Chairman of the Conscience Forum of the All progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Honourable Moshood Adegoke Salvador, said the multiple ward congresses held by various factions of the party in the state were caused by the absence of the national leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu who, at the time of the congress, was in the United Kingdom. The former member of the House of Representatives and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defector spoke to SUBAIR MOHAMMED on what he called lack of internal democracy in the Lagos APC, hijack of the party’s structure and more.
Considering the crises trailing the local government election and the ward congresses of the APC, would you not say that what made you leave the PDP in 2018 is happening again in the APC?
The reason I left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was because of failure of the party’s leadership. They were not interested in mobilising and winning election. And as the state chairman of the Lagos PDP, I was determined and working hard to mobilise the party but I was discouraged.
My campaign and mobilisation drives were interrupted by a fight which led to a court case. This was when I thought to myself, ‘why should I stay in a party and be looking at the people fighting and killing each other?’ I felt the best thing for me at the time was to leave the party to douse the tension and that was how I left the PDP.
And you left with a good number of your followers…
Yes, I led over 300,000 of my followers to join the APC. There is a video of our movement from the PDP to the APC. My followers are not the type of people to be ignored. I cannot just sit down and be taking care of myself without any consideration for their needs. No, things are not done that way. I am a grassroots politician and that is why I am in the APC. My group within the APC, the Conscience Forum, has over 300,000 members in Lagos alone.
You left your former party because its leaders, according to you, were not prepared to win elections. But with the APC breaking into factions, coupled with the internal wrangling and the frictions that characterised its July 31 ward congress, what do you think are the chances of the party in subsequent elections?
APC has been winning elections therefore it can’t be compared with my former party. But with what happened in the last local government election and ward congresses, it is obvious that there is injustice in the party and acrimony among members and that is a threat to internal democracy. There are issues which we need to address in the party.
What are these issues that led to multiple congresses being held by different factions of the APC on July 31?
I suspect it was because of the absence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. That wouldn’t have happened were Asiwaju to be around because he knows how to appease all aggrieved parties and make things go smoothly. But some people who thought they could drag everything into their folds took advantage of his absence. The APC national body decided that the party should go consensus and we agreed because it is in the party’s constitution. Section 20 of the party’s constitution clearly states how consensus decision should be taken. It says stakeholders should decide and it went ahead to define who these stakeholders are.
How can we talk about stakeholders in the APC without reckoning with Honourable Moshood Salvador, somebody that has such huge followership? I have a letter here written to me by the state chairman of the party, Honourable Tunde Balogun, confirming my status as a financial member of the party. If the state chairman could put pen to paper and do that, how could some unknown people at the middle level in the party think they could sideline me by putting their people in charge of the party affairs because of election and exclude my faction? What is the meaning of that? They have refused to do the right thing. They have refused to respect the constitution, so, this is what they will be getting. Perhaps we need to remind them that every full stop and coma in the constitution has meaning and must be respected.
The preamble of the constitution guarantees equal opportunities for all, peaceful coexistence, respect and understanding, eliminating all forms of discrimination and social injustices. All they are doing in Lagos State contradict the constitution of the APC. The objective of the party is to uphold internal democracy at all levels of its organs.
To cooperate with all political organisations like the Conscience Forum, whose aims and objectives are in harmony with those of the party, the party must resist all forms of oppression and exploitation of the people. The constitution, in Section 9:2, also states that members of the party shall be obliged to affirm these aims and objectives. Despite these, some people believe they can do anything they like with the party. They opted for a secret ward congress and we did our congress too because we bought forms with receipts to show for it. We have submitted the result of our congress to the national body.
On the next move, we have leadership in the party and I am sure they know the right thing to do. They deliberately sidelined and frustrated all our efforts despite knowing our capacity and capability. The party leaders should not sleep and allow the party to disintegrate. It is left to the party to do what is right.
Who are those people you allege are frustrating your efforts in the party?
They cut across. They call themselves Justice Forum and Mandate Group. They are claiming ownership of the party, forgetting that APC is no more a state or local government party that can belong to an individual. This is why we are losing credibility. The leadership needs to diagnose the problems of the party in Lagos State. It should not be left to some people. Imagine, a member of Conscience Forum wanted to contest for the councillorship position in the last local government election but they said we should go and beg a certain individual before he could contest. This is undemocratic.
There is no democracy in Lagos APC and that cannot be tolerated. If you want peaceful election and transition, there are ways of achieving it, and sidelining the people is not one of them. There can never be a consensus if out of 20 interests or stakeholders, one of them disagrees. Consensus means for all to agree. Mere seeing some groups having their own congresses shows that they don’t agree with what you are doing. The leadership in Abuja should wake up and stand firm to ensure that the right thing is done because Lagos is so important. APC is not a state party; it is a national party with national leaders.
Have you lost confidence in the party leaders in the state to proffer solution to the crisis rocking the party?
If leaders are here, would there have been any crisis in the first instance? I supervised the local council primaries in Lagos Mainland Local Government and did some other services for the party but at the end of the exercise, the results were changed. The so-called leaders of the party in the state rewrote all the results in their favour. With this trend, if one is not careful, they will spoil my name. I had to take all the councillorship aspirants to a hotel and to the office of the state chairman at Acme to see things for themselves. That was how I cleared my name from the mess. I am not part of the rubbish they do in the state. How can the state leadership be having anointed candidates? What about other candidates? The party did not belong to one person or group; it belongs to all. Therefore, we will battle it out.
The leaders are responsible for the name substitution and crisis in the party. The worst case is Amuwo-Odofin LCDA where Dipo Olorunrinnu won and was declared winner of the election. He was presented with the party’s flag and was even given the names of his councillors but surprisingly, they changed everything. This cannot continue. They need to respect everybody. If we keep quiet, it is not that we are stupid but when it gets to a certain level, you kick and don’t care what happens thereafter.
Can you imagine someone that couldn’t win a councillorship mandate in Mushin Local Government bragging and telling people all sorts of nonsense about me? When I was chairman of a House of Representatives committee, he was nobody. There is definition of caucus and leadership but they will not call you for a meeting. They decide whatever goes within the party under their beds. It is not done. They run the party as if they are running a local government. We have political parties whose tentacles do not go beyond the local government level. They can do whatever they want because they don’t have national spread and they don’t report to any national body but APC cannot operate in such a manner.
How do you think these challenges can be overcome ahead of 2023?
I have been in politics for a very long time. What is happening in the party is not something that is far-fetched; it is just for you to do the right thing and everything will fall into place and everybody will smile. Let me give you an example of the 2014 National Conference where I was a delegate. As soon as we got to the conference, it was furore. The atmosphere was tumultuous but after spending some time together and it was time to go, we didn’t want to leave ourselves and we started holding each other. That is how fast a nation can change. A nation can get transformed within the snap of a finger. All we need to do is to put people that are thirsty for good leadership in place.
What is your rating of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration on security?
You are wasting your time if you want to start rating the president, ministers, governors and others. Instead, let us rate ourselves. We know what is good and what is bad. Let us do the right things and make sure we get the right things out of them.
These people are human beings. You cannot afford to be afraid of reporting what you suspect to be dangerous and keep shouting President Buhari who is in Abuja; you have to do the needful by reporting what you have seen.
Security is for all and not for one man. I agree with the people for throwing all blames and accusations at the government but at the same time, we have to sit down and look at ourselves. We should think of what we can do to assist the police and help the community. If our leaders fail us, it doesn’t mean we should fail ourselves. We don’t get all we want from God.
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