The Influence of Family Culture and Community on Leadership

The Influence of Family  Culture and Community on Leadership on the Solution Illuminators Series (SIS) podcast with United States Representative Oye Owolewa (PharmD). During this session, the United States Representative Oye Owolewa spoke on immigration, culture, family, homelessness, healthcare, and many other topics. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

First and just understanding your journey. I understand you're currently a pharmacist, right? Uh, but I would also like to know the kind of things that you've done, uh, the kind of jobs that you have before becoming a pharmacist.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I want to thank you so much for allowing me onto your platform. As I typically say to people, my name is Dr. Oye Owolewa. I'm a pharmacist, I'm a former commissioner in my uh home ward of uh ward 8 and the current U.S. Representative of Washington, D.C., as well as the candidate for council at large. But that's kind of what I'm doing. That's not who I am. Who I am, I'm a child of, as you said, Nigerian immigrant parents that came here in the 1970s, right after 1964 Civil Rights Acts, not uh far after the Brown versus Boardville, uh Brown versus Board of Education and beyond. And they were able to come to America, and that's where they met. They stayed in the United States, decided to raise a family here because they knew if they worked hard, they could live with dignity. If their kids worked hard, the kids can live with dignity. So they had a five uh child family, and I was fourth out of five. And soon after my parents pushed me to become a scientist, um, introduced that to me at a very young age, and I ended up becoming a pharmacist. After uh a few years in pharmacy school, I realized I was the only black male in a hundred and fifth-person class. And originally I thought it was just racism and inequality, but what I realized, the biggest difference between those who got into the pharmacy school and not was early career exposure, right? People who wanted to be engineers, people who wanted to be doctors, people who wanted to be pharmacists seemed to align into that track versus looking into it in the near future. So I graduated my pharma D degree, my doctor of pharmacy, moved to Washington, DC, and I started volunteering in classrooms, getting kids interested in science careers. So I was still a pharmacist until um one day one of my patients said, Go to a community meeting and get more involved. Went to the community meeting, didn't really like how it was run, and I made my unhappiness uh shown. And somebody said, Hey, so much better. Why don't you run? So I took all fear, pushed this aside, ran for office, won by one single vote, and here I am now. So I've been a pharmacist working from um right aid to Walgreens, from Safe Way now to giant, and now taking time off to run for at-large council. So those were the jobs. More importantly, those are the experiences that got me into the type of public service I'm in now.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Good. Thank you. Thank you for a detailed response. That's that's pretty good. Thank you. So my next question would be how has been a Nigerian American influenced how you show up, build relationships, and also your chosen career path, eventually going to politics.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, well, it's really the values of being a Nigerian American. You know, my mom and dad were um, they're from two different parts of Nigeria. My mom was from Oyo State, my dad was from Kwara State, and they didn't meet each other in Nigeria, they met each other in America. But some of those shared values of hard work, selflessness, um, giving back to the community were things that I learned firsthand. And it wasn't taught to me, it was shown throughout life. Not just my parents, but the people they interacted with. You know, my mom, she was a civil engineer by day, but she seemed to know everything about education. So she got me into schools, got my friends into opportunities, and really helped us all get into college with as much money as possible. And my dad was the president of the Nigerian uh uh the Yoruba community of Massachusetts in a long time. So I grew up with leadership around me to the point where I was soaking it in without even um realizing as such. So coming to DC, feeling the Nigerian-American community, but also using some of the things I've learned from I would say our community and bringing it over to the general community of DC has been really impactful, especially at a time where folks from the black communities are in fractures, whether it's black Americans from way back, generationally Americans or immigrants, you know, really trying to find myself as a bridge of someone who was born in the United States, but had those traditional values learned from back home has been able to has been provide me an opportunity to work extra hard, you know, not make excuses, but also help other people um find what their solutions look like. Getting young kids into science careers at an early age so they can grow up with that same type of energy and same type of expectations is my way of you know bringing that uh values from where we grew up with to the next generation of Americans and young people in DC.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Wow, excellent, excellent. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, we're gonna get into DC politics and things like that eventually. Uh please, if you're here, uh please let us know that you're here. Put your name in the comment section, where you're joining us from, and if you have any question for our guest, United States Representative or yeah or whatever, please uh put it in the chat. So now your journey began November 2020 when you were elected to a two-year term as the shadow US representative. What was the experience of winning that election in 2020? How was how did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, interestingly enough, um, that was a surreal experience. You know, I was the current uh ANC commissioner, which is a very grassroots elected position in uh Southeast DC for a couple of years. And when I was elected to that position, I believe I was the first Nigerian American male elected in DC. And then I was running for the shadow representative race, which is typically called the U.S. representative, but because DC is not a state, we're not the same position as a Steady Hoyer or a Jasmine Crockett or a Nancy Pelosi. We typically just um fight for DC statehood and lobby for such. But as I got closer and closer to the election day, I realized it was just bigger than that restricted role. You know, whether it's Nigerian Americans across the country or whether it's young people, whether it's people in DC that just never seen a name like this win a race, it really brought an opportunity to get those who otherwise would be too afraid or may be hesitant and getting into running for office to do so. But at the same time, when I was getting closer to winning, you know, a lot of Nigerian Americans across the country got really interested and involved. And they started asking me questions like can you help me with my visa? Can you help me with this issue? My conspires are listening to me. And rather than say that's not my job, I leaned into it. So I um I started doing more than what was actually for me, and it really created a real value in a role that doesn't always feel the uh value. And I positioned that to not only do more for the Nigerian American community nationwide, but also do more things in DC, whether it's creating sponsor clinics to help return citizens get their lives back and get their records sealed, whether it's business workshops to help local entrepreneurs learn how to get grants, contracts, certifications, whether it's doing an immigration town hall last year when the non-citizen community was really concerned about what a second Trump administration would mean to them. You know, the things I was doing, you know, the pressure I was put on me by Nigerian Americans allowed me to step it up for folks not only in that community, but folks locally here as well. So, you know, it was a really surreal experience. I went from having maybe 100 followers on social media to having thousands, and it really showed what happens when a community you know embraces our our own, and I'm really grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Wow, thank you, thank you for sharing that. Well, yeah, a little bit more about having more followers, just like you said now. So, one thing about this position is it's very different what what it's used to be, uh, it's popular. So a lot of politicians are motivated by money, and uh, in this particular position, uh, you don't have a voting power or you're not paid for the position and things like that. So, my question is uh what keeps you motivated and keep pushing forward? That's why that there's no the usual end quote motivation that we experience.