable Member Ifako-Ijaye Constituency 1
Lagos State House of Assembly (1999-2007)
Senator Babajide Omoworare contested and won election as a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA) representing Ifako-Ijaiye State Constituency 1 in 1999 as a member of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and he was re-elected in 2003 on the platform of Action Congress (AC). He chaired the Committees on Judiciary, Ethics & Privileges, Human Rights & Public Petitions. He also chaired several ad hoc committees and played an active role in the creation of Local Governments in Lagos State (1999-2003). After his re-election in 2003, he was elected the Majority Leader and was made the Chairman of the Business Rules and Standing Orders Committee. This made him the de facto leader of the State Governments business in the House of Assembly thereby making him work closely with the Executives.
He became engrossed in the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative seamless working relationship to ensure that the people enjoy the dividends of effective democratic governance. He will be remembered as one of those versatile, adventurous and creative young men that Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu utilised to develop and make Lagos State a viable and distinct state within the Nigeria Federation.
As a Lagos Parliamentarian, he influenced so many developmental projects within his constituency including but not limited to a General Hospital, a Magistrate Court, construction and rehabilitation of over 20 (twenty) roads, a mini Sports Stadium with a Gymnasium, provision of several electricity transformers, street lights and traffic lights, rehabilitation of Ibari Water Works, reconstruction of Yaya Abatan bridge and provision of effective solution to environmental degradation caused by gully erosion within his constituency.
Babajide Christopher Omoworare CON is a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a practicing lawyer, a public policy analyst, lobbyist and good governance advocate.
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