Why Ondo South should produce next governor —Mafo

John Ola Mafo, the deputy governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2016 governorship election in Ondo State, in this interview by HAKEEM GBADAMOSI, speaks on his bid for the party’s ticket for the 2020 poll and other issues.

Don’t you think that the large number of aspirants will be a disadvantage to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State?

That is the way it normally starts naturally. Sometimes, they say the more the merrier and that helps to also popularise the party. For example, the impression has been created that because the party is popular and viable, that is why there are many aspirants. So, that is the positive side of it. And we have almost 18 or more aspirants now; they will need to go around the state. They will need to talk to our teeming members and party faithful scattered across the 18 local government areas. The more they talk to them, the more they interact with them, the more popular the party. But a time will come when the maize will be separated from the chaff; that time will come. Let’s wait for when the form comes out. Let’s wait for the number that will actually cross the line of general aspiration to actual or specific aspiration. Specific in the sense that let’s see those that will obtain the form and throw their hat in the ring for the primary proper.

 

In the last election, you were the deputy governorship candidate of the PDP. What is the motivation behind your current aspiration for your party’s ticket?

Even at that time, there were talks about where the governor should come from and all that. While one may not say zoning should be the all and the end all when it comes to choice of leaders, at the same time, the people have this way; they have this idea; this concept of what we call eat and let others eat; live and let others live. They have a way of implementing it in the state. So, if you look at it now, it will look that, that particular principle, that policy of the people of the state is going to favour the South. And if the South, that is, the Southern senatorial district is going to be favoured, having then been picked as a deputy governorship candidate at that time, I think I should have the right of the first refusal. Be that as it may, whatever office that is good, high office normally attracts a lot of people but that will not be the major motivating factor.

I have this belief that at trying times like this; at times when things appear critical; where the way forward appears cloudy; not clear then, we need leaders that can deliver the goods to appear at the stage and make things happen and make things work. I believe in such category of leaders. A former American President, Harry S. Truman, who presided over the affairs of America between 1945 and 1953, once said that, ‘Men make history and not the other way round, that in period of low leadership, society stays dormant or still but progress occurs when skillful and courageous leader sees the opportunity to change things for better.’ In Ondo State now, we can’t really say that things are actually moving the way they should move and to that extent, we need a leader. It was also Warren Bennis that said that ‘leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality.’ Anybody can be ambitious; anybody can have any vision but, it is not everybody that has the capacity can translate that vision into reality, especially in trying times that we are in. So, I have this belief that I have the capacity.

Normally, when I talk to political friends and colleagues, I analyse about 21 criteria under which an average aspirant should be assessed. These include things like fear of God which David spoke about in Samuel II 23:3. The criteria also include whether that person is a man of the people or not. And to say you are a man of the people, it is something that has to do with your record, your pedigree, your antecedent. Time will not permit me to analyse the whole 21 criteria but, the germane ones have to do with someone having the fear of God because with such attribute, a man or a politician will not do certain things that politicians do today in Nigeria, like sending your Commissioner for Finance to Abuja, coming back with the allocation and hiding it under the table, not wanting the people of the state to know; wanting to see how you can siphon a half or two-thirds of the total sum before you release the rest. A politician with the fear of God will not send thugs to kill his opponent or maim his critics and things like that.

 

You have a large number of spirants from the southern part of the state. What kind of consensus do you envisage among the contenders?

The governorship slot has not been zoned to the South or anywhere for that matter but you will recall that I said that the people of this state even the politicians, they carry this idea on their head of where the next governor should come from. They are aware. They know where the governor came from in 1999; they know where the governor came from in 2003 and where the governor came from in 2009 to 2017 and then, 2017 to date. So, they are familiar with all these facts. They now know where the next governor should come from.

And from the preponderance of aspirants from the South, I believe that it is clear that it is the general opinion of the politicians and the people of this state that the next governor should come from the South. Looking at the number of aspirants from the area, that itself should not be a problem. It also goes to confirm that the PDP is popular. Again, within the PDP and the state, Ondo South is favoured and being favoured, that is why majority of the aspirants on the platform the party are coming from Ondo South. When we get to the actual bridge that we want to cross, we will now look at how many aspirants who will now cross the bridge to the level of really going into the primary. Politicians believe in organization; they believe in what I call rapport; they believe in sorting things out. So, the nearest we go towards the primary, I believe the more the need will dawn on the people that there is no point carrying a large crowd into the primary. That will be, a large extent, counter-productive while at the same time wasting resources that should be pooled together to fight the main battle.

 

How far has the Dr Bode Olajumoke committee that was put in place to screen the aspirants gone?

I have absolute confidence in the committee. It is made up of leaders of the party that have been tested and they are trusted. So, I have an implicit confidence in the committee and it is making a lot of progress through interactions and meetings with all the aspirants and I believe they are on the right track to ensure that one person will emerge at the end of the day, either by consensus or through a well-organised primary, who will fly the flag of the PDP to the land of Canaan, that is Alagbaka Government House.

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 What do you think the current governor of the state, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, is doing now that he is not doing well that you will want to improve upon if elected as governor?

It is not just Akeredolu alone. Most of the governors in Nigeria including the President, there is something that they are not getting right and which is very fundamental and very crucial when it comes to governance, not only in Nigeria but all over the world. Most of the governors rely on allocation coming from the Federation Account. Unfortunately, by the time you pay salaries, you have little or nothing left from the allocation and the state will now face the paucity of funds to execute its projects. So, that is one of the major reasons we are having this type of problems. The economic problem of Nigeria also dates back to late 60s to early 70s. Before the discovery of oil in a commercial quantity, Nigeria was relying on agricultural products and solid minerals.

As a matter of fact, in the early 60s, palm oil was responsible for almost 80 per cent of its total foreign earnings. That was a time Nigeria was producing about 645,000 metric tonnes of palm oil annually and that counted for about 43 per cent of the total world output. Nigeria was number one then but with the discovery of oil, the country now shifted ground, pursuing petrodollar at the expense of agriculture. If Nigeria had managed to continue with agricultural productivity while exploiting the resources the oil sector, we would have achieved the vision 20:2020 the country was talking about which we eventually we didn’t go anywhere near. We would have been one of the 20 most developed nations economically in the world even before this year 2020. So, having made that mistake, having neglected the golden goose that lays the golden egg, the situation that now confronts leaders, governors and the president in Nigeria is to diversify the economy such that you can make as much from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) than you are making from the Federation Account.

What exactly is the problem? Most governors don’t want to do the needful because the little money available, they want to spend it on what I call not necessarily cosmetics programmes at all times but flamboyant programmes; advertising programmes. In other words, they want to do roads; they want to do flyover bridges; build classrooms; things that can easily be seen and praised. Simon Sinek, the 46-year-old American Author and motivational speaker, said that, “leadership is not about the next election but about the next generation.” Some governors would feel like if I invest N5 billion on palm oil production, his own administration will not be the one that will benefit from it because it takes three to four years for efforts in palm oil production to start to showing. So, if a governor comes in and he is going to spend four years to start with, he doesn’t know what happened next. He will be a man of the people; he will be a man who is looking at the future; he will be a man concerned with sustainable development before he can pour money into that. I just used palm oil as an example. I’m talking of farm products generally. A governor that is going to turnaround the situation of this state; who is going to bring about positive change in the lives of the people must be one that can invest massively in agriculture.

 

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE