AS an aspirant to the office of the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), you have not been seen so much on the field campaigning, a development that has made some people to dub you as a pretender and not a contender in the race. How true is this?
Experiences differ. This is a delegates’ election. It is not a general election. I have seen other aspirants on TV and heard them on the radio campaigning. This is an election involving about 5,000 or so delegates. I have people in every state who are already working for me, campaigning to delegates on why I am the best choice as PDP national chairman. And most of the time, not all will take decision on who to vote for in the delegates’ election. There are opinion leaders in every state. Maybe in a state, we may not have more than 20 people who will control about 90 per cent of the delegates. Whatever you tell the delegates as an aspirant, their opinion leaders will tell them who to vote and they will do what they believe is right.
In PDP, it used to be the Villa deciding what had to be done. We knew how Umaru Yar’Adua emerged as president. We knew how Barnabas Gemade emerged; how Audu Ogbeh emerged. Most of the time, the decisions were not taken the generality of the people. It is just the opinion molders who take decisions. So, why do you think unless I do a jamboree, I am not in the race?
There are some people who are not known in Nigerian politics. Ladoja is not in that group. Either by error of omission or commission, Ladoja was introduced, particularly through his wrongful impeachment, to all Nigerians. Even a child at that time knew that Ladoja was wrongfully impeached. There is nobody in PDP today who does not know Ladoja or what he stands for. I am unlike those who are not known, but who just want to introduce themselves to the delegates. I don’t need any introduction in Nigerian politics. I have a team that left Ibadan and is going from state to state, meeting our people on the ground.
Ladoja is not unknown in Nigeria’s politics, unlike other aspirants. But is that enough reason for you to be chairman?
People know what Ladoja stands for. I have written a letter to nearly all the delegates- National Assembly caucus, former PDP Ministers’ Forum, for governors, and others. They know me. Methods differ. My own method is different and I know what I am doing.
Some people are trying to compare aspirants, saying some have experience in party management and administration. Can you boast of such experience?
If I took a party, Accord, that was relatively unknown in politics and put it on Nigeria’s political map, what other experience do you want? This is a party that was in the cooler. I did not even know about Accord until we wanted to leave the PDP in 2010. The only thing that recommended Accord to us was that it was number one on the ballot paper. So, what other experience do you want me to have? I know how to win elections, how to motivate people to win elections. Accord could not boast of moneybags. We know how to make sure that members of our party know what they are fighting for, unlike people who just do it for money sake. So, that is the difference between them and us.
If you are elected, what are you going to do differently from what others have been doing? PDP is now an opposition party, a role it is not used to playing.
I have left government for more than 10 years now and if you like, I have been in the opposition. So, I know how to make the PDP play the role of an opposition party that is also a government-in-waiting. That is also a difference between me and others. Impunity sent me away from the PDP. So, I know the rise and fall of PDP. How to get PDP to rise again is not going to be a problem with me as national chairman. What led seriously to PDP’s fall was the fact that they did not know how to manage success. They were carried away. They said the party would rule for 6o years. The national leadership at that time was conditioned to staying in Abuja and expecting returns from the state, rather than go out and help the states to win elections. That was the situation. There was a time PDP had about 28 governors. They were asking themselves ‘Do we really need any campaign again? Our governors will hold their ground.’ And when you look at it critically, it was the PDP that defeated itself.
In 1999, PDP did not win any election in the South-West. But in 2003, it won five out of the six states in the zone. Between 2005 and 2006, PDP got into coma in the South-West with the illegal impeachment of Ladoja and Ayo Fayose from office. This is a politically sophisticated region and people were asking themselves ‘you say we should give us our votes, that you want to rule us and we agreed and gave you our votes. Why are you the ones causing instability for your own governments?’ Who impeached Ladoja and Fayose? Was it not the president at that time, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was a PDP man? That was part of the impunity. The president was told I could not be impeached because they could not get two-thirds of the state lawmakers and he told them “two-thirds my foot!” He did not care about what the constitution says. After all said and done, I was impeached and so also Fayose and wrongfully too. The people of the South-West asked “is this why we voted for PDP? This instability? We love our governors and the good work they are doing.” That was what killed PDP in the South-West. The party was no longer there to protect its members from the antics of high-handed leader. That was why the people of the South-West rejected PDP. In the 2007 elections, PDP lost Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states. They managed to keep Ogun and Oyo states. But in 2011, Ogun and Oyo states were lost. It was not until 2014 that Fayose, who is the proverbial rejected stone-turned chief cornerstone, reclaimed Ekiti for PDP and I almost reclaimed Oyo in 2015. The people of South-West love PDP, but they found out that the party was not in a position to go on with that impunity. That was why they rejected the PDP.
