FAYOSE ILL DESTROY EKITI - SEGUN ONI Former Governor of Ekiti State, Segun Oni, in this interview, sheds light on his disagreement with his predecessor, Ayo Fayose WHY did you say you cannot recommend the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Ayo Fayose, to your children? Are you very sure of Fayose’s educational qualification? Can you put your hand on your chest and say this is his qualification? That is the simplest thing. Are you happy about the way people were being hunted, killed, when he was governor? Can you be very proud of his achievement as governor of Ekiti State or his behavior in and out of the seat of power? Do we want to have a governor who will out of exuberance or disregard of decency go underneath a barbed wire at the airport just to cut corners? Things like that tell you much about the personality. To the average person it may look like a one-off action but it also has a root in the personality of such a person, There are decent people who may not see it this way because they are committed to their party and it would override every other thing like logic and other attributes but I would not. I came to a decision point where I had to change my party for my principles or change my principles for my party. If I remained in PDP I would have to change my principles and if I have to change my principles, a lot of things would suffer – like my education, upbringing, life experience, my religious beliefs would have to be dissolved into accepting the PDP, its candidate and what it stands for. I would rather change my party because parties after all, nowadays, are not based on ideologies; they are associations that are still trying to develop ideologies. It is easier to break and that is why I have broken it because that is easier for me than trying to change who Segun Oni is to conform to the party that would pick somebody that is perceived in the eyes of the ordinary person as one of the least qualified persons. How did he become the consensus candidate of the PDP? He was never a consensus candidate, get the facts right. In fact, he was against consensus because he knows that no moral platform would pick him. But he said that all other aggrieved members of the party came together to endorse him. If people who contested with him are ready to accept him, that is their business. There are many things that could have happened; there is the doctrine of settlement. We are not too young to know that there could be some traitors but whatever arrangements made within the party to pacify those who contested with him would be their own arrangements. I am prepared to be a loner standing by my conscience, holding on to my principles. What do you foresee if Fayose becomes governor? Ekiti would become a pariah because everybody would believe that he (Fayose) is our standard and who we are. Our children would become second class when they are in contest with others. Most people would be so biased against them that they would not give them a chance. Take a man from Afghanistan and the United States for an example, before you hear them speak about what stuff they are made of, you would have judged them and expect that the American would be better that the Afghan. That is prejudice and that is the kind of thing the Ekiti man would suffer in the comity of states. You mentioned a barbed wire incident at the airport; can you shed more light on that? Go back to the archives, I cannot remember precisely the month, year or day but try and find it. The photograph was clearly taken and he was in a bending position trying to enter the airport across a barrier. For a governor, what could have caused that even if there was rampant shooting and everybody was escaping for their dear lives. As a governor I would have allowed my security to shield me. To take me through whatever route is better but it was not an emergency. This is how much the person we are talking about values decency. I don’t want people to misconstrue me, I am not saying this because I am against Fayose, I am saying this because I am trying to uphold a minimum standard for my people. If he was asking for anything else other than the governorship of Ekiti I probably would have been on his side. I have forgiven him for whatever he did to me in the past; I have forgiven Dr. Fayemi also. It was not as if he was my friend in the past but now as for the future of Ekiti I am sure Dr. Fayemi would serve it better by far. But governor Fayemi removed your picture from the roll call of former governors of the state, saying your administration was not recognised by the law. That one is a matter for the law and constitution. I have not even kept quiet yet because there is a judgment of the Supreme Court about it but that is little. That cannot bar me from seeing the danger that a Fayose would pose for the future of Ekiti. I want to tell you if that was a mistake they would correct themselves, if they don’t correct themselves the constitution and the court would say whether I was a governor or not. But those are petty talk, if anybody talks to me about it I say forget that, I have not rested that, I am going to court if need be and it would be settled but for me that is not important. Whether my picture was taken away or not, whether they said I was governor or not, let us see that as a distraction now. The job at hand is that we should salvage the future by ensuring that it is Fayemi that we are putting in for governorship again. Are you saying you stand to gain nothing in the APC like a senatorial slot or any other political appointment? I am a member of the APC first and foremost and there is no political party that I would walk into in Nigeria that I would not be in a visible position. I am not saying this to fuel my ego. If I stay in the PDP where I was national vice-chairman and I have been governor, I would stand tall in a visible position. If I wanted the governorship of Ekiti State on the platform of the PDP nobody would have beaten me. So I don’t have to come to the APC asking for a slot, I would be cheapening myself. I am at the APC as a member of the APC period. No deals, no pre-conditions and people who know me would know that that is me but people who don’t know me would wonder what they promised me. I am beyond that, I did not cut any deals to get to where I am. God was always cutting my deals and slotting me into positions where he has already concluded the deals. So, why should I now be in a hurry to be anything. If you are truly honest, how come your administration never probed Fayose’s alleged atrocities such as poultry project, among others? Because I don’t waste my time probing, I made it very clear. When the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was after him I was not the one that took him to the EFCC, let them be after him. I had more serious things to do and I was pursuing them. Don’t forget even the murder case against Fayose in Ifaki, I wasn’t the one prosecuting him. The case had gone to court before I became governor. My business was to deliver on my campaign promises to the people. It was not my campaign promise to put somebody in jail for poultry fraud or other crimes. I was there to fulfill my campaign promise. I am not a vindictive person but it does not mean that I don’t believe the law should take its course. I did not obstruct justice in anyway but I am not the type that would go after anybody. If some other vindictive person succeeded Fayose maybe such a person would have not allowed him to rest enough to now want to be governor of Ekiti today. What’s your view about the Appeal Court ruling that nullified your governorship? I did not give the ruling; the judgment was given by somebody else. There is nothing I did that I regret. Did you accept the ruling? If you don’t accept a court judgment what do you do and if it is not a judgment that you can appeal what do you do? You cannot go to the street and start shouting that you do not agree with the ruling. You would just have to leave it to the hands of the Almighty God. In your opinion do you think the ruling was right? I have said it very clearly, if I thought it was right I would not have gone to the Supreme Court again. I went as far as the Supreme Court to say that even in a normal situation, a man who is in anyway related or shares friendship with a litigant should not preside over the affairs but the Supreme Court said this is not the issue, that the issue is that since it is coming from an election petition, therefore, it should not get to the Supreme Court even though what we took to the Supreme Court is fundamental human rights to fair hearing not an election petition. But what do you do, you accept it. If you always believe that you would not suffer any injustice then you are not prepared to live. You would suffer injustice but don’t allow it to sweep you under the carpet. Anytime you see anything as injustice, rise above it, forgive your opponents and forgive the society and move forward. If Nelson Mandela was to look at the 27 years at Robben Island he would find it difficult to forgive the system and that would not have given birth to the South Africa that we know now. newsinnigeria.org/fayosell-destroy-ekiti-oni/ Truth is Sacred
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:25:14 +0000
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