Former governor of Ekiti State, Engineer Segun Oni who is seeking to govern the state again, talks about his chances in Saturday’s governorship election, and his choice of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to run this time around. KUNLE ODEREMI brings some excerpts of the interview:
WHY the choice of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to contest this time?
I have been through a lot. Fortunately, have at the top echelon of the two political parties and have seen that the problem for the two parties are similar. First is the lack of internal democracy. Everybody wants to point at the speck in the other man’s eye, leaving the log in their own eyes. They all want to criticise the system for lack of proper democracy, but in our own parties, nobody is willing or majority of the people are not willing to put real democracy to work. We have seen also that internal disciplinary processes are not always rigidly adhered to. They are most of the time trampled upon if it doesn’t affect very powerful people. Most of these parties don’t have their own revenue-generating mechanisms, apart from the sale of forms, and that is every four years-the parties have very little or no form of other revenue. On paper and in their constitution they are supposed to have monthly dues by members. I am not sure that is happening. That puts the parties at the heck and call; at the mercy of the financiers, especially the governors. Looking at all these, have been in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party is in a sorry state now. These are some of the things that led it there, I have been in the All Progressives Congress (APC), it is even in a worse state now. These are some of the things that led it there. believe that am looking at a political party that has a brighter chance that we can put out as the ideal that other people will now be able to swear by. I believe that I can make stout contributions to ensure that the party is one with processes. that will make internal democracy and democracy at large more pleasant to accomplish.
When you talk about internal discipline and processes, you may be accused of being guilty when you took Governor Kayode Fayemi all the way to the Supreme Court in trying to establish that he did not resign his appointment as a minister before contesting in 2018.
Did he resign? That is my question. If people are not willing to stick by the truth, it will not help internal democracy. My attitude to that is, ‘did lie? didn’t! He did not resign. He also did not say he resigned. Even the Supreme Court that gave him the judgement finally did not say he resigned. The Supreme Court said we filed out of time. It is there. One can deduct it, even logically that if we had filed out of time, it would not have waited till it to the Supreme Court before we are told we filed out of time. It is easy to look at. The first court would have said it. The Court of appeal would have said it. That was the verdict of the Supreme Court, but we are not in a position to the judges’ authority to make proclamations. We also should be defenders of truth where it affects us. Some people even said we should protest to the same Supreme Court, said we should be patient, as far as I know, it ends at the Supreme Court, which had made its proclamation. It was best to allow it to rest. Till tomorrow, nobody is talking about, but it doesn’t mean that we had a sense of fair treatment. If somebody says he is right with what they did, let them come up with that, but we believe that we are right to challenge what is not right.
Then, you were at the top hierarchy of that party and Drfayemi had won the governorship election. What point were you trying to prove?
The point was trying to prove was that what is not good is not good. If somebody admits to an error, it is different from somebody not admitting to an error and you blaming somebody for insisting that an error was committed. If somebody had admitted to that error at the party level, it could have been a different thing. The person who committed an error did not admit it.
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Would you have overlooked it, if he admitted to committing an error because it looks like you were very bitter?
I would have talked to my people. I have never been a desperate person. My people insisted that they were going to court. I knew it was going to be in my name, so be it. That is why you find that still in good reckoning among my people in Ekiti. This was not my personal decision. Nobody came to talk to us about what was going on. They expected that my people will be cowed. It is not easy that way. They did not make entreaties. If it is our party, then we should be talking and meeting. We worked for the party. My people worked for the party to win.
This is a stand-alone election for you, as there would not be the benefit of candidates who are contesting to become state and federal legislators also galvanising support for you, won’t that be a big hindrance?
If you feel the pulse of the people you will know who is likely to win this election. The people are talking loud. That is why I am the one under attack. Do you think to attack a lame duck?. They attack those who have a bright chance of winning. They know who is likely to win. They are not saying he will win when the legislators arrive or other conditions are present. This condition as it is now, they know who is likely to win.