Will that change in 2019, especially now that all opposition parties are coming together to strengthen the PDP?
It depends on the leadership. It is the leadership that matters and that is one of the reasons I want to be the national chairman of the party. If I were the PDP chairman pre-2015, I would not have allowed the five governors and the senators and representatives to dump the party. If you remember what started it, was it not Amaechi-Patience feud that sparked off the crisis? A reasonable team would not have allowed the crisis to degenerate to what it was then. A reasonable team would not oppose the proposed continuation of one of its governors as chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum. The decline of the PDP started from the beginning of 2011 when, in spite of the understanding, the South-West was not given the position of the Speaker, which went to Tambuwal. The leadership of both chambers came from the North and their deputies from the South-East. Nothing came from the South-West. Nothing came to the South-West. Maybe this is because the South-West is always having a principled stand on issues. But the other people look at their interest first.
Despite what you have outlined as the factors responsible for the fall of PDP in the South-West, there are those who are advancing the argument that it will not be in the interest of the PDP to pick its chairman from the region where the party is not strong. What is your take on that?
Where is the strength? The strength of the PDP is not in any region or zone, but in the collectivity. It is not even in one person. We are only talking about who is going to be in the driver’s seat. They said they have zoned it to the South. Today, South-South has five PDP governors out of the six in the zone. In the South-East, there are three PDP governors out of five states. South-West has only one PDP governor. Which of these is easier to defend? Is it six states with five PDP governors or six states with one PDP governor? If you want the South-West to contribute its quota, you have to encourage them to produce the national chairman of the party. This will also strengthen the base of the party in the zone. We once had five governors in the South-West region and it we had not been foolish, we would not have lost the five states. As the national chairman of the party, I will avoid anything that will look like impunity. I will protect all members of the party irrespective of their status and I will be fair to all. That is where things start. If you are found to be fair-minded and abhor impunity and you are able to galvanise all together for a common purpose, you will win. If the five governors had not defected from PDP plus all the juggernauts that left, APC would not have won. Wherever Atiku Abubakar is, whether in APC or PDP, he is a political juggernaut. Saraki is a juggernaut in his own right, as well as the governors too. I will be a team player such that I will give recognition to everybody and see an attack on one as an attack on all.
There are insinuations in some quarters that any aspirant who has had anything to do with the EFCC whether wrongly or otherwise should not be allowed to be PDP chair. How do you see this?
Is that what the Nigerian constitution says? The law says any accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If I was qualified to contest governorship election while the case is going on, why is it not possible for me to contest for PDP national chairmanship while the case is still on? Which one is bigger, the election that was done by everybody or the election that will be done by members of a party? If the party finds my quality is good enough to be chairman, what is bad in electing me? I am still innocent until proven guilty.
But there are fears of what some call intolerant politics of the ruling party which may see that as an avenue to frustrate the party…
How are you sure that APC will not find one case or the other to drag whoever becomes the chairman to the EFCC if the person has not previously had anything to do with the EFCC? Has EFCC not become a tool that is being used to harass opponents? When some people were accused of spending campaign funds, did APC not campaign? Where did their campaign funds come from? APC will still use its intolerance to undermine whoever emerges PDP chair. But if the person is focused, he will just ignore them.
Do you see PDP rising and clinching power in 2019?
By the grace of God, PDP will rise again and clinch power because of the undoing of the ruling APC. To start with, failed promises are part of their undoing. They said petrol would sell for N50; N100 would exchange one USD; it would be free meal for everybody in schools.
