Ladilu of Oyo Kingdom, Chief Bisi Ilaka, is a chieftain of Accord and one of the coordinators of a group of opposition figures in the state under the aegis of Oyo First. He speaks with DARE ADEKANMBI on efforts being made to win power in 2019 through a coalition, among other issues. Excerpts:
SENATOR Ademola Adeleke’s by-election win is the talking point in political discourse across the country with many anti-establishment saying that is the way for the opposition to go. What do you make of this?
From time immemorial, we have always known, but we have always discarded that which we know, namely that opposition parties do not necessarily win election, but ruling governments lose election. But in the course of losing it, a rainbow coalition is generally formed against the ruling government. That has been the case, particularly in Oyo State, time after time. When the PDP was going to dispose of the AD in 2003, that was what happened. Also, when Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala lost to the ACN in 2011, that also happened too. If you go back to when he won in 2007, the opposition was fragmented. Senator Abiola Ajimobi ran on the platform of ANPP and the votes were split among the opposition parties and consequently Alao-Akala won the election. But in 2011, the template was a lot more different. The ACN was the base of a main coalition against Alao-Akala, particularly there were mainly decampees from the PDP, notable characters like Senator Ayo Adeseun, Honourable Kamil Akinlabi and even Senator Teslim Folarin worked for Ajimobi and a lot of other people. Again the PDP votes at that point also got split because Accord came out of the PDP. The stronger coalition, which was the ACN coalition, had its way.
But having said that, in 2015 we seemed to have forgotten all that which we have known, which was why the opposition as a lot more splinted in 2015 which was why what we have in Oyo State is a dictatorship of the minority. Governor Ajimobi had 32 per cent of the votes and 68 per cent of the votes were divided among the four main opposition parties. Going forward, we know that if we repeat the same thing in 2019, we should not expect a different result because we will have another minority administration. The consequence of this is that the minority administration does not care about the majority because it will look at it from the perspective that the 68 per cent did not vote for its administration. So, we will have misrule.
So, if we say we want a government that is representative of the people, it is almost a condition precedent that we should have a coalition of sort. And to bring this into effect, myself and a lot of other people across party divide, have been discussing and we meet from time to time, trying to solidify the commitment to work together. We don’t want to use that fire brigade approach such that we will start coupling something together when elections are approaching. If we have done the donkey work in trying to like create an umbrella body, then the issue of what platform to run on will be left till next year because for now, the horizon is not really clear. The next defining moment after the Osun by-election has been the Supreme Court judgment which affirmed the chairmanship of Senator Ahmed Makarfi on the leadership tussle in the PDP. There has been a lot of fallout since that judgment. The play is still in motion. Those of us who do not belong to the PDP will have to watch and see how we get those who are in other parties to come on board and get the coalition together to stop the misrule in the state.
An experiment like this in 2015, particularly after the presidential and National Assembly elections, did not work. What hope is there now?
It did not work in 2015 because we did not have enough time to agree. There were a lot of large egos and we could not get the parties together. We tried to make the choice binary for the people, that is, the ‘either or’ option which would have been our best choice. But we are going to do it this round such that in 2019 election it is going to be either you are with them or with us.
The trick against coalitions like your own is that a mole or even moles will be sent to mingle with you, leak group secret and dismantle the body. How much are you taking cognizance of this and what are you doing about it?
Coupling the coalition together is naturally going to be fraught with challenges. One of the challenges is that we will have gentlemen who will have inordinate ambition, who will not be willing to subsume their ambition in the interest of the larger group. That will happen. We will have people whose interest is actually divergent to ours. But what is important is for us to be steadfast and focused and get our narrative there and make it resonate with the people. Once we are in the hearts and minds of people, victory will be ours.
If the coalition works and you win power in 2019, what are you going to do differently from what the current government is doing?
Time after time in this state, what we have had is governance by accident; people who literally sleep-walk into government without a plan and focus. Ours will be very different because we will have a template which will be driven by strong initiatives. We will have a strategic approach to what we want to do. It won’t be governance by happenstance. For example, the state has more than enough challenges. There are challenges in the education sector which is everybody knows. In the last WAEC results, Oyo was in number 29. That is a major shame, considering that the state has always been a meccah of education of sort. Outside Lagos State, we probably have a preponderance of private schools in Oyo and they tell us time after time how well their kids perform. So, if you strip this out of the results, we probably are at the bottom of the pack. That was not the case in 2003 and 2004. We will think properly and start from conception of the kind of education we want in the state. Can we afford it? Can we fund it? What resources do we have for it? In agriculture, we have got the landmass. But it is not just the landmass that translates to produce. We will create the value linkages. We have in the state a tragi-comic situation whereby draft documents are presented and photo opportunities galore are made available. That is not what governance is all about. It is about thinking things through. We will engage the stakeholders.
It is quite tragic that in Oyo State, with the amount of research institutes and the intellect available, particularly in Ibadan, we have not been able to think about a programme that will make well educated young population become innovators and self-reliant through the creation of a kind of ICT hub. In truth, we have great ingredients in Oyo State, but we have had very bad cooks. But that is going to change in 2019 because we will address in the main, education, health, agriculture, infrastructure and technology will be the driver. We have got the skill sets.
Irrespective of what you might be putting together by way of a coalition, a governorship hopeful in APC said ‘gatekeepers’ and not parties will determine who wears the crown in 2019 as it has always been…
I absolutely don’t agree with him on that. Demographics is a major thing in politics today. Our society has changed and evolved. Without a shadow of doubt, the Alaafin will have a say in Oyo where I come from, because he has a lot of people who are dependent on him. But not as dependent on him as they were 10 years ago. We have a teeming unemployed youth population. The Alaafin is not likely to give them gainful employment. We have people in the state who do not depend on traditional institutions or bodies like the CCII or the Ogbomosho Parapo or Oke Ogun Parapo for gainful employment. So, they will listen to a new script. They will ask those traditional institutions “what have you done for me lately?” They are more likely to buy into something that is fresh and new and promises something for them. These are the people we want to connect with. People from 18 to 40 years will probably make up 70 per cent of the voting public. These are the people who have been disadvantaged the most. We want to lay the foundations not only for today, but for their tomorrow and their future.
The PDP national leadership is working on a plan to absolve small parties, including Accord which is your party, for a coalition towards ousting the APC in 2019. What do you make of this?
This is in two parts-the national play and the local play. It will ultimately all boil down to the local because all politics is local. Whether the PDP leadership likes it or not, there is a need for them to rebrand. It is anticipated that PDP being the largest opposition party should probably form the base of a coalition of opposition parties and all should come together. There must be a basis on which we will join and we can’t join and be absolved and be called PDP. There are a lot of people who left the PDP for APC, but who are willing to come back to the PDP. But it will be a hard sell for them to go back to their locality to preach about the same PDP they have been slagging off for 18 years is now a new PDP, unless the party is rebranded and repackaged. Without that, I don’t think it will work.
In Oyo, PDP has got people who might have political value but little or no electoral value. Nobody represents the party in the state House of Assembly, which mean in terms of governance in the state they are totally not there. The largest party in terms of opposition remains Accord and that will be the base upon which any kind of arrangement will be formed. We will sit down and discuss this and it won’t be a case of winners-take all. We all know one another and we know the job that is at hand to be done. What we will have to take heart is that this project is larger than an individual and that we have got a chance to make a seismic change in the landscape of Oyo State politics.
and then