Mr Fouad Oki, a chieftain of Lagos State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), who was factional chairman of the party in the state, speaks with BOLA BADMUS on the state of affairs of APC, the recently held party primaries to pick candidates for next month’s Local Government election holding in Lagos, among others.
Is THE PDP naturally dead in Lagos?
No, it is not actually dead.
But there appears to be no opposition in Lagos, because politics now seems to revolve around the APC. People say you are the only opposition within the APC in Lagos, how do you react to this?
You (media) are part of those who continue to deceive APC leadership in Lagos State that they don’t have opposition. You continue to give the party a false sense of popularity. When you create a false sense of popularity and a false sense of there is no opposition, you are gradually pushing that person or that party into an obnoxious position that will help the kernel to burst and put it to death.
Why did you conclude that it is the media that is giving the impression?
One thing you should know very clearly is that PDP is a more and better organised party than what we do in our contraption which we call APC and that is the truth. I also alluded to what you were saying in one of my interviews about five weeks ago, where I said APC will continue to win. APC will continue to win not because we are popular or the populace is satisfied with us, but because there is no veritable and robust opposition to what we do. If you have said that, I would have agreed with you, but to say that there is no opposition or that an opposition party is dead, no. I won’t be deceived into accepting or believing that.
Can we then say that the opposition that the APC has is within its fold?
I don’t know whether there is an opposition in the fold and that is the honest truth. Some of us believe that we cannot continue to do the same thing time and over again and expect a different result. And, therefore, we have constituted ourselves into reformers, that we need to reform our ways and needs. That should not be considered as opposition, no. We will not oppose our party. Like we had during the SDP days, we are all co-joiners and co-founders. You don’t demolish or destroy a house that you built, no. But in the same vein, you must continue to speak truth to power because that is the only thing that can set us free. So as opposed to seeing those of us who are reformers as opposition, you should see us as people who believe so much in this party, who subscribe to democratic tenets and who more than anything believe that to make Nigeria rise again, all of us must contribute our quota in ensuring that our democratic practices and development should be in tandem with democratic ethos in other parts of the world. So it is not about the opposition. I am not; I don’t see any opposition within the APC.
Is this peculiar only to the APC in Lagos or common to its entire chapters in the federation?
I will speak about the two, but I will talk more about Lagos State APC which is my primary constituency. Our party is sick and that is what occasioned the structural surgical procedure which the NEC of our party embarked upon in June last year and which was further entrenched by the resolution of all party organs. Of course, if there are no problems, that will not happen. So it is an indication that the party is weak and the party is sick. And the CCPC which is the Convention Caretaker Committee extraordinary has been doing a yeoman’s job in redirecting and repositioning the party. So I look at the CCPC as a bunch of reformers who have come to ensure that the direction of our ship is in the right path. This is what they are doing and we must give kudos to what they are doing, and so far they have not done badly, they have done excellently well.
Now coming to Lagos, Lagos APC has people who do everything with impunity; they have no respect or regard for the constitution of the Federal Republic, for the Electoral Act, for extant rules and the regulations of the party, for the constitution of the party. They are so flagrant about it. You know what the Isale Eko would say “Aye ta lo fe mu mi,” (what can anyone do)? And that is worrisome; it is very, very worrisome.
You said a few moments ago that you believe that APC will still continue to win, what is the reason for that?
I alluded to that, I said because the opposition is not robust or veritable. Not that there is no opposition mind you. In democratic practice, opposition ought to come out and say this is wrong, and this is the way we feel you should go. Not by shouting; that this is wrong. That is what is called opposition in democracy. You look at what the other is doing and you come up to say no, this is wrong, you can’t do this. This is a better way to do it, not by finding what is wrong and not knowing the solution. That is why I said we will continue to win not because we are popular. We will continue to win not because we are doing well. We will continue to win because the opposition is weak and is not robust.
What is the state of the APC party in Lagos?
Noting to write home about in Lagos, that is the state of our party. You know what the court frowns so much upon? It is when you infract or violate your own rules, your own laws. Look at Article 20 of our party’s constitution; every letter in that article was violated in the so- called charade that was tagged as local government primary elections. It exposes us that we are nothing but people who do not have respect or regard for the rule of law. It exposes the democratic credentials of the so- called tyrants and despots who parade themselves as party leaders.
What actually happened during the primaries; was it not an exercise that was planned ahead of time?
You will recall that they have the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC). It has been prevented from conducting local government elections until I cried out, telling LASIEC that I will approach the courts and force them to do that which is right. They had just 25 days to the deadline and I cried out to say, listen, we see what is happening, you try it, we will go to court and you will pay dearly for it. And that is why overnight, they started the process.
Before you know it, LASIEC now issued out notice of election to all the parties and the public and they started. I saw the charade coming. You now want to ask, did we as a tendency or group within the party participate? No, we did not. You now ask why? We did not participate because you will recall that in 2018, we approached the court to interpret the status of the law vis-à-vis recognised local governments in Lagos State. So we have told them that you cannot operate 20 Local Governments and 37 LCDAs in Lagos State because it is illegal. It is on the basis of that that we did not participate in the charade. But I have a responsibility and duty to draw attention of the party to those things that will make us lose faith; whatever that is left, it remains with the public, which we have done. We have shot ourselves on the leg. I don’t know where to turn to now; they have taken us back one century with the event of May 29th. And you all know, as we speak, that the party does not have a list of candidates even in their charade and sham 57 LGs and LCDAs.
