My alleged suspension is laughable —Kekemeke

Hon. Isaac Kekemeke, the embattled chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State in this interview with HAKEEM GBADAMOSI, speaks on the crisis rocking the party in the state, his suspension and way out of the crisis.

 

What position do you hold in the APC?

I am the chairman of APC in Ondo State, as a matter of fact I’m the only elected officer of the party in the state, there was only a congress and that congress elected me and I defeated my incumbent deputy but because everybody wanted to build, I agreed that he should become my deputy even after he lost to me and then we put all the other structures together.

 

Have you not been suspended from that position?

Well, it is ironic and laughable, this is so because if you recall immediately after my election, I decided that all the interest groups must be put together and we met nothing on the ground, it was a new party. I was the first chairman elected and some of the people I defeated were never happy with me, they were also not happy with the way I ran the party because we were going to run the party differently to make it a winnable platform to make sure that elections were the focus and quite a number of people didn’t think so, they thought that a party could serve as a means of livelihood, a means of meeting their basic needs, I didn’t think so I also didn’t think that it was right for us to go cap in hand begging all the time to ask for money and that if we were going to get any support at all, it should be for the work of the party and to make sure that we created a credible platform. So there were a number of times they were not happy that money wasn’t available for sharing so this people were tempted, not once or twice, to remove me. As a journalist in this state, you will remember that at a time the PRO said he had removed me and at another time, an ex official member then who is now a commissioner said he had also declared himself chairman, they had always done this, so I think this is one of those forms and I’m sure they will soon get to know

 

What about the claim that there is a letter from the national chairman proclaiming Engineer Ade Adetimehin as the chairman?

Well, I also saw the letter on social media, I have referred to that letter on many occasions and in many fora as the Black Market letter, the letter speaks for itself, I was excited when I read the letter because before the letter came, they had said I had been removed. They had been saying that Adetimehin was substantive chairman and then suddenly a letter came that said no, you are not chairman, you are acting chairman, for me, if they were sober people, they would look critically at that letter and say, wow, all the while you have been claiming that you are chairman, you were not chairman. So I laughed because the letter said the chairman had approved pending the time the Nation Working Committee would  meet, I said so the National Working Committee of the party and the National Executive committee of the party to which I belong, have not even met and I read through and it said pending the time the state chairman or the National Working Committed would on the complaints against the state chairman. So there is a state chairman, and thirdly and most fundamentally, there is nowhere in the provisions of the APC Constitution 2014 as amended where power is donated to the national chairman to act as a sole authority for removing and appointing officers for the party, so it is black market and even on the face of it, doesn’t add up. So I didn’t think it was worth celebrating, I heard they celebrated, of course people celebrate everything, there are people who would celebrate everything so there is nothing on the face of that letter to celebrate and then fourthly, even the National Working Committee and the National Executive can only act as an appellate body over complaints from the state through the zones, so it is black market. I’m told that the national chairman, when questioned, said that I didn’t accord him enough respect when he came to Ondo State and that I didn’t provide a vehicle to take him to the venue of his meeting, so he had to board a truck. I didn’t know about that I didn’t know he was so angry with me, I didn’t know of his coming, I had no notice of his coming and I will ordinarily show courtesy to our national chairman, because apart from the fact that he is the national chairman, he is an old man and I have every reason to respect him.

 

If you are the chairman, why are you not in the party secretariat?

Well, you will recall that on one or two other occasions, people had gone into that secretariat and illegally occupied it and we had flushed them out. That was when there was serious job to be done; there were elections coming up and I needed to deliver so we flushed them out and did what we had to do, there is a government now both at the national and at state level. I think it’s better for me to stay away than go there, provoke a fight or a quarrel and get limbs, heads and legs broken.  I mean what do I need it for? That happened in Bayelsa and somebody was killed, would I like to do that? Two, I have a second address. Most of the people that go to that secretariat probably don’t have anywhere to go, I started the party in my chambers here is my house, I could do some of those things from wherever I like, so I didn’t want my name to be dragged into getting people injured or shot. I’m a lawyer in any case; you don’t expect me to do what some people will do.

 

Who attends national meetings?

I have been attending national meetings until the last one when they were cooking this Black Market letter but I can tell you that Adetimehin was not allowed to attend.

 

There are allegations that you didn’t work for the party during the election but for AD, what do you have to say about this?

That’s one of the funny traits in this party that we try to correct overtime. When you talk about a party’s victory, there is preliminary work done; most of the time work done to make sure that you plant the party, you put the party on the ground, you build the structures of the party, you expand the party, elections are not won on election day, you put structures for the party so, who did it? Who put up all the structures? Who built the party? The man didn’t work for the party. Who is AD? Who supplied all the agents who supplied all the voters registered, making copies for every units to enable them to monitor? Who gave that coordinating.  I’m sure that the people in my unit, in my ward, in my local government won’t say it. I haven’t heard anyone say that to me, it’s insanity for anyone to say that the party that I laboured alongside with others to build, the party that I worked for, for two weeks after my wife’s death to the chagrin and sometimes annoyance of so many other people and some funny people would say that I worked for AD, I didn’t work for AD. If I want to work for AD I would work for AD, who will flog me? Nobody will do, who is there? I don’t destroy what I build, they don’t understand and when they say it aloud, because in this APC there are some sections of the party who think that except they exclude people who are better than them, people who are superior to them intellectually and otherwise, people who are experienced, people who are politically better than them, they can’t benefit, they don’t understand and according to Asiwaju [Tinubu], in political calculus, you don’t exclude  you include and when they say it about other people, I have always answered them and If I had allowed this attitude to prevail, we wouldn’t have a party because during the National Assembly elections, they wrote petitions against my deputy, Mr Adetimehin, that he collected money from the PDP candidate and from the SDP candidate and ordered his followers to vote for PDP in the Senatorial elections and to vote for SDP in House of Representatives elections, black and white signed by over a one hundred people and when it was given to me, what did I do, I just sent it to him to note and move on because we had better things to do, I believed it but I didn’t think it was necessary for me to cause a roar. What was important for me was for us to move ahead and win the elections, I had one singular vision and I told them, it was to make APC a politically prosperous party and that we did with the help of God and with the support of the people so that is me different from them.  I had given, for about ten months, I decided that it was nice not to give the impression that there was any problem in the party, so I stayed away but we can’t allow the party that we laboured so hard to build to die, so we have started to put the people together, telling them that we needed to work again so hard before the 2019 elections and that it is early to bed early to rise, we have started doing that. I have finished my task, the only thing that I resist is illegality and some power show.