Senator Ayodele Arise, chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) represented Ekiti North Senatorial district between 2007-2011 under the erstwhile ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party,(PDP) where he served as Chairman Senate Committee on Privatisation. Ahead next general elections, Senator Arise is aspiring to return to the Red Chamber. In this interview with select journalists in Abuja, Arise justified why he wants to be part of the tenth National Assembly, the zoning and Consensus conundrum in the APC and why the incumbent Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi is the ruling party best presidential candidate. TAIWO AMODU brings excerpts:
The APC has unveiled the time table for its presidential convention and other primaries: N100 million for presidential nomination fee, N50m for Governorship. Nigerians are saying the fees for the form for presidency is appalling; that politics is being heavily monetised. What is your take on that?
Well, I believe that is to ensure that only serious aspirants are entertained. From experience, most people who obtained forms in the past particularly those with deep pockets, they ended up buying forms for several people with the hope that they might have to go into some arrangement of consensus and their surrogate candidates will not be the ones voted or one of those machinations on the consensus. So, that is fairly eliminated, because N50 million is not peanuts to pay as a fee for governorship aspiration and ditto N100 million is not a cheap money to go and recruit very unserious aspirants, who already are aware that they do not have the wherewithal to run an election. So, I believe that is the major reason the party decided to put the high figures,so that it can only be met by very serious candidates.
Now, I will agree that in a way, it is a lot of money to pay for aspiration,especially when you consider what other parties are charging for similar positions. For example, I am hearing that some other parties are looking at about N3.5 million for a Senatorial seat whereas in our own party, the form for the Senate costs N20 million and that of the House of Representatives costs N10 million. But like I said, the pay is a form of deterrent for those who are used to buying multiple forms for different people with the hope that when the chips are down, those ones will step down for them to show some level of popularity. For example, if 10 people buy forms and nine of them are stepping down for you, maybe other serious ones may be they are two or three they can easily get intimidated, not knowing that it is the same person the collected the forms for the 10 people. But anyone that is going to pay N50 million now for governorship, if he pays for 10 people, that is already N500 million, so they will feel it. Some people may not feel it, but they belong to the minority, very few people in that category. But, again, if you look at every election, the fees structure to pay and if you juxtapose that with the background of inflation, you will discover that somehow, it might be comparative with what obtained in the past.
For example, during the election of Mr. President, the first time he went was N27 million, then it went up to N40m and now, it is N100 million. So, if you recollect, may be in 2015, the exchange rate of the dollar was under N200. Today, it is about N600, that is clearly three times and you will alsorealise that those in business must be reacting to the market forces. So, invariably what sold for N27 million in 2015 will today be more than N100 million. So, when you look at logic and mathematics and the economy, this is just answering to what obtains in Nigeria of today. So, that is what I think informed the National Executive Committee (NEC) to put the price based on the state of the economy and to further deter those, who undermine our democracy through money bags.
If you are able and you have the capacity, you go into it. I think the party has said for those other specific ages, these prices are reduced as much as 50% to encourage other people to come in.
Let me tell you, there is no election, either presidential or governorship that does not costs a lot of money. If you even look at the American system, you look at how much does the American President get paid, it is about $400,000 a year. But to run for a presidential election, we remember that Obama raised over a billion dollars for his election ditto Trump almost a billion dollar. You look at it that election is expensive everywhere and that is why not everybody can be a president neither can everybody be a governor. These are simple positions based on geographical formation. I thinkthese factors informed the party’s decision.
For the presidential race, your party has a lot of aspirants that could be referred to as contenders and pretenders. What do you think should be the central message among the aspirants, because already many of them have started attacking personalities?
You see you have several people running. Everybody is coming out with one credential or the other and for me, I know that my governor is coming; he is going to run though he has not launched his campaign. But there are some reasons that makes me feel he is the most qualified of all the aspirants. His age is a big advantage; his experience is also a big advantage; his antecedents is also a big advantage and of course, when you talk of academic qualifications, you know we have a professor running, the vice president.
But beyond that,DrKayodeFayemihas got a Ph.D from Kings College; Professor Osinbajo got a Ph.D from the University of London. They both attended University of Lagos, may be Professor Osinbajo for his LL.B, DrKayodeFayemi for his Masters. So you look at the two, if it is academic qualification, the two of them are super brain. Now, when you talk of experience, DrKayodeFayemi has been governor of Ekiti State twice, he has been the Minister of Solid Minerals. We can see the changes that he made when he was in the solid minerals sector. So, in terms of federal position, state position, he has served at the top executive management level, but he has never been president.
In the last two, three years, he has been the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum; he has been exposed to all the problems and the challenges each and every governor is facing and he understands the problems of the grassroots through these interactions with his colleagues as well.
His credentials will speak for him, but again when we look at our South-West as a block, don’t forget that in the South-West, we have the Ijebu/Egba people, the Lagosians, the Ekitis and the Oyos. So for us if you look at it, it those that have always enjoyed this power that are now at each other’s throats. If they agree fine, but we believe it should be an open field. Most of the presidents that have come from Yoruba are from Lagos axis. This time, we will be appealing that they should look at their brother and say it is time for you to go and taste this thing.