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, for sure. I think the motivation that I had was the same thing we grew up with, you know, getting something done, moving on to the next top, next task. And I felt empowered because I was working with people that so-called politicians stay away from folks who don't vote, folks who aren't necessarily engaged, but folks who still need stuff. So I was helping returning citizens where council members and the mayor looked the other way. I was going to create an immigration town hall and bring real lawyers at a time where our budget didn't increase legal funds. And all of these things matter because people were calling me at their last resort. People were calling me when they were worried about what's happened to them next, and seeing the opportunity to step up and change somebody's life for the better, it kept me going. You know, I'm still a pharmacist, and being able to use my mind in the way I think to see a problem, find a solution, see a problem, find somebody who can help, see someone who needs something and get something to them right away was just something I just kept doing. And it got to the point where my reputation became that. And even if somebody isn't politically engaged, usually somebody around them is watching what's happening, and and it really carries forward. So, you know, I didn't really do it for the idea of running for a higher office, I did it because I was raised to see something and do something.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Wow, seeing something and doing something, right? Right, yeah, that's that's very nice. So you you mentioned something just now. People who don't vote, people who not politically inclined. I mean, that means that you're not surprised that people who still believe in conspiracy theories that, well, the vote has been counting, and why should I go and line up to vote somewhere and things like that? So one what would you say to the such individuals? And yeah, the second part of that question is there seems to be a connection between the fundraising, whole results, and eventually the outcome of the election. And I believe that there's certain things that the public don't understand about this, and politicians understand it more. That's right. I see politicians push for these three things and try to see if uh they can use that to win election. So is there anything that you feel that probab we the public don't understand about one the fundraising part of politics? Second, uh the polling result and eventually the outcome of the election.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, I'll answer your both your questions at the same time. There are plenty of reasons why folks don't want to be involved politically. Some people feel like it doesn't matter what happens because someone says the right thing and they get into office, they do nothing. Some folks feel like this, you know, things are rigged and somehow their votes won't be counted or whatnot, whether it's in southeast DC or even in Nigeria, we hear it. Um, you know, we hear it. And oftentimes not only affects people's interest in voting, it also affects people's interest in running for office. And the reason why we have a lot of people who shouldn't be in office or people running for a 30th term is because there are a lot of people that would be able to do a great job, but they don't have the motivation, they don't believe that they're good enough, they don't believe that they're connected, they don't believe that they're wealthy enough. I'm not gonna lie, when that first person told me, hey, if you're so much better, why don't you run? There was a moment where I was like, Well, how am I gonna run? I'm not from here, my name is different, I don't think I'd be a viable candidate. But I said, you know what, why not? If I'm thinking these people are terrible and I think I'm I might be able to do a better job, why not me? And why not us? And so when I ran and won, I didn't just, you know, bask in the glory of winning a race by one vote. I started motivating other people to also take that jump. And from today, we uh I've helped about 13 people win their elections, and I haven't charged them a dime because I know it's important to get people into office. The better people are in office, the more folks that can be motivated to get into this. Now, the second part of your question about raising money and polling information and you know, people winning um the seat, there's a correlation to it. The more people that donate from your district, the more likely you'll get their vote. Most people don't want to donate to someone who's they're not going to vote for. And I also understand that there's two types of candidates. One that wants to run because they want to be somebody, they just want to be the mayor, they just want to be the governor, they just want to be the representative, but it's also a candidate that's running because they want to do something. And if you're the candidate that actually wants to run to do something, that's much easier to fundraise, to build support, because it's not about me. You know, it's not about the candidate, it's about the change you want to make and being the vehicle to change that direction. I graduated college without student debt because I got a scholarship. I understand the difference that I made in my life. I was able to buy a house, I was able to get into run for office because I didn't have student debt. I'm now pushing for our local university, UDC, to be tuition free because I want more young people to have that same investment to do the things that I've been able to do. That sounds a lot different than saying, hey, my father was a former council member, I should be a council member too. And when you have those, no, but this that's that's real. So when you have that true vision and you want to invest in people and bring it back, it makes it a lot easier for you to go to people and say, hey, can you chip in $15? Can you chip in $100? It just helps us go because we have a righteous mission in mind to develop the district in a way that's more grassroots. That's how you build a coalition. We've raised the most, we have the most cash on hand. The polling numbers favor us, but not because my name is easy, because it's not easy. I mean, you're easy, brother, but not to other people. But the work has been laid out, the vision's been laid out, and we're trying to really improve the quality of life in the district, and people can see that. So polling numbers are great, fundraising is amazing, but when you tailor your message to something that's that has real purpose, and you're trying to be different than some of the other candidates who just want to run on their name recognition or run because they think they're cool, it really shows the difference in the quality of a campaign you're running.