You are a journalist. Why don’t you go and investigate the racket that is going on in the very few places where they claimed to have started the programme? In some schools, they give food to two classes, just because they want to write the name of that school as part of the beneficiaries. If they give to pupils in primary 1 and 2, what happens to those in primary 3-6? Do they feed the pupils every day? They are even punishing the pupils because the parents have assumed their children would be fed, but they are not fed at all or fed only once or two times a week. The pupils will have to go hungry for the remaining days of the week. Again, is it wise to borrow money and use it to feed? Are the parents saying they are not able to feed their children? Is it proper that the programme is selective? Is that how borrowed money should be spent? We have not seen the good life APC promised Nigerians. Nigerians are losing their jobs every day. We are said to have exited recession, but Nigerians have not felt it. For APC, a lot of things are technical. They said they have technically defeated Boko Haram, yet the dangerous sect is striking every day, killing scorers of Nigerians. We have technically come out of recession, yet there is no food on the table of most Nigerians. These are what will make PDP clinch power in 2019. PDP promised and delivered.
You threw your weight behind the pruning of aspirants from the South-West to enhance the zone’s chances of getting the position. If that is done today and you are one of those pruned out, how will you feel?
People say that charity begins at home. If my people at home don’t feel that I am good enough to represent them, why should I go out? I will accept the decision and will work fully with whoever is chosen to achieve the aspiration of the PDP. It is not a do-or-die matter. I told you I have been out of government for more than 10 years and I am still alive and still doing what I should do. I have contested in two elections and lost. Has that reduced me in any way? I am a democrat. What I am saying is that, improving the chances of the South-West to get the position will be better if there is one or maximum two aspirants. If it is possible, I will like us to have just one aspirant that all of us will back. All of us are eminently qualified. But sometimes, elections are not won by the best candidate. Is Donald Trump the best candidate for the United States?
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubabar is speculated to be among high-profile defectors expected in PDP shortly. As his political ally, now that he has resigned from the APC, do you see him returning to PDP or is the talk of high-profile defection from APC politics fake?
I am one of those high-profile defectors they talked about and I am back fully in PDP. The Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee decided that the lot of the PDP will be better if those who had left the party returned and he has been putting a lot of efforts into this. You were here in my house when he came with his team to plead with me to return. They have been going everywhere too to ask others to return. They went to Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s house, to Fatai Akinbade, Alao-Akala, Seyi Makinde and many others too. A lot of people will look at this and say once they can get assurances that the impunity that sent them away will not be perpetrated again, they will return. This is where who becomes the chairman is very important, because if you look at it, under President Olusegun Obasanjo, we had Solomon Lar as the first chairman. We had Barnabas Gemade, who was said to have defeated the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi. After that, no one voted before we had Audu Ogbeh; nobody voted before Ahmadu Ali also came in. It was when Ali, a retired Colonel who will have to work with a retired General in Obasanjo that there was respite in the changes in the party’s national chairmen. You can look at the correlation. After that, it went to the South-East. [Okwesilieze] Nwodo came in; [Vincent] Ogbulafor came in. These are the things that happened. We cannot achieve anything without looking backwards; so whoever is going to come in as the next national chairman of the party must be someone the generality of party members would trust and the person must also have a base. That is the situation and I believe that by the time the party convention comes and goes the party will either be stronger or weaker. And maybe some of the high profile politicians and juggernauts being expected to defect to the party are waiting for the outcome of the convention. Some people have told me that they are waiting for December 9 before deciding what to do; they said they were taking shelter in other parties outside the umbrella and that maybe after December 9, they would return to the party. You know some people have gone to APDA? That is why it is important we got it right on December 9 and that is why all of us are praying to do what we believe we can do to make sure that the party survives.
Is it true that the PDP is planning to use a joker that any presidential candidate that emerges from the North uses two terms in office, knowing that if President Muhammadu Buhari decides to contest for a second term, he will only be entitled to one term in office?