By the understanding in the APC, the presidential candidate is expected to emerge from South since the North has taken the slot of national chairman. There are those canvassing the narrative that the ticket be reserved for South-East: that South-South did five years, South-West has had president and vice-president for almost 16 years and the South-East is the only region left out. Do you support the move to microzone to the South East?
Well, let me put it this way. Ordinarily if the APC has been a strong party in the South-East, my response would have been different, but the danger here is that the party isn’t prepared to take that gamble, because the majority of the South-East is mostly PDP, so if the PDP zones presidency to the South-East and APC zones it there, then the chances are higher that the PDP will knock us off there, because we do not have a base there. So why would we want to take the risk and leave your base where you are almost sure that you will win election and get votes from the catchment.Ordinarily, if you are to choose based on the logic on the ground, the South-East should have a good shot at it. If it has been well planned and managed,it should be going to the South-East, but the fear of the known is also there.
You have been in the Senate before, you were Chairman Senate Committee on privatisation. Why do you want to return to the Senate?
You begin to have influence or a standing when you come back as a ranking Senator. As a ranking Senator, you stand a chance of becoming either the leader or the deputy or the president. All the positions in leadership are now open more or less and you can contest for and hold. So, because most of the time some things are zoned to regions just as the presidency is more or less been zoned to the South. Whatever is zoned to the South-west, I will certainly be able to make a bid for it and that will give a better voice to champion the interest of my people.
The first four years of my stay there, I was fortunate enough to influence the location of a federal university in my local government, which is in my senatorial district. And that same senatorial district now has the main campus of the university and it has about three faculties in another local government within my senatorial district.
My focus in going to the Senate is about service. It is about the benefits to my people, less of my personal benefit. And I have told them, the only way I can be strong enough to have any influence is to be, not only a ranking Senator, but be in the ruling party and have a good voice to lobby my people for whatever I want to influence to go to my senatorial district. I have looked at that.
The second reason is that I am still not too old to go and be in the Senate, because I believe I now have more experience and I have been following up on things going on in the Senate. I have my own opinions and about how things can be done properly for the good of our country and I intend to pursue that through legislative means.
There are so many things that we need to do and so many things that this country is yearning for, saying that the legal process or the legislative process would actually empower our people to run some of those policies. And for us, I personally having read about legislature around the world, you will see my commentaries even before now on the electoral act, when my colleagues got it wrong, I said it. When the corrections were made, I said it as well and there are few things that I haven’t seen done.
The next assignment is for us to start doing electronic voting. You don’t even have to go to the polling unit to vote on the day of voting. You can vote on your phone and we are already prepared for that. Every Nigerian is being registered to have a national identity. And when I look at that, I am always also in support of independent candidature which is not on the table now and I don’t know why not.
These are some things that we need to go and tackle. Then, apart from that, we are looking at our population in the Diaspora. They are increasing by the day and they want to vote. Other nations are allowing that to happen. With the national identity movement, if you don’t have one and you live abroad, you cannot vote. Once you have that and everything is linked to together, it is going to be very possible for you to vote.
President Muhammadu Buhari got away with consensus arrangement for Senator Abdullahi Adamu. Some persons are goading him on for consensus during the presidential primary. Do you think a consensus arrangement, though in APC Constitution, will it fly at presidential convention?
Well, if you do consensus for presidential primary and you say consensus by its definition then that means he can get away with it. Consensus means everybody running must sign that he has agreed to it. So, that is the kind of consensus that I understand as consensus. It is everyone that must sign that I agree by this consensus. If they sign before the election then if they now start making noise after, that will be campaign after election. But if they do not agree and a consensus is imposed that is when I think there will be serious crisis in the party.
But if they go by what the President is saying that all of you should go to the field and run for this ticket, then I believe the man has used elderly wisdom to know the solutions before the crisis will come up. If he says everybody should go, we will see it because it will be televised and there will be voting. Once they count the votes and somebody wins, I expect every other person to rally around that candidate. If they now try to do consensus and some people are grumbling that they don’t want, and you went ahead with it, then people will not rally round such a candidate and that might become a problem. The little that I understand about our president is that he understands how serious it is and he went through an election for him to become president. He had gone for that same seat severally before he finally made it. And most of the time in the parties that he was, I think they were just okay, you go and do just like that. But the one that he now finally won, was the one where there was an election and he now became a president. So, he is an elderly man full of wisdom and I believed he can see. I am sure when you look at everybody that is running, they must have one relationship or the other with him. So, how will he now say I am picking you and not you? It is a big challenge. I want to commend Mr. president. All those people throwing all manner of fireworks in the sky, I don’t think the man will buy that. He believes in this democratic system. And I am sure there will be an election to elect the next president. Once that is done, everybody will rally round him like I said.
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