Why Amosun Will Hand Over to Me in 2015- Isiaka. WITH less than two months to the 2015 elections, the winner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primaries in Ogun State, Prince Gboyega Nasir Isiaka, believes the victory of the party at the poll is certain. In this interview with reporters, he also speaks on issues relating to the governorship primaries. KUNLE ODEREMI brings some excerpts: DO you think the PDP is still popular in Ogun state to wrestle power from the Incumbent? I am convinced that if we hold election today in the state, the party will record a resounding victory with an unprecedented margin. I don’t have any iota of doubt in my mind about that. And we are still getting stronger, because the worse is over. Until September, we were scattered to different political parties. We had a lot of our people in the Labour Party, the PDP and the rest. But, we have all come back to the PDP, and we had very free and transparent primaries. We are resolving all controversies that came after the primaries. I strongly believe that our trying time is over I am the only candidate coming from Ogun West Senatorial district and the political awareness in the zone is very strong now. And if you consider the level of agitation in the zone, especially in the last one week, you will agree with me that we shall return the largest number of votes. We expect to do very well in other locations, so I do not have any doubt in my mind that the PDP will have it in 2015. Besides, the determination of all the big players in the party to work together also re-assures one of the impending victory. But, whatever little areas that needed to be welded, we shall not hesitate to do that. The other factor that will work for us is the inability of the present government to deliver dividends of democracy to the people. The governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, is running an ultra-elitist, rudderless and anti-people government, which has disconnected him from the people. This is very clear. Besides, the platform he used to come to power has been divided into two and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) that came out of the APC is having a chunk of their membership. Whatever happened to the PDP in 2011 is what is happening to the APC now. So, it is clear to all discerning minds that Senator Amosun has just six months to spend in office and he will certainly hand over to the PDP government and to me as the governor. I am very confident that the PDP will reclaim Ogun State by the benevolence of Almighty God come February 28, 2015. Let me also assure the Ogun people that under my leadership, life will be more abundant for them. Why the controversy after the PDP primaries and contradicting reports from the national secretariat of the party? Thanks for the congratulatory remark. The fact is that there is no much controversy about the primaries of the PDP in Ogun State, but we have to acknowledge the fact that the opposition party is trying to ignite controversy. Yes, in the contest of this nature, there are some people that will think it should go their way, but that is the beauty of democracy; minority will have their say but the majority will have their way. I think in this particular case, we had the primary election on December 8. Out of more than 800 votes, I scored over 750, that is, about 82 per cent of the total vote cast to defeat my opponent, who scored 151 votes and I was declared the winner. For me, after the primary election, the other process has started, which is to look forward to the election and how to organize ourselves to win it. Any other thing outside this is normal post- primary election reaction that is expected in any democratic party like the PDP.But in this particular case, what we have is the opposition trying to play up non-issues and you can observe that they deployed the social media and if you see people talking there, they are opposition members that are afraid of the unity and the strength of the PDP now. They feel the best way to go is to generate controversy and internal rift where there is none. For us, the primary election is lost and won. But, we expect people to express their feelings and the process to take care of such feeling is in place. We have passed the stage of primaries, and we have reached the stage to start preparing for the general election. I am the candidate and there is no controversy about that. But, some members of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) are allegedly routing for a former Speaker, House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole after the governorship primaries. What would you say to this? Honourable Bankole was one of the aspirants and he also passed through the process. He is not new to this process and therefore, he knows that at the primaries , somebody must win and somebody must lose. I am sure he knows this and that was what has happened in this case. I have not heard him saying anything in the public or read him in the newspapers challenging the primaries. But, we have heard some people in the social media that claimed to be speaking for him, most of which are of unknown addresses; that we cannot specifically say who they are. I cannot link any official position or comment to Bankole in this case. We believe he has accepted the decision of the members of our great party and he has moved on. But if he has any issue, the party is democratic and big enough to resolve it. However for us, the primary election is a foregone conclusion and we are already looking forward to the next stage.But, I also want to appeal to all co-aspirants, including Honourable Bankole to see reasons why we should all come together; let us give our best for our party to win all elections, including the presidential election for President Goodluck Jonathan in Ogun State. I have been trying to reach out to all of them and I am optimistic that we will all work together in the bid to take over the Government House in Abeokuta, come February 2015. Are you not entertaining fears of a re- occurrence of the 2011 scenario, when you lost the ticket via a court judgment? I am not. The major difference between what happened in 2011 and now is that in 2011, there were parallel primaries which produced two candidates until a court pronounced someone. Besides, the party was factionalised. But in this case, there was just a single primary election and it produced me as the candidate for the party. So, no other person can claim that. Also, there is no faction of the PDP in Ogun State now. But, some people may complain about the process and as I said, the party is big enough to deal with that. No process is perfect; however, there are processes of challenging any anomaly found in the process. The tenure of our national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, has been confirmed at the PDP national convention held in Abuja, where I was a delegate, and that shows our confidence in his ability to resolve this kind of crisis. We are not talking of parallel primaries in 2015 as it was in 2011. And the party guidelines and processes were duly followed to produce the candidate. Besides, there was no division in the party as we had it in 2011; we have all come together to work for the success of the party. So, I am appealing to other nine aspirants to let us work together. How would you react to an allegation that some of your supposed godfathers in the party forced you to pay N500 million to ensure you got the ticket. Some alleged that you have to take oath before you could get their support? You see, some of the drawbacks of our democracy are that mischief, lies, and deliberate falsehoods constitute the order of the day; and for those who engage in these vices, all is fair in war. However, let me state emphatically that there is no iota of truth in this and it is a wicked lie from those anti-democratic elements. You should know that in a process of this nature, a keenly contested primary election we just held, rumours are bound to fly around all over the place. I am not new to this type of falsehoods. I contested in 2011, and one of the things they said was that the whole assets of Gateway Holdings and the assets of the state are in my account. But, events thereafter, including several probes and audits are yet to trace anything to me. The truth is that nobody collected a dime from me. They do not see how anybody can be loyal to a governor or to a leader as I am to Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who has never told me to take an oath of allegiance. I did not take any oath and he never asked me to do such a thing. I am someone, who believes you must be loyal to your leader, especially when the process is going on as expected. But immediately I felt otherwise during the process of crossing over to the PDP from the Labour Party, I had to do something else. And that put paid to lies that I took oath with OGD in the first instance. The same thing is happening now with Prince Buruji Kashamu and there is nothing like oath taking but people cannot imagine how I moved back to the party within eight weeks and got this far, but they tend to forget the fact that we have been in this process and we know what it takes. I think they cannot imagine how it happened.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:05:12 +0000
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