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Wow, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So, one thing you mentioned just now is people who want to come back to Office the 30th time. And I think I I watched some of your interviews whereby and also a statement that you made, comparing uh being able to lead as an opportunity, and also uh people who have seen politics as an opportunity to have a career. Right. And um what I I've seen people who think they should be born into politics and die while being in politics and things like that. So when you engage people who have this mindset, what is what what do you think made them have that kind of mindset into being office forever and just be there forever while other people cannot come in to be in that office? What what's the mindset they have?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah, I I I think being in power could be quite addictive, right? You have council members, congressional members, centers, they walk around with a big old entourage, you know, everyone wants their signature, everyone wants to take a picture of them, they wake up feeling that importance. And I I get it. But with me, I feel like I was somebody before politics, and I'm hoping to have a life after politics. I don't want to be the person running for a 15 term. And you the way you can tell when somebody's been in office for too long is when they go from running on their ideas to running on their experience, right? Because the world is changing every four or five years. And if you've been elected in 1990 and you're talking about your experience can help you in 2027, then you probably know a little bit less than the new person who never has a fresh perspective, who wants to get in and make that change and get out. And in Congress in itself, it institutionally um prioritizes people who've been there the longest. So you only become the chair of a committee if you've been there for the longest of times, if you raise the most money or beyond. So if somebody's been waiting 20 years for that chair spot, then they're not gonna want to give it up in the 22nd year when they feel like it's their time to become the chair. So they can kind of reform that to be the most you know prepared person or someone who could, if it's not based off of seniority and maybe some other type of merit, then maybe you won't have someone running for their 18th year hoping to get there. So, but to be honest, though, the reason why I think it's important to make sure that we have a consistent turnover of leadership is because we need fresh ideas. Imagine if Donald Trump could run for fourth, fifth, sixth term. Imagine if George W. Bush was president for four, five, six terms. The country will be run differently. However, we have a Congress that seemed to be there forever. We have a Supreme Court that's elected for life, and I don't believe it's good for the movement of our society. Last but not least, we also have to look at where a lot of these elected officials come from, right? They're usually lobbyists, children of other politicians. They don't always have that pedigree that will allow them to leave office, right? I'm a pharmacist. If if if if I'm done with my career, I can go back to a pharmacy. Some of these people are community organizers, some of these people come from other professionals, which is not a bad thing, but they don't see the light at the tunnel. They don't see maybe that they could pivot away from office after their term is over. They see themselves as I gotta keep this paycheck, I gotta keep this rolling, I gotta make sure I'm on TV enough just so I can keep at this. They don't have that next thing to move to that could divide their legacy, and I think that also impacts how long these people stay in office as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Wow, I've never seen it that way. Thank you for explaining it that way. Absolutely. Because I I just thought uh it's just power intoxication. Uh, I just thought uh that maybe service should be made a requirement to be a leader and things like that. Now that I know I'm thinking maybe also making sure people actually have a career that they can go back to that will also that also give them opportunity to know that well, uh, this is not a do or die. Uh I can get it. If I don't get it, I have something I can do with my life, and I have other ways I can make impact and things like that. So thank you for sharing that. Well, you also mentioned something that that I also wanted to ask you about having life before politics, during politics, and after politics. And that made me want to think about how politics have changed the way you see life or your mindset about interaction. How has politics shaped your view of the world? Now that you're five years in.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, one thing I've learned, especially in DC last year, um, Trump was re-elected, and because DC is not a state in our relationship with the federal government, we're a lot more prone to attacks, right? We had a uh Black Lives Matter Plaza ripped up. We had our budget slashed and frozen by Congress. We've had laws overturned, and more recently, we had a National Guard and ICE deployment in DC, and we're still occupied six, seven months later. We also had council in America, they didn't do much. You know, they they may have had their own reasons to protect our home rule, but people in DC were marching. We didn't see too much support from our elected leadership. Power, money, status, fame, it doesn't change you. It exposes who you are, right? So we have leaders in our community that were not elected, right? We have community organizers, we have teachers, we have all these things. But you also have elected people who are not leaders either. When they go and got rough, they tucked and ran. They tweeted when my neighbors, when many of them Latinum, some of them Africans, who may have been citizens or not citizens were getting grabbed by ice. So what I learned, especially last year, beyond the last six, is that we can't just rely on those that we vote for to have our backs at all times. And leadership is shown not when it's comfortable, when things are going well, but even more importantly, when things are not going well, and then nobody's out to support. Folks, where is our leadership then? And that was part of what convinced me to run for council. You know, people came to me consistently as a last resort. And then after I work with them, I send them to someone who I would think will help them who was elected. And I followed with them three months later, and nothing happened. And at a time where DC is facing the highest unemployment because of doge cuts, at a time where some of our local business partners are working with us and ICE, at a time where our budget is slashing healthcare, but creating billion dollar subsidies for stadiums, we need someone who can come in and say, We're not going to play by this status core anymore. And at a time where we have a lot of legislation that's not passed off of data, but more just off of feelings, we need someone with a health and science background that can see what works and apply that to DC and beyond. Because we are the nation's capital and we are the richest country in the world, but there's too many income and economic disparities between communities. And my timing politics shows that we are ready for this, but we're also trying to get other good people involved as well. Because my goal is to be in office for a few terms, maybe, and get the next generation up. I don't want to run when I'm 80 years old talking about have great experience and try to be that one that holds the seat the door closed for the next generation. I want to bring the right generation into office and then see too that my job is done and to support people from the back.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Wow. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's it's a good place to get into conversation as to the fact that you've been United States Representative for five years and you made a decision that it's time to not rerun for that position, and you're pivoting to another role. My question is um why making that decision now to not rerun, and why the council at large role? And what should we expect from you that is uh probably different from what uh people have experienced in the past?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