But they came out with a list after the primary election was concluded?
After that list which was published in The Nation, I think on the 4th or 5th of June, it will interest you that what was pasted by LASIEC about a week ago as candidates submitted by all the 14 political parties, except I think PRP, you look at what was pasted, from APC, vis-à-vis what was published by APC, you will see the discrepancy. And that is why every day you continue to see protests from one angle of this state or another.
I don’t want to go into the shame of May 29, but even after that, they continue with the impunity in what they do. You have lists of people against the spirits of Article 20 of our party’s constitution, against the spirit and demand of Section 87 of Electoral Act 2020 as amended; you still see them not following the dictates of those documents. You now look at their own guidelines issued for the May 29 primary election, you will see flagrantly, how it was abused. How do I mean? You said voter that would vote in ward primaries should show cause to participate by coming with the membership slip that was issued in 2014 as well as one issued in 2021.
The implication of that is that you have two membership registers that you want to use in an election. Who does that? Truth of the matter is this APC as a party, as we speak, does not have a membership register for 2021. The process is still ongoing. The only state, as of today, that has been issued with membership register is Anambra because that state is going to have gubernatorial primaries very soon. And as of today, they are just starting to certify the register and then hand it over. It’s an exercise which will take about one week or thereabout. So the question is, where did you get the 2021 APC membership register which you intend to, or which you used on May 29? Go and look at the guidelines which they issued.
Now the 2014 registers, which have been subsisting, have always been done in a haphazard way. This is because those registers are in 20 local governments on the basis of 245 wards. So in their efforts to cannibalize them, you now have a situation where they take register from this particular part of the ward to another part of the ward because it is muddled. And that is why you have the problem which happened on May 29th, 2021, when people go there to vote there was no register to accredit. And the basic ingredients to electoral activity is what we can call Identification of participants by way of knowing who you are and confirming whether you are a member by looking at the register to ascertain and certify you as a participant to vote. That is the essence of accreditation and that is the basic ingredient for electoral activity. Go back and look at whatever that was posted on the social media or not, you will also see it because it emanated from them. Don’t buy the lies which they are selling, you will see very clearly and I have a copy. When we get to court, we will produce what was submitted by all the umpires there, the returning officers, local government by local government and LCDA by LCDA. We will show it to expose their lies.
But even at that, go back and look at what was posted on the social media. They said from 57 local governments, which was also alluded to by the Deputy Governor (Dr. Hamzat) on Arise TV interview, that of the 57LGs/LCDAs, 11 of them, prior to the exercise had agreed to a consensus. So when you take out 11 from 57, it will give you 46. It means on that day at 46 locations, primary elections took place. Now of the 46, as it what was posted, 38 did not show the numbers of voters that were credited to participate.
But now that they claimed to have won those primaries which never took place, the candidates were issued, and I am choosing my words, were issued with numbers to indicate that they won. So the question is, how did you accredit? How many people were credited? What membership register was used for accreditation? Why would you use 2014 and 2021 registers, because it was stated clearly in the guidelines that members should come with, either the old membership cards, that is what they used or the new membership list. So it means you have two registers used for accreditation. Is that right? Is that the position of our party’s constitution, as well as the Electoral Act?
So it means that ab initio and I am warning them and they are likely facing that direction, they may have problems in some local governments like it happened in Zamfara or Rivers. That is the direction they are going. A situation where they may win at the local government election and court will say that your ways and means violated the spirit of your own constitution which is what the court always frowns on. That even if you violate all these other documents you should not infract the documents written by you, your own documents, your own rules, your own guidelines, which is all that they have done.
Talking about guidelines, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria says Lagos State has 20 local governments. Now, election was made in 57 local governments and LCDAs. What was the president’s reaction to this anomaly?
The president’s reaction has always been let the rule of law prevail. In fairness to him, regarding party issues, his position has always been that the party should be in a situation to handle them. His position is that when it comes to constitutional issue, approach the court and let the court interpret, that ‘I stand by the rule of law and I will ensure that the rule of law prevails.’ That has been his stand. How do I know this? The 2018 statement he made was part of what encouraged us to approach the court to seek for constitutional interpretation. You now want to ask, how far did that go?
We went to court; we were in court. The trial has started. The NEC of the party last year June requested all genuine party members who are in court to please withdraw the matters from court and promised that the Extra- ordinary Caretaker Committee will look into all of this. And so far, we have no reason not to believe them. We have seen what they have done. They have shown cause to want to be truly objective. And that is why we withdrew that matter from court out of good counsel, and wisdom and to allow the party to wade into all of this.
At the national level, they know that there is problem in Lagos, that they are even overwhelmed by it. They know that in Lagos that it is just one person camouflaging as the demigod of Lagos politics, but there are tendencies and they have managed the situation so far very well.