I don’t think so; I don’t think there is such joker. Our party’s constitution is clear on that one. This time round, it was zoned to the North, in four years’ time; it might be zoned to the South. Why must it be zoned to the North after four years? We will do the calculations. But I can sure you that we are trying to build a party that will not be run the way PDP was run under [former] President Olusegun Obasanjo. We are looking for a party whereby the chairman and the national working committee will be the leaders of the party and not under an imperial leader in the party. And if you even look at the APC, with all the power-wielding that has been going on in the party, you can see that President Buhari has not been approved for second term. So, there is no such joker in the PDP.
You said those who are contesting for national chairman of the PDP should have a strong base. You are known to have a strong base, which is why you were wooed to return to the PDP. And immediately you returned to PDP, people expected it to become the party to beat…
It is the party to beat.
But something happened…
What happened?
There was a parallel congress…
There was no parallel congress.
But Seyi Makinde, Senator Hosea Agboola and a few other leaders held a congress at the Baptist School, Oke-Ado, instead of the Watershed Event Centre venue of the state congress.
That was their choice. I said there was no parallel congress because one, there was a caretaker committee that was put in place, which comprised 33 people from Oyo State with the chairman and secretary from outside the state. They agreed on the sharing formula of the positions and it was signed by some leaders, including Seyi Makinde and Hosea Agboola. They were signatories to that agreement. After that, it was agreed that every senatorial district should take the positions shared to them and share among the federal constituencies or local governments. Oyo South shared its own. Oyo Central also shared its own among the federal constituencies; same for Oyo North. The only thing that was causing contention was the position of state chairman and it was said that it had been zoned to Oyo North, which had two distinct zones; Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso. They zoned three positions to Ogbomoso and six to Oke-Ogun. In their wisdom in Oyo North, they said the constituency that produces the chairman may not have any other position and so it happened that Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa federal constituency produced the chairman and that is the only thing it was supposed to have out of the six positions zoned to Oke-Ogun. Saki East/Saki West/Atisbo federal constituency was given three positions, which was shared to each local government while Irepo/Olorunsogo/Oorelope got two positions.
But when they were not able to resolve the issue of chairman, the leadership of the party in Oke-Ogun brought the matter to me and they all came. I called the two individuals eyeing their chairmanship post: Alhaji Kunmi Mustapha and Chief Jacob Adetoro and I talked to them. Adetoro said he would go and consult with his people and that for him, their chairmanship was not a do -r-die. They asked us to suspend the meeting at 3p.m. and reconvene at 6 p.m. We resumed at 6p.m. But Adetoro said his people didn’t have problem with him not contesting, only that the two of them vying for the position should be dropped. However, other leaders from Oke-Ogun said that could not be, that he could not say that the other should be dropped. You know, the situation was like the case of the two women with one dead child and one living child who went to King Solomon for justice and one recommended that a living child should be cut into two just to prove it belonged to her. So, I reminded them that the same thing played out during the party’s congress in 2012 and I asked where it led the two of them. The two of them were the contenders for the state chairman’s position in 2012 and when they could not agree, they brought in Yinka Taiwo as a compromise candidate and we all know what happened. So, I said we do not want that this time. I asked Chief Adetoro who his leaders were; I said I knew Seyi Makinde was one and Seyi was sitting down at the meeting. I asked Seyi for his view on the situation and he said whatever you leaders decide. Then, I called Hosea Agboola on the phone and told him to come to my house and he came. When he came, he said that since we have said that we had handed decision-making on the matter over to Oke-Ogun leaders, whatever decision they took was okay by him. But Adetoro said we should give him the opportunity of meeting some of the delegates who had already come to Ibadan so as to tell them that was the decision we had taken. And they [Seyi Makinde, Hosea Agboola, Adetoro] said that by 9p.m. we should reconvene. But on the day of the congress, we just heard radio announcements in the morning saying the chairman of the caretaker committee, Honourable Tunde Akogun, had changed the venue of the congress [to Baptist High School, Oke-Ado]. That was illegal. They could not make such announcement in Akogun’s name. They didn’t say they were going to do a parallel congress; they were all members of the congress committee and they even contributed money towards the conduct of the congress at Watershed. So, whatever they did on that day was an afterthought. It was a question of saying “we have lost out in the political calculations towards the congress, how can we start another crisis so that people will listen to us?”
