Interview

Concensus ceases to exist where one disagrees —Fatola

Samson Fatola, an aspirant to the Oyo State House of Assembly under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), speaks with ADEOLA OTEMADE on the consensus arrangement of the party among other issues.

Can you share with us your journey into politics?

I started my political journey back from Accord Party that was in 2013, and I left Accord Party due to one issue or the other, and it had to do with imposition of candidate back then and when it could not be resolved, I had to part ways with accord, I had to sought my political destiny elsewhere where I contested for the House of Representative in 2015 and I lost the election. Ever since then, I went into recess, to re-access my situation. I rested for a while, from 2015 to 2019. It was until 2020 that I decided to join PDP, and that was majorly due to the performance of our Governor, SeyiMakinde who is doing extremely well in terms of governance and delivery democratic dividends, that kind of inspired me, apart from that, being a young man in the saddles of affairs in Oyo State, I thought there is a change he will bring about to so many things. So I joined the party.

Do you think this platform will help you achieve your ambition?

This is where I have decided to pitch my tent, and I am not planning to go elsewhere. Before I joined PDP, I made a lot of consultation, and I made it a resolve that I would not go elsewhere, this is where I am going to realise my ambition, and PDP being a national party would give me the platform to achieve my dream, PDP doesn’t belong to anybody and I believe my ambition is going to be realised under this platform.

What do you feel about the consensus arrangement on-going in the party?

This is my personal opinion on the consensus arrangement thing. There is nothing wrong with consensus arrangement if all parties agree to it. If everybody consents to that idea, for you to have a consensus arrangement, it has to be 100 per cent, not 99.9 per cent, whereby you have like 10, 15 or 20 aspirants, jostling for a ticket, and you now say let there be a consensus arrangement, they all must agree to that. Where one disagrees, the consensus cease to exist, then the next thing is to throw it open, go into primary. There is nothing wrong with consensus arrangement; it now depends on how it is being projected, how it is being tabled.

Would it be safe to say this discord on-going in the party is as a result of candidature imposition?

You can give it your own definition it has a different interpretation, imposition, consensus, affirmation and all that. All what they are hearing about PDP, particularly my own Local Government, are all hear say, the governor said this, the governor said this, the governor said that. You know the governor is a figure, he is an authority. Anything he says becomes an order, and we have found out that people are acting under his guise, to confuse the members of the party, because when you say the governor said this, who wants to object the governor, who wants to disagree with him. People are now acting under that disguise and this is tarnishing the image of our governor, and people are seeing the governor as someone that is not democratic and let us bear in mind that the governor is a product of democracy. He is a young democrat; people are now going about in their own personal or selfish interest, saying the governor is returning a particular candidate to run another term. Is that democratic? No! Even if the governor is going to do that, he would call everybody and make sure we would agree it. There was a time he had a meeting with everybody, and he did say in as much as he would want to have 80-85 per cent of consensus arrangement in some of these local government, which I believed he has achieved. Now this is the caveat; where consensus arrangement could not be reached, let there be primary. He said that openly, and we did tell him our mind we said, our leaders never called us to any meeting and he pleaded. He then said your leaders will call you. He said it is not too late to reach a consensus arrangement as at the last meeting. He said it is not too late to reach a consensus arrangement, we would try, but we held on to what he said, where consensus arrangement could not be reached, let there be primaries. But the aspirant failed to agree, nobody is ready to step down for another person, and all of a sudden, we heard from nowhere, the governor said this, the governor said that, but the governor never said anything. Our resolve is for PDP to win, we must win, and we are in power.

Regardless of whoever emerges?

Our resolve is to win; PDP must win, regardless of whoever emerges. We want to win the election, we don’t want to lose to the opposition party, being in power is good, being in power is sweet. We are not ready to release that power to APC, but the activities of our leaders, their actions, if care is not taken; will spell doom for the party. That’s why we have decided to salvage this party from going into oblivion, crises. The governor has done very well, never in the history of Oyo State have we had it this good, but some people are trying to destroy the good works of the governor, by giving his works bad coloration.

If this is happening in-house, don’t you think it has the influences of the opposition party?

There could be, right now, the APC are rejoicing in their cocoon, our crises is their own joy, and by the grace of God, it would be resolved, it just a matter of time, this on-going discord would not destroy our party.

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