There is the Appeal Panel already doing its job by attending to those who have complaints among the aspirants?
I remember the late Chief MKO Abiola of blessed memory. One of his very good saying is that how do you abort a pregnancy after a child is born? Can you abort a pregnancy when the woman has given birth? They established an Appeal Committee. The Appeal Committee could not take off, God knows, maybe until after one week or whatever. And listen, the party knows where they are going, they know what they intend to do, they understand LASIEC’s guideline; you need to look at all of these documents. LASIEC says by the 2nd of June, parties are expected to have concluded their primaries.
You now put your primaries on 29th May, by that have you made provision or do you genuinely want to make room for appeals? Because if primary elections holds on 29th May, it is assumed that by 30th of May, you will have concluded that and election result will have been released and then pave the way for Appeal Committee to take off. Now, in good faith and good conscience, can the Appeal Committee using their number, 377 wards, balkanized wards and balkanised 20 local governments and 32 LCDAs, look into appeals of such humongous number of 331 participants at the local government level and 800 participants at the ward level? Can they do anything between 31st of May and 2nd of June?
That is the first point you need to look at and you must interrogate that. Now, as we speak, the primary election that was conducted on the 29th of May, the results are yet to be released. When you do exam, don’t you get result? Whether you pass or fail, do you not get results?
You are now asking people to appeal, to appeal against examination whose result was not released. To appeal against an election that never held and the party did not come out to say election did not hold at this location, you are now saying appeal. So the appeal game is dead on arrival. Whatever thing that was done by the appeal cannot stand the test of time. So we ask the court to also look at that and appropriately give a direction.
So what you are saying in essence is that you are in court on this issue?
I am in court and I have encouraged several people too, because as democrats that is where the poor man’s hope lies. I am in court to challenge the charade. I have encouraged those that are being cheated to go to court. Don’t take law into your own hands. We have more than enough security challenge governments at the national and sub-national levels are saddled with. So don’t take laws into your own hands. If you truly believe in this party, go to court. They will not say these people have not exhausted all the legal options available. So the question is, what legal options are available when your so-called Appeal Committee cannot take off on time as and when due?
It will interest you to note that even the June 4th publication wherein they listed names of their so-called selected and preferred candidates, the Appeal Committee was yet to take off. As we speak, the Appeal Committee only submitted its report to the APC caretaker committee chairman about four or five days ago when they had done submission and substitution and all sorts of shenanigans with that process with LASIEC. So, do you want to tell me now that they will now consider report of the Appeal Committee wherein contestants did not get results of their contest? So what are you talking about?
There is this reconciliation process; I don’t know whether you are aware of it?
I don’t know about that. So many things are wrong. You are now saying reconciliation. How do you tell a son whose mother was killed by a lion that don’t be upset. Is that what you want to tell that child?
But I overheard you, when you were talking about some councillors being told that they shouldn’t worry, because if they have lost out that at the end of the day, they will look for positions to give them?
There is a problem somewhere in one local government that I reside and I was talking to some of the leaders who called to seek my counsel. And naturally, you will not expect me to tell them to go and carry cutlasses to begin to fight. And I was told that a committee is coming to look at what went wrong. So I gave them my honest advice that first and foremost that we are members of this party, we are co-joiners, we are co-founders and nothing must happen to our party.
And that number two, in spite of all of their shenanigans, if they can get away with it in the court, I will be the number one to lead a campaign for the party. It is my party, but that should not stop me from speaking the truth, not minding how some people feel about me. It is my party; they cannot drive me away from this party. Whoever eventually becomes the candidate of the party, it is an obligation on my part, assiduously and tirelessly, to see that we win the election.
But because I am committed to working for the party to win election should not stop me from speaking out the truth. The process was marred with so many irregularities against the spirit of the Electoral Act as amended, against the spirit of the constitution of the party’s Article 20, against moral standard and justification as human beings. I should speak out; there are so many voiceless individuals in our party. I should be their voice, lend a voice on their behalf. But after all the shenanigans, if the court says otherwise, fine, of course, I will be there. I will be number one to lead that party to victory. So telling them that, it is just trying to assuage them because what you have on ground are frayed nerves. We are ready to battle this.
One thing you should know very clearly is that, over 60 per cent of those who participated went to get loans to pay for their outrageous nomination fees. They have problem of paying back the nomination fee which they sought loans for as well as other fees which they used in mobilizing towards the primary election that never took place. So if their frayed nerves are also pushing them to take laws into their own hands, first, and foremost as a Nigerian, who understands the situation in which we found ourselves with insecurity, as an opinion moulder, as an influencer and a party leaders, I must try to allay their fears about being cheated, give them hope and also assuage the frayed nerves. And that is all that I have been doing in the last two to three weeks.
The National Convention of the party is being planned; can you speak briefly about that?
Well, I know the National Convention of the party will hold. The party has not given out modalities for congresses, so I cannot speak to that issue, let’s wait and see.
But what do you suggest as a way to having a successful convention?
What I feel as an individual I have sent in writing to the committee as part of my contribution in ensuring and in seeing that we have a very successful outing, not just at the convention but also at the congresses. And I think that is for me and my party.
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