The leaders of PDP in Ado Ekiti and Irepodun/Ifelodun local government areas have reacted to your desire to re-contest for the House of Representatives in 2019. What do you make of their response?
The people’s response to my desire to return to the House of Representatives was just their affirmation that I have represented them well. They are all in support of my ambition and I’ll say that I’m happy about their position.
Regarding what I’m going to do, when you have a plan, you hardly make mistakes. I’ve got a manifesto which I had put up since 2012 when I first came out to contest an election for this position. Then, I said the six-point agenda would be stuck to and I will not identify those to be concentrated upon. For instance, the poverty alleviation and youth empowerment, which had mainly been for women, will now be made to be gender empowerment, which means that it would now go beyond women and the youth. So, now we are going to give special attention to the vulnerable people, to the disabled, the widows and so on. When you meet a widow, you can understand the kind of life she lives with the children. So, we are going to pay attention to those people including the physically challenged and the others.
Then as part of education, we have assisted people in many ways but now, we are going to make it more organised to look at putting scholarships in place; to look at whether it’s two per ward or five, we would ensure that it cuts across the whole federal constituency. We are going to ensure that we look at indigent students. Some people may not even enjoy scholarship but when you now know the condition of that person, you can now see the need to do something to assist that person or child.
You said you’ve found out that the business of legislature isn’t for someone who’s not experienced on the job. Can you throw more light in this position of yours?
The issue of legislature requires requisite experience. For instance, it is now that we understand why some people in the United States remain in the legislature for decades. The more you stay in the national assembly or any legislature the better for the country, your constituency and the person, because you understand the workings of the place more. That’s even when you know how to get things for your constituency. The place is like a maze, nobody will teach you how to navigate through the processes and through the place. You will find your feet, so the longer you are, the better for you and the better you’ll achieve for your constituency. When you plant an orange tree and it starts to bring forth, will you say you want to cut the tree and say you want to start all over? The more you stay in the legislature, the better for your constituency.
You said the outcome of the July 14th governorship election in Ekiti State altered several things in the politics of the state. Are you saying the coming election would be a more difficult election for PDP in Ekiti State?
I don’t foresee a more difficult election for the PDP. The reason is because in July, APC mobilised thugs from Kogi, from Kebbi, from Lagos, from Oyo, from Ondo, from Edo and so on. In the 2019 election, all those thugs would be busy in their own respective states. They brought 30,000 policemen to Ekiti State, in 2019 all these policemen would be fully engaged in various states, not that they would be concentrated in Ekiti. They cannot mobilise as much resources as they mobilised to Ekiti State in 2019 election. So, we are not envisaging a more difficult election. But what altered the situation is that, you know you have worked so hard for something, which you know should have been given to you easily, but somebody just hijacked the thing. They say the strength of the teeth is because they are together, so if the state government is there, it has implication on all other elections. It would reinforce the way people would react in that election. So, the support not being there temporarily has an effect on how the election would go. That’s why we are calling our people to come together and work together to ensure that the effect of that election doesn’t impact negatively on our performance in the coming election.
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A bioresources development centre has recently been inaugurated in your constituency, and the people have attributed it to your efforts. Why did you go all out for this centre?
Opportunities, they say, is like landmines. If a landmine is somewhere and you don’t trigger it, it won’t explode. So, if you have a landmine and there’s no stepping on it, you won’t even know that there is a landmine there. That is the thing with opportunities. They can be there without your knowing it. This opportunity came and when I was called that this is something that could be done, I wrote and promised to give them facilities to start. That’s why I made 16 plots of land available, cleared it, built a block of classrooms and a borehole. An opportunity came and one was able to key-in. They have just started in Igede-Ekiti. By the time they start to receive allocations from the Federal Government, hopefully in the 2019 budget, the centre would have funds to execute capital projects, like erecting more structures and for overhead. They are going to employ people that would work there, they are going to train people on businesses they could do on their own: fishery, bioresources like bio-fuel, mushroom farming, cash crops and so on and so forth. These are the kind of things they would be doing and the centre is still going to expand, and the town will be the better for it.
The National Assembly is in a kind of tension. People are apprehensive about what will happen when you resume. What are you expectations when the National Assembly resumes?
The way the leadership of the APC caused the tension in the National Assembly is because they tried to impose leadership on the parliament. There are three arms of government and they tried to impose people on the legislature, one of the arms of government. This cannot work. The day we were inaugurated, when we were all moving to the National Assembly, that party called their own senators and members of the House of Reoresentatives to a different place to have a meeting before the inauguration. And, by law that inauguration must be done that day. The political prowess of the current Senate President became evident because they thought they were going to block him, but he managed to enter the National Assembly before them. A similar thing has happened again, last month. Before we could enter the National Assembly that day, it was a tug of war. At the inauguration, before they concluded what they went to do at the international conference centre, the National Assembly had already been instituted and a Senate President and Deputy had been elected. And they are still there till today. So, impunity and imposition is what is causing the problems. Unfortunately, they have continued in that line. So, when we resume, they cannot force leadership on the National Assembly. I say this because if they want to impose anything on the National Assembly, and they cause crisis, it’s even an impeachable offence for the president because all the we do there are guided by the constitution. The constitution says that for you to remove the Senate President or the Speaker, you need two thirds of the people in the House or the Senate. And it’s not two thirds of the people who sit at a time, it is two thirds of the entire members. In the case of the House of Representatives, if those who are present in that meeting are not up to two thirds of 360, the sitting of that day cannot remove the Speaker. The same thing in the Senate. So, you have to wait until more than two thirds of the House is sitting and then two thirds will now vote to remove the Senate President or the Speaker. For them to get that number is an impossible task. If they now want to do it by force by using minority to carry it out, then like I said, they will be threatening our democracy. That’s why we are all out to ensure that we defend our democracy and nurture it.
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