For sure. There's two reasons why I decided to um retire from this shadow house seat. Number one, to pass the baton. You know, for the past five years, I got more people interested in this role, whether it's fighting for DC statehood, whether it's being in the forefront of uh national politics, as well as being local as well. And we really wanted to walk our talk. You know, we're talking about retiring, giving other people chances. We had to do that ourselves. We can't just say that for other people and then still continue doing what others are doing. Number two, we need to have that local impact. You know, a lot of people don't realize that their governors, their city council members, their county executives has a higher and greater impact on their day-to-day life than the president of the United States does. And to be able to make sure that our snow is picked up on time, our trash is handled, that we don't have huge rodent issues, make sure where healthcare is fortified, making sure our local university is tuition-free, bringing investing in industries to rehire some of the USAID workers and the State Department workers who were unfairly and illegally fired. That comes from the local level. And as I mentioned before, I'm not running to be the big man and have the big title. I'm running to do a couple of things. And those things I wanted to do correlates with that at-large council position, and that's what really guided me more than ego or or the big name is really some of the things I wanted to get done.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Wow, getting things done. That's that's very important. So now let's talk a little bit about uh before I say that. Uh, thank you for joining us, Chris. Uh Christy from Florida. Uh yeah, thank you for joining us. Uh, please, if you're here, please um let us know where you're joining us from. And if you have questions for our guests, uh please share your question. That would be nice. Uh thank you for joining us. So you mentioned getting things done. Uh you feel that the situation with DC is quite different from the situation from other states. That's one thing that I observe when I move from one state to another state, uh, that's homelessness and housing and things like that. So uh, if you want to touch on that a little bit, I have seen that uh a couple of places have some situations with homelessness, uh been to San Francisco, Philadelphia, I don't know, Chicago, people pretend to be on the street and things like that. So looking on the side of the Washington DC, how is the situation unique? Quite different from other places.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah, we have a huge homelessness and housing insecurity situation here. We recently ripped away people's rental rights, so it makes it easier for them to be evicted locally, as well as we're seeing just the pressures of the federal government impact us. As I mentioned before, DC is not a state. So the federal government has a lot more influence on our laws than, say, our friends in Maryland and our neighbors in Virginia. So when Donald Trump first instituted the National Guard deployment occupation, he also targeted the homeless encampments. So people living in tents. He was removing those people. And, you know, we use the term homeless loosely. These people do have homes, they're just unhoused. So their tent is their home. So when the National Guard and beyond were shucking people's tents away and throwing away all the belongings, people were losing family pictures, people were losing their relatives' ashes, people are losing their identifications, and it made it that much harder for them to get their lives back on track. If you look at the data, it takes far less money to keep someone in their home than it does to get them in a home once they're on the street. So we need to invest more funding and rapid rehousing. We need to support folks who are on the brink of losing their homes. We need to make sure young people, like parents who are facing housing insecurity, are also taken care of. Because if their kids now end up on the street, now you're affecting their educational experiences. It'll be hard for them to concentrate if they're hungry. They won't be able to read on grading level. And during, and if you look at the future of people who aren't reading at grading level, it's usually not positive. When I was doing my exposure clinics with a lot of these returning citizens, folks who face incarceration, many of them who had criminal records or criminal histories dating back to their teenage years were struggling to read at grade level. A lot of that can be traced to food equity, a lot of that could be traced to housing security. So if we pay for these things on the front end, then we don't have to waste so much money on incarcerating people. We don't have to waste so much money on getting people back on track if we get people on track in the beginning. So houselessness is a huge issue in DC. And my goal is to reinvest and not only in the programs, but also the folks who make a difference. Now, if this was a healthcare conversation, I could be on this call for three hours without taking a breath. But also when it comes to housing, I gotta lean on the people who've been making a difference for decades. Right now they're being disinvested from.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Well, so it seems that you're a little bit more passionate about healthcare. I think we can touch that. I'll touch on that a little bit. So what one of the things that surprises me is the fact that people are opposed to free healthcare. And based on you being on the street and talking to people, what is the most common arguments that people have against free healthcare?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Well, in terms of um of healthcare, it's not necessarily more passionate about it, it's just my career. I know it's at the back of my hand. I've been a pharmacist for 12 years, I was in school for six years for it. I basically had 20 years of experience, including my high school years as a pharmacy technician in this pharmacy field. And being a pharmacist isn't just pushing tablets five at a time, it's about knowing the complexities of our insurance system. Now, the majority of people who are concerned about the idea of a free healthcare system or a public uh universal healthcare or Medicare for all, they're concerned about the cost, which I completely understand. It's gonna be very expensive to have a universal healthcare system. However, our current healthcare system is even more expensive than the universal healthcare plan. Whether it's the people who have undillable uh uh um care or folks who are underinsured and had to pay more, it actually costs far more to cover what we're doing right now than the universal healthcare system. Look at Canada. Their insurance is, even though they cover everybody, is actually far less than America's. So just getting the information out there is important. I believe that when it comes to healthcare, it's not like uh 10 issues or something. You know, you pay for something not realizing you need it, but when you need it, you're glad you have it, so to speak. It's almost like a seatbelt, so to speak. So I think just having the conversation out there is important. But we also need to have healthcare providers that serve an office. Right now, healthcare legislation is passed by lawyers, lobbyists, children of politicians, and they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Imagine it's they just don't. And they pass laws that they think make sense, but healthcare providers are like this is just nonsense. And we're losing pharmacies, hospitals are going on the strain, people are losing their health insurance in 2027 because it's a big unbeautiful bill, and we need more healthcare providers in office to support people on a local level. So, yes, health healthcare is complex. I'm 20 years in, I'm still figuring it out, but at the same time, we need to have folks in office who can make these right decisions and get this right.