PDP AND FAYOSE WAS REJECTED BY EKITI PEOPLE - Niyi - Adebeyo Niyi Adebayo, the former governor of Ekiti State, is the vice chairman of the newly registered All Progressives Congress (South-West). He tells KUNLE ADEYEMI and ADEOLA BALOGUN how the new party intends to change the political landscape of Nigeria Question: It has been said that what we have in Nigeria are rulers, not leaders. So, what kind of leadership is the newly registered party, All Progressives Congress, planning to give Nigerians? Answer: OTUNBA NIYI ADEBAYO, FORMER GOVERNOR EKITI STATE This issue of leadership and rulers is a very complex one. I believe that we do have people who are leaders but unfortunately, the democratic system we have been running has not been allowed to thrive in a transparent manner and this has created a situation where it is difficult for those who are leaders to actually emerge. The APC is a party that is founded on various principles, chief among which is transparency. We got together and in sitting down and trying to put the party together, there are certain things we agreed upon among ourselves. We agreed that we would be very transparent in our operations. We agreed that whatever government we run, will be geared towards making life comfortable for the people. We agreed that the essence of service should not be to oneself but service to the electorate. We agreed that we would form the party based on proper democratic principles; that we would make sure that we have genuine congresses and primaries; that those who emerge are those who people genuinely want as their leaders. Question: In the process of the merger, people, especially the ruling PDP, said that the only thing bringing you together is just to hijack power from the PDP, is that true? Answer: I do not expect the PDP to say anything favourable about our party because they know that we are a viable opposition. They never wanted the merger to work and they did everything to stop the merger from working but because of our determination, we have been able to put the merger in place. They will continue to say things about us which will not deter us from our set goals. Question: Do you agree with those who see the party as a marriage of strange bed fellows? Answer: It will be like that to them but I disagree with them because we have sat down and discussed as politicians and we have agreed on a few basic things and those things are the things holding us together; we all have progressive ideals. Question: Have you noticed a political war going on in states such as Oyo and Ekiti in the South-West, where some party men have come out to challenge their governors? Answer: That is what we call democracy in action; that some people have ambitions to contest election is nothing strange in politics. A politician who is in a party and does not have an ambition is like a car without an engine. We will work on those things and whatever system we put in place will be transparent and everybody will be given the opportunity to aspire to whatever position they desire. We have a constitution, which provides for the way and manner through which candidates emerge and we will adhere to the letters of the constitution. Question: Do you have senior partners in APC? Answer: There is no senior partner. Right now, we have only one party and we are yet to register members, so there is no senior or junior partner. We had parties before, those parties are dead and now, we have only one and all of us are equal joiners. APC is a coalition of people across the nation and therefore, it is a national party. Question: But some people think it is Tinubu and Buhari’s party. Do you agree? Answer : I always laugh when people say that; is it not my party? Is it not Osoba’s party, Ikimi’s party? Is it not Akande, Yerima, Ali Modu Sherif, Akume’s party? I can go on and on. We had a merger committee, Tinubu was not in the merger committee, Tinubu was not a member of the committee; Buhari was not a member either. People just want to denigrate our party; especially the PDP, they want to make it seem as if it is a one-man outfit but it is not. It is a national party and I can continue to mention names of major players within the merger group. Question: Don’t you think that at the end of the day, APC may turn out to be a basket of disgruntled politicians? Answer : In the political landscape the way it is, there has been a lot of crisscrossing by politicians but luckily for me, I am not one of those. But I am not going to denigrate anyone that has done so; obviously if you are looking for something in your party and you can’t find it and you feel that it is in another party, you can go there. The important thing is that you have the objective to serve the people which is key to us. We in APC have put something on ground that must be imbibed by all members of the party and we used to have that in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria. Question : The Northerners have come out to say that it is their turn to have a go at the presidency, has the APC zoned the position there? Answer: There is no such thing as at now. The party has just been registered; we are still going to sit down to put structures in place before all those things can be discussed. Question: Why is it that Buhari is the only visible name for the presidential slot in APC? Answer: I think one important thing you have to look at is the number of times he has contested. As I said, we have not even commenced the registration of party members, I am sure there are other people who have an interest in contesting the presidency but have not declared such. Everybody has their own strategy, maybe it is Buhari’s strategy. If fact, Buhari himself has not said he is contesting. All he has said is that if the party finds him capable, he will accept. But the mere fact that he has this national image and the fact that he has contested on a number of occasions; there is the perception among members of the public that there is the strong likelihood that he will contest. Question: There is this insinuation that ambition will be the bane of APC. Answer : There have been insinuations from day one. First of all, they said we would not be able to agree among ourselves on anything and so we would not get registered. They said even if they registered us, we would not be able to form an interim committee and all sorts of things. Everything they have said we would not be able to do, we have done. So wait and see. Question: There is this allegation that the PDP will always find a way to retain power, what would happen if APC is rigged out? Are you prepared for do-or-die politics? Answer: You can only rig yourself into power when the people are apathetic. It is the electorate themselves that will resist that. I believe that the Nigerian electorate have woken up now. All the things that Obasanjo was able to get away with when he did were because people were lethargic and not too concerned. But