You don’t appear to have the support of the Ekiti elites?
I don’t know who is called the elites. I know Ekiti people. If I don’t have the support of Ekiti people, you would not be here. When they sort out the votes, they won’t say, “these are golden votes because they were cast by elites. These other votes are countless because they were cast by ordinary people. We are talking about elections. From what we know, more elites are likely to be on my side than all the other sides out together.
What are some of the urgent items on your agenda, if you become governor?
The reason why people are backing me massively is not because of my manifesto. It is because of the experience they had dealing with me as governor. Two things are most important in choosing a chief executive at this level: integrity. This means character. The second is capacity for productivity. If he has character, but he is not productive, it is not good. If he has productivity, but there is no character, it is not good either. They have seen that I demonstrated very clearly that I am comfortable with both. People who are backing me know what they are doing and I just pray all the time that my rating will never come down. I must say that I am overwhelmed by the love of the people. I have never seen this much. I have been around for a while. I am 67 years; so I have seen elections; from the First Republic. Most of the time, Ekiti people will not tell you that they are not going to vote for you. They will just be watching you. Now our people have found their voice for the first time and they are speaking very clearly. They are the ones who coined, Ekitiko’ya (Ekiti rejects suffering). Some of these wizardries you are seeing is coming from the excitement and intellect of the people. Ekiti people have rejected suffering. Enough is enough! What can convey the message better!
This is a different era from when you were governor. We didn’t have insecurity in the manner that we have it today. Nigeria, even Ekiti is not the same as your first time; what will you do differently?
I hope to react to situations as they come. If the situation is different some of my reactions will be different. Some of the so-called different situations we foresaw. When I put up a panic alert system which is still there at the police headquarters, we were not anywhere near this level of insecurity. Once you subscribe and you are under siege, you call a particular line. You don’t have to say anything. Once it is picked up at the control centre at the police headquarters, it will link up to the nearest police patrol van. We started up with 50 patrol vehicles dedicated to that; 25 of the patrol vehicles were refurbished, and 25 were brand new. We believe if had continued to use technology as an enabler to fight crime, it would have been a first of its kind in this terrain and it would have reduced. the capacity to carry out criminal action and escape. It is still there. Ask the government why they did not use it. It is not as if it was embargoed by the contractor. It was fully paid. It was supposed to be bringing revenue because the subscribers would have been paying. I expect that it would run at a profit so that the excess revenue will cover the cost. Banks would have subscribed. They were supposed to be the highest users. Even if there is an embargo on the reporting of kidnapping in Ekiti, kidnap ping is still going on. By now, they probably would have developed the panic button that can be mobile. The engineer that designed it is local. We would have partnered with Google. It would have been Ekiti’s contribution to using technology to fight crime. We did it because we were looking ahead. The situation you are talking about now, we had envisaged nearly 12 years ago. We had the capacity to look beyond the immediate. If you look at what we built, they are still relevant. The capacity to think is not denominated in years. It can. It is about circumstances-what you think about and how you place your thoughts.
In what areas do you think Ekiti has a comparative advantage, in the economy?
That is the question I asked myself the first time and I am still asking myself. We wanted to be the ethanol capital of Africa then. We can produce ethanol from sweet sorghum and from cassava. We grow cassava everywhere. We can produce enough cassava for a medium-sized ethanol plant. Our neighbours in Osun, Ondo and Kwara also produce enough cassava. We are still going to try to be the ethanol capital of Africa. We ran trials with sweet sorghum and the yield they got was more than 250 percent. We are still going to go there. In agriculture, we want to go from agricultural products to refining. That is one chain. In the area of services, we brought the Cubans here. We were going to establish the best eye hospital in the whole of this continent. You can’t do a thing like that; get the equipment and say you are going to run it yourself because the processes that run a hospital are as important if not more important the equipment, so we asked them to come and run this place.