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Good, good, good. Thank you. It seems to like the word the big beautiful bill.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Oh, it's the big, unbeautiful bill. It's insane. It's insane, but people, you know, laws don't make us safe, people make us safe, and we need to make sure that we have the right people in office.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Hmm, laws don't make us safe, people make safe. So, right having the right people. Okay, that's thank you for throwing that nugget in uh unexpectedly. Thank you, thank you. All right, so now let's move to some incident that you experienced that I that I saw um still on housing. So you experienced uh the FU word sprayed on your door. Yeah, and uh when I was watching the videos and researching about this session, I still there was no any explanation as to why that happened, um any incident that led to that, and any updates that you received after investigation.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

So what led I don't know what led to it, but that was right when I launched my campaign. So I launched my campaign around September. This happened in October. Now we unfortunately didn't have any camera systems up, and somebody spray painted the front of my house. They broke F you on the porch and they spray painted the door. Since then, I haven't heard much from the police about the incident. I believe they closed it, but we've increased our security. We've put more security cameras and we walked a little bit differently than we used to. It's unfortunate, but it is where it is, and I'm glad that nobody was harmed. I'm glad that there hasn't been any repeated offense, but more importantly, I have to make sure that I'm protecting myself and those around me.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Thank you for sharing that. The good thing is that that might be a joke for somebody who is trying to become a security for representative. So uh that's a different thing. We are thank you. Let's let's look at the good side of things. Uh, if you are if you're here today, uh please let us know that you're here. Uh share your name, where you're joining us from. If you have a question for our United States representative Oye, or whatever, please uh let us know. Our other one still related to uh the happenings that you've experienced during politics is this that I saw. The house of DC Shadow Representative Oye or whatever was struck by gunfire in Southeast. How was that experience and any lessons learned from that that can prevent that in the future?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Yeah, yeah. Um, I think you you phrased it right, but I want everyone to know it was my house that got shot, not me that got shot. So a few years ago, um I came home and my house is shot into, and this is southeast DC, so I guess the cops weren't there anymore. Um, the people in the community, they seemed that this is normal, so there wasn't that big gathering outside. And obviously I wasn't a target, I wasn't home at that point. But either way, cops came and left, but the streets were still talking. So I asked some of the young people around the block, like, what happened? Why, why did why this why was there shooting? And from what they told me, it was basically they were outside playing music all day long. Normally they were playing music day in, day out, playing music day and day out, almost creating like street block parties. And one day somebody had enough a shot at them. Now, thankfully, nobody was harmed, but I started asking these people, like, what keep you guys outside all day, all night? Not blaming them, but like, why are you guys doing this? And basically, some of these brothers and sisters they couldn't get the job they wanted to get, they couldn't work where they wanted to work, or they couldn't live where they wanted to live, so they're just out there just hanging. And I asked them, What keeps you what why? And they said they're criminal records, you know, they the things that they've done in the past prevents them from doing things that they want to do in the future. And I asked them, if I were to remove your criminal record, what would you do? They will live where they want to live, they'll work, they'll get that job they want, they won't be outside no one playing music. So I said, let me find your program that can uh get get rid of the uh your criminal record. And I just couldn't find a program that they would go to. So rather than complaining about what's not available, we created something called the Aspong Clinic. Now we we worked with a community organization, we got a free lawyer, and we said, hey, maybe if 10, 15 people will show up, this will be positive. So now the news found out. And the news put it on, they put us on the news and interviewed me, and we went from having 25 signed ups to having 200 signups. We're like, okay, we need to change locations. So we begged to church, please let us in. And they're like, all right, cool, you can you can use our space. And long story short, about 100 people showed up. And I thought it was great. I thought it was gonna be a one-off event. I thought I did my job. And then the next morning, a bunch of guys called me up. You need to remind me, you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's the next one? So, yeah, yeah. So we started doing it again and again and again. And it was every three months we had an exponential clinic. And long story short, we not only helped people get their lives together, but we also taught them to advocate for themselves. So if they saw a law they didn't like or they thought that the process wasn't uh strong enough, I told them to go to the council members. I told them to go to the mayor. I told them that this is your job now. And they did just that. And now today, the laws, three years later, these laws are now a lot more beneficial to these folks because they got involved. And I'm really proud of this moment because I could have just said, Well was me, my house got shot. But I turned it into an opportunity for folks to empower themselves. So now they can not be in the in a in a in a in a gunfight because someone's mad at them for being outside. Now they can get the jobs that they want. And not only them, but the people that come behind them that are now being uh released from prison or are now getting their lives on track. Now the laws are even more beneficial to them based off of those people that we met three years ago that decided to change their lives for the better. So I'm really proud of that, not because anything that I did, but really about how I motivated folks to do things on their own end.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Good, good. Well, I thank you for sharing that because it seems like things have gotten better in terms of uh people who experienced that and went to jail and they they come back, they can get a job. Now, I think uh I think the government that private learns that, well, it's actually better to just let these people, people that want to walk, to walk. It's better to not make them be on the street because then there's higher temptation of doing something they're not supposed to do if they stay on the street. That's that makes no sense. But then there's something that I still don't understand in America that I've experienced is the the aspect of the gun control. And when you when you talk to people, when you engage people, uh I want to understand the popular arguments that people have against gun control in terms of well, uh, people who shouldn't have fire, why why should they have it? And what what are the things, what are the fears that people have against gun control?