today, things have changed. In fact, it started to change when he tried to get the third term. Despite his do or die brand of politics, he was not able to get the third term. That is as a result of people rising up to say no; people have woken up to say that they will never take nonsense again; that they will never accept people foisted on them. The PDP would always want to do that but the important thing is to have a strong INEC and police to put a stop to that. I personally don’t believe in a centralised police in a federation. I don’t buy the argument that state governors would use the police to pursue selfish interest but the Federal Government is using police to propagate their own agenda, so that defeats their own argument. Thank God, people are now prepared to protect their votes and we are trying to educate the electorate with the principle of one man one vote. We used to sing that in ACN. Question: We hear that some PDP governors are angling to join APC, has any of them approached you for membership? Answer: This question is best suited for the governors you are talking about; you have to ask them whether they have an interest in coming to us. I can give you the assurance that any politician that has the interest in joining our party, we will welcome them but we will make sure that they will subscribe to the goals of our party. Question: People believe that Rotimi Amaechi is already part of APC even though he still remains in PDP and governor of Rivers State, is he with you? Answer: As far as I know, he is in PDP and he has said it several times that he remains in PDP. He is not a member of APC as at today. But as I said, if he expresses the interest of joining us, we will welcome him but he has to subscribe to the principles of the party. Question: How do you want to bring Ondo State within the fold of the South-West politically as the vice-chairman of the zone? Answer: We have a very strong party in Ondo State; we are going to reorganise ourselves very well. We are meeting, trying to make sure that the party is well positioned in the state and we will work very hard and present ourselves when next there is an election there with a view to winning the governorship seat. Question: But can we wish away the political differences caused by the governorship aspirations of Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele and Senator Olufemi Lanleyin in Ekiti and Oyo states? Answer : As I said, in politics, people will always aspire to offices. It is natural; there is nothing wrong with that. When the time comes, we will hold the necessary contest that will enable the party candidate to emerge and whoever emerges will be the candidate for election. How do we know those are the only people with aspiration? More people are still going to come out, you never know. That is why we have party primaries. Question : As former governor of Ekiti State, in retrospect now, can you beat your chest that you did your best? Answer: Normally, I don’t like to answer certain questions like this but all I can say is that from the way I am received by the people in the state whenever I am there, I want to believe that I did well. People send me messages; they come up to me and this shows me that I must have done my best to make them happy. Question: But your successor, Ayo Fayose, always parades himself as the best performing governor of the state. Answer: Well, I learnt a proverb very early in life when I was in primary school; that says empty vessels make the most noise. If he was such a good governor, he would not be impeached. He contested for the Senate, which is just one third of the state, in the last election and he came third. So, I think that shows the level to which he has been rejected by the people. Question: But he alleged that he was rigged out by the ruling party in the state and you were a major player in the old party in the state. Answer: Nobody rigged him out, people rejected him. He likes to make out that he is loved by the masses in the state; all you have to do to puncture this is go on the streets of Ekiti, they will tell you what he is. He is just a rabble rouser. What did he do in Ekiti? All the roads he claims he did in Ekiti, all of them failed after less than a year. There is no monument in the state that you can say Fayose did that has stood the test of time. He is still subject to court cases where he is being prosecuted for looting the treasury of the state. Question: After your tenure as governor, was there any attempt to probe you for corruption? Answer: Yes, I was probed. The governor then announced that he had set up a panel headed by a judge and advertised that people should send in petitions, but for one month, not one petition was written against me. That did not satisfy the governor because he was on a vendetta, he was not happy that people still found me popular. He knew he was not elected because he was rigged in, he wanted to do everything to discredit my government but at the end of everything he did, nothing was found against me. Question: Was it that Ekiti was so poor that there was nothing to loot? Answer: Let me explain something, when I went into politics, I did not go there to make money. I went there to serve. My father was governor before me and he left office unscathed while his colleagues were being indicted. One thing that was ingrained in us his children when we were young is that we should never do anything to bring the family name into disrepute. When I went into politics, my father called me and repeated the same thing. And to God be the glory, I was able to go into office, served without spoiling the family name. Question: But some people believe that it was your father that brought you out and practically told the people to vote for you as governor; was that what happened? Answer: When I hear people say that, I laugh because by the time I decided to go into politics, my father had already agreed to support somebody else for the governorship post. So, it was a bit of embarrassment for my father when I decided that I was going to go into the race. But as a loving father, he had no choice but to give me support and advice. The fact that he is my father helped a lot, that is a very big factor in politics. But I doubt it very much that it was enough for someone to just bring out his son and tell the people to vote for him and then 1.5 million people will agree, I don’t think that is possible. Question: Since the beginning of this dispensation, you are the only governor in the state that served out the statutory four-year term as against Ayo Fayose and Segun Oni. Is there anything peculiar about Ekiti? Answer: Yes. The peculiarity is that those who get into office by foul means do not complete their terms because the people will make sure that they get them out. The two people who got there by foul means, Fayose and Oni, were kicked out because they were not the ones people wanted. Question: Chief Afe Babalola on