So, there was nothing like a parallel congress, because if you look at it, there were about 1,200 delegates for the congress and at Watershed, there were more than 900 delegates despite the misleading announcement, that Akogun had changed congress venue. You know some delegates might have been misled to go to the venue they announced. We know how much was given to people to make sure that those who were not delegates participated in what they called a parallel congress. That was a parallel congress that the congress committee of the party from Abuja did not attend; that committee was led by former Governor Liyel Imoke. He was not a mean person. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Department of State Security operatives and policemen were at Watershed. Who was at the so-called parallel congress? It was just an afterthought; it was done to arouse recognition. I don’t think they are serious about it.
But have the issues that arose from the scenario you painted been addressed?
The only issue that arose, as I have told you, was that of the state chairman and there was a congress where an election was held. Someone scored 920-something votes out of 1,200 and you are still saying some issues arose. Which issues?
The situation on the ground is already being painted by the opposition as PDP having started its crisis again…
You have to understand something; PDP is a party whereby there is virtually no discipline. If it is a place where there is discipline, those people who conducted a parallel congress should be sanctioned, because there is no provision for parallel congress in the party’s constitution. They should have been sanctioned, particularly so because up till 10 p.m. of the eve of the congress, we were only arguing about the position of chairman, but because you know that you have lost the argument, then you quickly rush to the media to make noise, because you can afford to do so and the fact that we are in the opposition in the state and so the government would latch on to your action and broadcast a purported division in the PDP. That is not right. But we are dealing with the matter.
Has the camp with the majority embraced those who are trying to break away by conducting parallel congress?
Who are those trying to break away?
Seyi Makinde is leading them…
Seyi Makjnde is not leading them; I will show you Seyi’s text message. He apologised for being at that congress. So, Seyi Makinde is leading who?
There are insinuations that there are moles in the new PDP, who might be working to destablise efforts being made to reposition it in the state. What is your take on this?
It is not impossible. There are some people who will be sponsored by the opposition party to stay and be causing confusion. But political parties are voluntary organisations and anyone can be a member and you cannot send anyone away unless you have a convincing reason. But when you are coming into an arrangement like this, all the latitude that you had in your party will not be there. You know that in this PDP, members of the Accord Party, Social Democratic Party, Labour Party, Alliance for Democracy and old PDP members are coming together, so there are bound to be some issues. Do you even know that the so-called crisis is still among the old PDP members and has nothing to do with the four other parties that came together? The two people that were fighting over the chairmanship, Mustapha and Adetoro, are members of the PDP. If you can remember, it is as if they are carrying the crisis of 2012 over to 2017. So, that division in the old PDP can always resurface but the party machinery will be strong enough to deal with it.
You chose the PDP state chairman from Oyo North, which forecloses the option of PDP picking a governorship candidate from Oke-Ogun…
That is not true. We have not zoned the governorship to anywhere. Anyone can come out to say I want to be the governor of Oyo State. If he can convince the delegates, we will pick him.
Even from Oke-Ogun where the party has already picked the state chairman?
It doesn’t matter.
Do you think power should shift in Oyo State?
What do you mean by power should shift?
People are saying it should be the turn of Oke-Ogun to produce the next governor of the state…
I don’t subscribe to people saying things just for asking. You have to fight for it; you have to convince others. If someone wants to be governor from Oke-Ogun, it is not only his people that will vote for him and he is not only going to rule Oke-Ogun people. So, it is not a question of because someone is from Oke-Ogun, then he is qualified to become the governor in 2019. It should be about being qualified because he could lead all the people of the state and he has been accepted by all the people in the state. That is what we should talk about. So, having a chairman from Oke-Ogun has not foreclosed the chances of that region producing the governorship candidate of the PDP. We just have a chairman from there.
Is it true that Senator Olufemi Lanlehin is your anointed candidate?
No. I don’t have an anointed candidate.