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Well, um I'll be quite frank. You know, when people like me and you have guns, then they want to institute gun control. But when people that don't look like us in certain areas, then they believe in their first or second amendment rights. So there is a lot a lot of these conversations are rooted in uh in areas that aren't always discussed as freely. Number two, it also talks about the role of money in politics. The NRA, the National Rifle Associations, puts millions, if not billions, of dollars behind campaigns and politicians. And this is not free money. There's uh there's no such thing as a free lunch in politics. So when they put money behind these candidates and they win, or they put money behind certain Congress members, they know that they'll make sure that there'll be no semblance of gun control. And when there's a tragedy, they'll just do marginal work and not necessarily do things that will make our community safe. There's an argument out there that guns don't kill people. People do. And I guess there that's that's the truth. But if somebody has a knife and somebody has an AR-15, there's a lot more damage that a person can do with AR-15 than they can with a knife. And not uh not addressing that is is not being realistic. But with that said, like I said, there's folks, there's Congress members, there's governors that won't move an inch towards gun control regardless of how many kids are shot, regardless of how many school shootings, regardless of how many domestic violence situations turn violent because of money in politics. So in my race, we turned on all corporate PAC money. We made sure that our vote is unbought, that we know who we can fight for, we know who we can fight, and we don't need permission from a corporate industry that doesn't have our best interests in mind. But to be honest, we have a gun problem in this country. We have a gun crisis in this country, and this there's not enough communities that make these guns internally that we can say that it's an American-driven problem. We are getting guns from other countries into these communities from certain areas into mostly black neighborhoods, and it's not for our betterment. So I do believe we need to address our gun control our gun crisis because taking too many kids away, whether through death or through prison. They should this shouldn't be happening in 2026.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Wow, wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Uh that I mean there has to be a way to to make that better and and to make a safer environment for everybody. One of the things that I also want to touch is the news again. The DC Shadow Congressman Oye or has been hospitalized after what's been called the major car crash. Sure. What was that experience about and how what would you suggest to make the road safer and prevent such experience?

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, I was driving in my little car. Uh I was going just straight ahead. And long story short, a uh Virginia tagged Chevy UConn, which is like the one of the biggest cars there is, yeah, it cut in front of me and caused a hidden run car wreck. So the car drove off, but I was still there. I was concussed, I was taken, I got out of the car, but I was taken to a nearby hospital, and I got to experience uh Southeast DC healthcare. It was something that I wouldn't recommend to other people. That hospital has since been closed down, and um, you know, it's just that. Now we need to make our our roads safer, but right now, DC, the way they make their roads safer is by signing, getting tickets. That's more reactive, not proactive. Because if I lost my life that day, I don't care what happens to that drive, whether they go to Jail where they face a hefty fine. I need to prevent my death versus penalize someone for killing me. And I think we need more speed bumps. I think we need more rumble rumble uh stickers. We need to do other things just to prevent bad things like this from happening. And you know, I went through physical therapy. I just stopped short because of work, things like that. So it really shows the the difference in certain communities. You know, in my neighborhood, we live 22 years less than our friends in Georgetown, and we're about eight miles apart. That's a 22-year difference. A lot of that's because of policy violence, a lot of that is because of our healthcare disparities, but a lot of that is because of our traffic violence and lack of safety in in Southeast DC. Cars are driving too fast, they collide too often, and it kills people and it harms communities.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Wow, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. If you're here today, please let us know you're here. If you have questions for our guest, United States Representative, or you who lever, please put your questions in the chat. There's so many things that we can still talk about. One of the things that is the fact that you are doing something in Nigerian American and also still trying to reach out to the community and see how you can get these things better. But if you can look back as to your experience, what would what would you say is the biggest push that you've made in terms of getting things done? What what would you say in five years say, Oh, I was glad we we actually did that, and that you can always talk about anywhere you go. What would you say that is?

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Oh, there is too many to to mention, but I'll say this getting more people to run for office, or getting more people to become business owners, getting more young people to become pharmacists and scientists, I lump them all as my greatest accomplishments. Because if you can get someone to dream bigger, take that risk and take that jump and succeed, you would change their family structure forever. When we're talking about working class DC residents who have been generationally in this city, but now there's someone, there's a child that's going to become a pharmacist or a doctor, now their parents are taken care of. Now their grandparents are taken care of. When one good person goes from, I don't know if I could ever run from office to now being an elected official who is thriving, that changes their entire community because now they're seeing things that maybe I wouldn't see. When you get a business owner to go from an expensive hobby to now doing business with the government, getting funding to do such, that changes who they can reach and how they can do business with folks. I helped the child the um the child legacy theater. They were about to lose $50,000. We helped them get that money back. Now they're interacting with more kids, keep them off the streets, getting them pipelined into careers, building their confidence, building their speaking abilities. These things matter. And when one person can do one thing for one person and see how they can do it, and see where they can go, see how they can inspire the next person, that's how we rebuild our communities from the grassroots up. So I'm really my biggest achievement is seeing other people achieve their dreams. That's where I want my legacy to be.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Wow, that's that's a very cool thing to say. Uh helping people to achieve the things that they want to achieve. That's that's really good. But let's get a little bit into the specifics uh point of your campaign. Uh uh, you plan to bring 40,000 jobs for DC residents. Is there any strategy that you're thinking about to make that possible?

