Ekiti primary: APC must play safe to avoid Zamfara-type scenario —Adeyeye

Dayo Adeyeye, former Minister of State for Works, ex-spokesperson of the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, currently the national chairman of South West Agenda for Bola Tinubu as President 2023 (SWAGA) and governorship aspirant in Ekiti State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), speaks with ‘YOMI AYELESO on his aspirations, Thursday’s governorship primary and other issues.

You have been in this project of governorship ambition for years, the latest one was 2018 and people will ask: ‘what will Adeyeye as a governor bring to the table for the people of Ekiti? 

That is a legitimate question. The is a reason I keep on struggling to lead the state despite what the evil people have done to me in the politics of the state, despite all their efforts to bury me alive, but God did not allow them. The reason is that it is my passion to serve the people because I believe I can make a major difference in the governance of the state. That is the passion I have and nothing more than that because otherwise, God has been faithful to me in so many aspects. But politically here, it has been the problem of political opponents. The fear people have is that, if I come in there, their mis-governance will be exposed. Not in terms of me exposing them and their corruption, but their incompetence will become glaring. If you check my manifesto that I published in 2006, they are so relevant today. Then, Nigeria was still importing rice in huge quantities, and I came out and said Ekiti could grow enough rice to feed Nigeria. For the past 20 years, I have been eating only a specie of Rice, Igbimo, the Ekiti local rice and I believe that specie is so nice. It is being adulterated now. The real and authentic specie is one you can even eat it without stew. No government has paid attention to this. Since then, we have had states like Ebonyi, Anambra, Kebbi, Kano building rice pyramids. Unfortunately, the governor (Kayode Fayemi) came sometime ago and pretended as if he has his pyramid here and the rice disappeared the following day. How can we be playing games with the destiny of our people at this level?  It is unfortunate. So my programme is to have rapid agricultural development tied to industrialization. They go hand in hand. We can have a lot of agro allied industries .

In the field of education, I had the vision then, as far back as 2016, to make Ekiti the of higher education in Nigeria. Ekiti has already built a reputation by the performance of the first educated elite in various fields of education. So we can capitalise on that reputation to make this place the centre of higher education so that people will not believe until they have a degree in Ekiti institution. We could build quality universities in partnership with foreign institutions and local entrepreneurs, very great institutions that will be self-announcing.

Ekiti can be transformed in eight years; in six to seven years things can be changed completely. That is my vision and that is why I keep on struggling that I be given the chance to make a difference in the affairs of the state. I do not share the view that allocation coming from Abuja is so small. What if there›s no allocation at all? Won›t we survive as a people? Singapore has no single natural resource. It is a city now. In this state, the only thing we have is human resource. And we must use it to maximum capacity to use it to solve our problems. And to make our state one of the leading and developed states in Nigeria is doable.

It is an open secret that the governor is supporting one of the aspirants who he wants to succeed him. Do you think you have a chance in the primary?

It is not a secret. You don’t need to be hiding behind one finger. The truth is that Governor Fayemi is backing an aspirant. As a matter of fact, he is not just backing him, he brought him out to come and contest and he has put the state resources and machinery at his disposal. That is very unfair. I would have expected the governor as the leader of the party to give all aspirants a level-playing field in order to produce a candidate that the people will truly and genuinely support. Since he has done that, it is okay. We note that. We think it is not good, it is very unfair and it has its own consequences, but we are prepared for the primary.

You have gone around the state in the last few months and the primary election of your party is few days away. What feelers are you getting from the field concerning the primary, especially from the delegates and party members? 

If the declaration we did last week is anything to go by and if they allow all the party members to be involved in the process, we are very confident that we will win it hands down. But then, the party has three options in selecting the candidate, that include the direct, indirect and consensus. But the popular one is the direct primary which involves every member of the party. Every member will have the opportunity to join in decision making. But where you are using indirect primary that means you are using a select number of people who are not even popularly chosen. So, that is not democratic and it is not the best. By now, we ought to have outgrown that to a system that we allow every member to participate in the process. So, if it is by direct primary, we are absolutely sure of wining it. Nevertheless, we are working for all options, but we are more comfortable with direct primary. I keep on saying those twenty three years that we started this democracy, we should have grown to such an extent that full democratic principles would have been instituted in the parties. We say we are copying the American democratic system, but have we copied the way their candidates are been selected? We have not. In America presidential system of government, every party member is allowed to participate in the process of choosing the presidential standard-bearer. That is the system I believe we should be practising now in Nigeria. If the candidate does not emerge through a popular democratic process, there is no way you can have good governance in Nigeria. Where somebody sits down in his closest and says he has anointed a candidate and uses government machinery to support him, so the candidates that emerge through this process did not do so through democratic choice and that is why you keep on having bad governance. The moment you begin the process of democratising the choice of candidate, that is the day you put an end to godfathers.

If at the end, the party settles for indirect primary and your group is still challenging the congresses which produced the delegates in court. What will happen? 