But he is said to be very close to you…
All of them are close to me. I told you Seyi was here. Sharafadeen Alli comes here. I told you earlier that we don’t even know who and who is interested in the governorship, because the bell has not been rung to say start taking your nomination forms. We have not said start, and you talking about anointed candidate is like saying some people have run the race to the breast tape. Has Lanlehin told you he wants to contest for governorship? The fact that Seyi Makinde contested for governor the other time, does it mean he must always contest for governor? Sharafadeen Alli that contested for deputy governor the other time, does it mean he must continue contesting as deputy governor? And people who also have aspiration and feel that the time is not right, can’t they come out when they feel the time is right?
In fact, people are saying that even you that said you are no longer contesting for governor, you may change your mind and contest…
I don’t eat to my vomit. Any other thing?
On October 25, a Federal High Court lifted the order that prevented the conduct of local government election in Oyo State, but a month after, the OYSIEC has not come out to give a timetable. Do you feel concerned as a stakeholder?
If we have concerns, we have been having concerns for over six years now. During the first time of Governor Abiola Ajimobi, he said he was going to conduct the local government election, but he didn’t do it; did we die? The truth is, he is looking for an opportuned time when he thinks his party will be able to win and that time has not come; it will never come. So, even now, I don’t think he is going to conduct any local government election. What has he done? Was he not the one engineering people going to court to stop election? The government is always looking for distractions. One day, he woke up and said he was creating the Local Council Development Authority (LCDAs) and he said he was basing it on the referendum done by Lam Adesina in 2002 or 2002, did he mean that since then, things have not changed? That means that decision was a distraction that he engineered, which people took to court. And then he felt since nobody was talking about the local council matter, he would only do the election in the 33 local governments. Was that not clear that in one hand, he created the LCDAs, in another hand, he cancelled them? When that one was dying down, he decided to start the chieftaincy palaver, which he planned to extend to Oyo and Ogbomoso, such that anywhere there is only one king, he would create more kings and make them become like Igboho or Igbo Ora. He is just creating instability in the state; it is just distractions that he is looking for. And that is just to tell you that he has nothing to show for his eight years in office, but he always gives enough things to talk about.
Senator Teslim Folarin recently said that election in Oyo State is won based on three tripods; you, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala and Governor Ajimobi and that two of those tripods, constituting about 66.3 per cent, are already in the APC. So there is no way whatever you are cooking in the PDP would see the light of the day in 2019. What is your reaction?
You know that Senator Teslim Folarin has a right to his opinion. That is the way he says it and we cannot fight him over that; you can’t fight a man for having an opinion. Let us wait and see.
The thinking is that if the trio of Alao-Akala, Ajimobi and Folarin are contesting as senatorial candidates in the APC, it would be enough to make APC produce a successor to Ajimobi. What is your take?
If that is their calculation, why don’t we wait and see? If that is their calculation, PDP will also have its own and I am not yet aware of the PDP calculation, because election is still far away. If that was the promise they made to Folarin before he joined APC, good luck to him. But I am not sure he will be able to get that ticket, because are you saying [Monsurat] Sunmonu, who is from Oyo, will not contest again? Are you saying that Kamil Akinlabi, who was in the House of Representatives, will not be looking at that ticket? And are you saying that what happened in 2015 will happen again, because when Ajimobi met with teachers, he said they didn’t vote for him but he won; he met with civil servants, he told them that though they didn’t vote for him, he won and when he met market men and women, he said the same thing, so who doesn’t understand how he won? If he said nobody voted for him but he won, was it ghosts that voted for him? So, I don’t think there will be room for that one in 2019. Even in Oyo North, Alao-Akala may not be the only one eyeing the senatorial ticket in APC. Are you saying that Fatai Buhari, the incumbent senator, will not want to contest again? You see, when people want to make something happen, they give a lot of promises but when you get there, you will find out that those promises are not easy to realise, because of situations beyond the control of those who made the promises. Who did you say they are thinking will contest in Oyo South?
The governor…
Ah, good. It is good. That is the only thing I can say.
and then