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Yeah, industry attraction. Right now, DC is suffering because we rely too heavily on the federal government. We assume that these jobs are always going to be here. We assume that tourism will always be attracted in this direction, and our economy will be able to be sustained by being the seat of the government. Trump exposed that. Trump and his doge cuts cut 20,000 jobs for DC residents, and many of them are either underemployed or still unemployed less than two years after these uh these doge cuts. So we're seeing the freefall of our tax dollars and opportunities. And these jobs are not just how we pay our rent, it's also our sense of purpose, right? People who work for the government are not doing it to become millionaires, they're doing it because they have a specific skill set, they want to be in DC, they believe they can serve in this role. Maybe there's good benefits. But taking that away without warning has really exposed the district as being over reliant. So bringing industries like international development, working on bringing a real grassroots approach to boosting our economy and getting our jobs back, will not only fuel those specific jobs, but we'll get our coffee shops back, we'll get our restaurants back, create a real trickle up approach rather than giving billionaires corporate tax cuts to help hopefully invest back in the district. I believe that's not only a way to stimulate our economy, but also pipeline using UDC being tuition-free, pipeline young people and folks that want to get into a new career or re-enter the workforce into the jobs that we need uh for tomorrow. So they're all kind of work together, even though they sound like separate um uh campaign goals. They all work together to rebuild our district, to be independent and also be self-sustaining. I mean, we have every embassy in the world in DC. We have so much diversity in DC. We have so many people that lost their jobs from USAID in the State Department. We need to attract something that'll galanize all of that.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Something came to my mind in terms of pushing policies forward, and you're on one side and you have your political friends that are on the other side in terms of believing things should be done differently. So for you when you get together to talk about policy, when you get together to push policy forward, how do you interact with your colleagues that believe things should be done differently? Maybe in the same party or a different party. How do you how do you get that done?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

The way you work to with people is by starting where you put where you agree. You know, you don't start with I want this, you want this. We start with where we agree and try to navigate that ramp together. And sometimes people may want something different. Well, sometimes people want the same thing, but they want it in a different way, and then you show which way makes makes most sense. So right now in DC, we are having a teen takeover situation where young people are in the streets in the middle of the and like all throughout the night. And a lot of the elected officials and a lot of people in DC are pushing for a teen curfew. They just want the the young people gone, they want to give police more tools to kind of disperse these kids. But the problem is, if you look at the data, curfews don't work if they're not from the parent. The government cannot create a curfew and make it positive. It can't, it won't work because yes, you may push young people from this place and out of there, but young people are gonna end up somewhere else, so you're not really creating a solution. I know a lot of adults, a lot of parents, a lot of people are concerned with this teen takeover crisis. The issue is that they don't want kids out at 11 and 12 o'clock. Now, how we get there is a little bit different. The data shows if you keep young people engaged from 3 to 10, they're gonna be too tired to go out at 11. If they're working, if they're having an activity, if they're doing an app school program, they are less likely to be outside at 11 o'clock. Now, we both want young people to be in home at 11 o'clock midnight. But if there's one way that's popular that does not work, then you guys can get back to what you agree on and say, try this out. And if they see what we try out and it works, maybe they'll be more likely to say, All right, we're gonna go back and pivot this direction. And but when you start with what you guys disagree on, then you're just gonna be fighting each other. If you start with what you guys agree on, then hopefully there will be an opportunity for us to come on the same page. Well, we'll try it your way for a little bit when you see it doesn't work again because the data shows not gonna work, and we try a little bit of this, then I say, you know what, let's more let's maybe we were wrong, let's invest in this and do it that way. But we can't do it by demonizing people, you can't do it by throwing political shots at people, you can't do it by ignoring people. You gotta work together, you gotta talk it out, you gotta disagree on a few things, I try out a few things, and then hopefully we all get on the same page and it won't be too late.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Wow, wow, thank you. Thank you so much. You're wrapping up uh just a couple of minutes more. One of the things that actually also jumped out at me is because I'm uh Nigerian, you're I'm Nigerian American, you're a Nigerian American that we have in common. That means that immigration is part of our story, right? And I just want to ask you what are your thoughts on immigration based on the fact that you're a son of immigrants, right? How does that connect to you and what would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Yeah, so our immigration policy, as you can imagine, is more personal for me than it is for other people. You know, my mom and dad they catered for education by a plane, they were um granted amnesty by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, and that's where they were able to keep their citizenship. And nowadays, we're seeing a Republican Party openly antagonizing the immigrant community. We see a Democratic Party that's not standing up enough. I mean, they say the right words, but they do nothing to protect people at this critical point when they're being targeted. And at a time where ICE came to DC and they grabbing people based off what they look like, grabbing people regardless of their citizenship status, and just straight up kidnapping folks, we're not seeing DC government fight back much at all. So, what we could have done was increase the immigration legal fund that'll provide attorneys for non-citizens, right? Because when I did my town hall, I brought attorneys around. The community didn't even care about what I had to say. They said, just bring me the lawyer. Like, I don't care what you have to say, you say great things, go up, get out the way. And I think that taught me like, hey, like, folks need services. Even if they know the law one, two, and three, they still want that attorney to say, that's right, that's right, that's right. Because when it comes to immigration, nobody wants to file the papers wrong. Nobody wants to go to court and have something left behind. They want that person to give them their assurance that you're doing it the right way because immigration, especially today's time, is extremely serious. We have to make sure there's equity in our visa program. A few years ago, one of my interns was born and raised in Nigeria, had a visa. He told me that his visa runs out every two years, whilst his Indian um his Indian classmates ran out every four or five years. What that means is that he has to go back to the country every two years, spend that money, put himself in danger, put himself all these things just because one country was deemed to be willing to have a five years and another country was two years. That's not fair. Now, in a time right now where folks are extremely concerned about leaving the country and coming back, we should have a lot more equity and parity. We need to have jobs in DC that are willing to sponsor visas and whatnot because that's very attractive for someone who's coming to this country that wants to stay here. They shouldn't have the entire awareness shoulders on their back. These employers should who are interested in this talent pool should be willing to invest and keep them here and keep them comfortable. Those are easy things we can do. DC, we should have a language services. Right now, the government's blocking a $17 million investment for folks who speak English as a second language to understand government resources. That is an investment that can have someone go to the hospital early enough, can seek law enforcement support early enough, seek services at schools at their preferred language. Now, just because somebody speaks English as a second language doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow them to get information in their preferred language. They'll be able to ask a question that may escape them if it wasn't in the preferred language. And right now we're spending billions of dollars extra because our government is not efficient. This helps increase our efficiency. And these are things we can do right now. We can't change the president right now, but we can invest in those who come here in life who are trying to make a better way, pay taxes, pay social security, all these things. We do they deserve a government that reflects their comfort. And that's something that I want to do as a council member.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Wow, wow, thank you. Thank you for sure. So you mentioned something just now, uh, money, expenditure, which makes me think about economy. Sure. Yeah, which is like the big picture now. Uh it's the way money is being spent and things like that. So if you want to think about the way that you recommend things to change in terms of the economy, to make the economy better, uh looking at groceries, for example, the gas and things like that, what would what would you be able to recommend?