Point of correction, I have not taken the party nor anybody to court. But I am aware that some people who are not satisfied with the outcome of the congresses are in court. But the name Adeyeye is not among them. I did not participate in the process. I was not a candidate at ward level for the congress. So, I could not have had a locus on that basis to challenge anybody in court. However, where this process is being challenged in court, we need to play safe. The party needs to play safe because if for any reason your members have gone to court to challenge the legitimacy of your congresses and the products arising from those congresses, and those are the people you want to use for those congresses, you need to find a way to prevent yourself from being trapped. We have seen it happen in this country. The Zamfara case is an example in which the primaries and general election were conducted and APC won all the elections. However the elections were nullified and this brought PDP to power in that state and the same thing happened in Rivers State. To that extent, we should be wise and be careful in using indirect primary. We should rather play safe and allow every member of the party to participate in the process.

There are unconfirmed reports that the man you are spearheading his presidential project is backing another aspirant ahead of the primary. Are you worried about this?

It is not correct. It is a lie. Or may be an honest mistake because they assume that the way that aspirant has been pretending to be the candidate of Tinubu is not the best, I am saying it, it is not the best. When I read the story it says “who is believed to be supporting” but he is not supporting that person. That is what that person wants. That is the image he wants to project out. That is what he wants people to believe, but that is not good. I don’t play that kind of politics. Even that aspirant has been claiming to be a member of SWAGA. He has never participated in any event of SWAGA, neither has he spent one naira for the organisation and he is saying he is a member. These are the kinds of things that are really deplorable in the politics we play. I am not saying we can have a perfect system, but I am not happy with this kind of politics. But it is not correct.

 Have you informed Tinubu about your governorship aspiration and what was his response? 

Of course, you don’t expect me not to have informed him. Apart from him, I made wider consultations before I came out. I have talked with leaders, colleagues and friends. Any reasonable person who wants to embark on a project like this needs to make wide consultations. That I have done. As for whether he has given me go ahead, that I won’t answer. That is not for you to know.

Also, there was a meeting between Tinubu and Fayemi recently and it was gathered that it was for a win-win situation of the latter letting go his rumored presidential ambition so as to install his successor. Are you not worried by that kind of a meeting?

I am not worried at all. I am not threatened and I am not bothered about it. Actually, I was not privy to the meeting, I was not invited into the meeting and so I do not know what they discussed. But I am sure they cannot trade off Ekiti for anything.

The kind of person I know Asiwaju to be, he will not accept to trade off Ekiti for anything. They are free to bandy anything around and say that was what happened. If they believe that is the way they can play their own politics and get public support, good luck to them.

There is ongoing agitation and calls from the people and stakeholders from Ekiti South senatorial district ahead of the coming election. As an aspirant from the zone, what is your take? 

I am in favour of power shift to the south in the interest of equity, fairness and justice. Let me give you some historical background. In this state, prior to 2005, nobody talks about power shift. Suddenly around 2006, a group of people came together and said they were organising a conference in Ado Ekiti on what they called “Northern agenda” and their argument was that it was the turn of the north to produce the governor on the grounds that the north has been marginalised. They claimed that central has had two governors namely Adeniyi Adebayo and Ayodele Fayose, who was then a sitting governor. My counter argument to them then was that, why should it be a northern agenda, what about the south? Some of them then argued that Olumilua was governor in the old Ondo State. But Ondo State was not Ekiti State. We are talking of Ekiti State. They claimed that Olumilua was governor in Ondo for 18 months and that the south had at least had something. The propaganda was very intense in both political parties. Some of the big politicians in the state were behind it and they did it for a purpose to knock some of us out because I was also contesting for governor then. They sold this idea to our leaders outside the state who control the machinery of the parties. Those people bought it unfortunately and the primaries were manipulated in favour of the people from the north, both within the ACN and PDP. That was how Fayemi and Segun Oni emerged from the two parties. Now many years after, we have since had a situation in which the north and central have had 12 years each. By the time Fayemi would have completed his tenure by October16 this year, the north would have had 12 years. What of the south? Zero. So it could have been nice if the no zoning argument is coming from the people who have not benefited from it. But Fayemi was a major beneficiary and one of those who supported that conference. He was one of the people agitating then that it was the turn of the north. All of them, including Oni, were in the forefront of the agitation. And it cannot be asked from them now to say there is no zoning in Ekiti, having benefited from it and having arrogated powers to the two zones: 12 year each since that time. So, you cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time. You benefited from a thing and you are now saying it should not go round anymore. I think it is most unfair. I gave you this little bit of historical background to show that we are not just making empty noise. We are saying that the idea of zoning came from the like of Fayemi. I also had agreement with Fayemi that for my support in 2018 that power should rotate to the south because if not you will now have a situation in which the north and the central will go for 32 years. If this situation is not corrected, we shall soon be creating second class citizens out of the people from the south, because psychologically they will begin to think of themselves not being capable of producing a governor, whereas we all have the same level of educational attainment. No one area is deficient of capable people. Overtime because the governors have continued to emerge from the two zones, we now have a situation where the vast majority of political elite are now emerging from the two zones.