one occasion said he had tried to talk to successive governors of the state to consider agriculture but that no one took him serious? Answer: I think it is uncharitable of Chief Afe Babalola to say that he spoke to governors and they didn’t listen to him. I think it is not fair. When I was governor, I used to see him, we talked and I know the steps we took to improve on agriculture. I also know that the present governor listens to him and I know what steps he is taking to improve agriculture in the state. Question: What then did you do to improve on agriculture as governor of the state? Answer: We did a lot; we spent a lot of money on providing implements for farmers. We spent a lot of money providing seedlings; we set up various nurseries, where farmers came to get seedlings at cheap rate. I visited Malaysia with a view to partnering with them to set up oil palm plantations in Ekiti. Agriculture is not something that you can finish in one day; it is a gradual process, unfortunately, I could not get a second term in office to be able to finish all the things that we started. Unfortunately, through the machinations of people like Afe Babalola because he cannot claim that he was not part of the people that brought in Fayose, the things that we were working on were stopped and those things were not revived again until Governor Kayode Fayemi came into office. By the time Fayemi gets a second term, you will see the result of what he has started. Question: How does the new party want to tackle unemployment? Answer: I am not unaware of the problem of unemployment in the country. I am very friendly with Alhaji Aliko Dangote and when he advertised for drivers, people with PhD applied. So, I am aware of the problem; I know the number of people that call me on the telephone everyday asking for help. If I bring a file I have where I keep CVs of people, you will marvel. But the major problem we have is that we cannot provide employment without industries and we cannot have industries without electricity. So, we have to get rid of PDP people who cannot fix electricity. If APC government gets into office, we will make sure that electricity is the major issue to solve. It is not rocket science; you award contracts to do Independent Power Projects, you did not award contracts for pipeline to supply gas to the IPP, what kind of thing is that? Question: Are you saying that within the first tenure of an APC government, there will be uninterrupted power supply? Answer: I cannot say that because the mess that is in place now is so much that it will take a while to clear. But what I can assure you is that provision of electricity will be a major priority for an APC government. Answer: Why is it that we don’t have vibrant young men being mentioned as presidential materials in the APC? Answer: We have a party that is still being put together even though we have paper registration. We have not registered our members and after that, we sit down to discuss and decide where each office is zoned to. That is when people can begin to consider contesting for offices based on what is zoned to their area. Even the Buhari we are talking about, what if the presidency is not zoned to his area? So, everything follows a process and we want to get it right and proper. Question: People often criticise Bola Tinubu as the one imposing candidates on the defunct ACN. Now that he is an arrow head in the new APC, do we expect a carry over of such practice? Answer: They are mere allegations but let me assure you that the new APC is a party where imposition of candidates cannot happen. When we sat down to form the party, there are certain things we agreed upon and chief among these is that there will be no imposition of candidates. Any candidate that is going to represent the party in any election must emerge through the primaries as prescribed by the party constitution. APC is not a one-man party or two-man party and we have a constitution and that is what will make us different. Answer: Do you believe in politics where youths are used as thugs during elections? Answer: I don’t believe in politics of thuggery and I have never practised something like that. At least, you would have seen some youths hanging around my house if I was someone who plays such politics. When I go out, I drive myself and I don’t believe I have offended anybody to hide under some protection. Even in Ekiti, I drive myself around and sometimes, I go to restaurants to eat. I sit down with people and we discuss. That is my life; I don’t believe in thuggery. I do not believe you must impose yourself on people; rather, it is the people that should impose you on themselves. If people say they don’t want you, if you like, use 100 thugs, they will kick you out. That is Ekiti people for you. Question: As a family man, out of fear, have you asked your family to go abroad while you stay back for politics? Answer: I am happy that you realise that I am a family man because I am. I cannot live in isolation of my family. I live with my wife and children. I have a daughter who schools abroad right now. All my children schooled abroad because I could afford it but they started their education here in Nigeria. When I was governor in Ekiti, my youngest daughter went to school in the state. It was after that I sent her abroad for further studies. When my children finished their education abroad, they came back here. My first two children are lawyers; my first daughter of over five years in the bar used to work with me in my chambers but when she felt I was not paying her enough, she left to set up her own chamber. Her brother who is also a lawyer is doing his youth corps service in a law firm in Lagos here after his Master’s in America. He is happy that he is here and he wants to stay and work after the NYSC. Hopefully, they will invite me to be their senior partner later. That is my life; I believe Nigeria is our home and that is why I am working. I believe this is not the Nigeria I knew when I was growing up. I was reading in the papers today (Wednesday) where Obasanjo was blaming the younger generation for Nigeria’s woes. I disagree completely with him; I blame his generation for the mess. How many people were under 60 as governors under him? Why didn’t he mention those who were good governors who were under 60? Question: Are you putting the blame on his generation? Answer: Yes, I am saying so categorically for the mere fact that they refuse to leave office for the younger generation to play their part. When I was contesting for governorship in Ekiti, I was contesting against people who were in their 70s. There were governors in Nigeria then who were over 70 when I was 41 years. Meanwhile, they started their political life in their 20s. How old was Obasanjo when he came around as head of state? I disagree with him completely
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 22:02:53 +0000
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