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Well, the economy oftentimes is based off the stock, right? That's not the true markets of the economy because if the rich are getting richer and everybody else is you know stagnant, then it's not really showing the healthiest economy. Right now, DC, as I mentioned before, has the highest unemployment rate, 7%. My neighbors upwards of 20% unemployed. It doesn't matter how cheap we make gas if people have no income. It doesn't matter how cheap we make housing if people have no income. It doesn't matter how much we do to make life a little bit easier if people don't have an income. Replacing people's income by giving them real dignified jobs and creating it, bringing in industries that can hire people at the at that high clip that they used to used to be making is how we make things better. But we do have to bring down the cost of housing. Housing is one of the biggest expenses in DC. We have corporate equity, private equity firms buying up my block, putting nicer floors, and selling a house that should cost $200,000 to $500,060,000. We should be having this happening in DC. It displaces native Washingtonians, it pushes people who may otherwise want to be in DC to Maryland or Virginia, and it's not good for our economy. But we do need to bring the price of groceries down. Whether it's having more farmers' markets and making sure people have access to sell there, whether it's bringing alternative business ideas so we can have more shared spaces to bring the cost down, but also investing in our local entrepreneurs. These things can happen. And if we recycle our money through each other more often than we do right now, we'll have better outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

Wow. Recycling and having better outcomes. Thank you for joining us Goldie's Hubber on Instagram. Thank you for joining us. If you're here, you still have last-minute question, introduce yourself and ask a question. One of the things I want to mention is the fact that you the position that you have currently is called United States Representative Position, but it's shadowed. And I think I saw in one of your posts that you preferred to be called the unseated position.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

But what why the preference for the change?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Right, because people call it shadow representative, and oftentimes people in my position who in this role felt that it was demeaning, it was pejorative. You know, the ballot says U.S. representative, and calling it shadow sometimes diminished that that that role that we have. Now, when I first became the representative, I took I took a really hard stance on that. I made sure that people either called me unseated or just US representative, because that was on the on the title. But as I got into this role, I I realized that it didn't really matter to me much anymore because my work did the talking, right? When you help returning citizens get their records cleared, when you save seniors from being displaced, when you're doing hundreds, if not thousands, of experiments with young people getting them to become scientists, when you're helping nonprofits get the funding that they were promised but didn't get, it didn't matter what people called me. I I earned that respect. And when when people felt disrespected by the term shadow, I earned it then some of the work that I was doing. And being an elected pharmacist in DC, I was able to have conversations with the mayor and educate her on healthcare. So it got to the point where people stop even saying shadow rubber, even rubber. I was just I just became oh yeah, because all the all the value was brought to DC. So but but to answer your question directly, it's more of unseated representative because we're not seated by Congress than it is shadow, because shadow means that you're almost not real. The work that I've done is very real. Who I am is very real, and the impact that we have in DC is palpable. So maybe the future representative will kind of continue pushing back as I did before, but that was the reason behind it. But at the end of this day, people can call whatever they want because the work has been speaking for itself for five, six years.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Good, good. Thank you so much. My last question is now you have election coming up June 16th, yeah, primaries. DC council at large, uh, eventually, uh, it's gonna be the main election. So, what do you want to say about that? Uh, what do you need from people for support and how can people engage with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Absolutely, absolutely. Our elections on June 16th. We have mailing ballots coming out on May 11th through 15th. So people can actually vote from home. We have a new program called Ranked Choice Voting, which means you can rank your uh your candidates because the idea is that we want more than 50% of the voters to choose the next council member. Currently, whoever wins plus one gets all the vote, I mean gets the election. And what we've seen is that candidates don't bother going to certain communities, they just know where the numbers are gonna come from and try to drive that out. Ant2's voting forces candidates to touch the entire district because you can't leave any stone unturned. But I need you guys' help. If you live in DC, please consider voting for me. You know, we are six years into the making, but we're really trying to change the next 10, 15, 20 years of DC. You can follow me on social media, R-E-P-O-Y-E-DC, rep OE D C. My website is vote number fouroy.com. You can donate. We do public matching, so you can donate up to $100. If you live in DC, that donation is multiplied times six becomes six hundred dollars. If you don't live in DC, your donation is not going to be matched, but it's still gonna make a big difference. So please donate. Please get your friends in DC to donate, but more importantly, keep these conversations alive. I've been elected seven times in the city that can't not pronounce my name. You know, oh yeah, well, it was it's easy here, but not easy everywhere. So we have to go that much harder to make sure that people are voting for that name because you know, our name does stand out. We need also the support to stand out as well. We're doing very well. We got 23 endorsements leading the field combined, but most importantly, we need to make sure individual people endorse us, passing off to their friends, letting them know hey, we heard this guy from OEA, he sounds really good. You need to check him out. That makes the hugest difference in this campaign. That's part of the reason why we're in such a good position.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

Good, good. Thank you so much. Uh, this is gonna be the end. Uh, thank you, United States Representative Oyo Wallera, for your time. Really appreciate your knowledge, your experience. I've learned a lot. Uh, there's certain things that I did not see from outside now that you on the street, I kind of understand, and I hope our viewers have also learned something. So if you like this, comment, share, like, subscribe so that we can reach more people. And please, uh, if you wish and you understand the mission of United States representing Oyoalawa, uh, please reach out to him, support him the way you can. And it's gonna be the end. Thank you so much. All right. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

Again.