Category: Politics

what measures have the APC

put in place to harmonise

the various groups and interests in Oyo and Ogun states?

The party has not been launched in those states you mentioned. What they did in Oyo and Ogun states was a spontaneous reaction or expression of joy over the registration of APC by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The gathering was more or less for unfolding the party’s flag. Some people misconstrued the rally organised by the state governors to welcome the registration of the party as launching and that they were deliberately excluded from the event. The launching of our party has not taken place at the state level. Whenever the launching is to hold, all parties that fused into APC in each state would be involved.

No more ACN, ANPP and CPC. There is only one party now that is APC. We are all one. No one can claim leadership of APC in the states for now. The national executive is working out the modalities for the leadership structures at the state level. We have also put in place the modality for membership registration. The registration exercise will start in Anambra State on August 28 because the governorship election holds in the state in November. We are planning to hold local, state and national congresses to usher in new executive committees.

What are the immediate challenges confronting the APC as a new party and how are you tackling them?

The major challenge confronting us now is the registration of members. We expect a huge turn -out at all registration centres. We are going to provide necessary logistics that would make it easier to register all that turned out without stress. We expect a big rush out on the first day, there would be enough facilities to accommodate everyone that turn out on August 28 . I’m sure that committed members of the party would be willing to assist the party in providing some resources to ensure a hitch-free registration exercise. We are sure that we will surmount all the challenges that may arise.

How would APC improve the standard of living of the ordinary Nigerians, if it comes to power in 2015?

Welfarist ideology is reflected in the objectives and the Constitution of our party. We intend to provide affordable qualitative education for Nigerians youths. The party would embark on massive creation of job opportunities. The level of unemployment in this country today is unacceptable given our natural endowment. Unemployment has aggravated insecurity in the country. In tackling this, the party would embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skill acquisition scheme for graduates along with the creation of Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least one million new jobs every year. With this, people can use their hands to get something done and earn a living.

APC government would invest massively on agriculture not only to make the country self sufficient in food production but will also create jobs for the unemployed youth. Our party would also embark on massive infrastructure development particularly power supply. Without stable power supply, no genuine investor would come and invest even the local investors would relocate to friendly investment nations. The amount that the manufacturers spend on power generation in this country is on the high side. We will fix up the roads to ensure easy movement of goods and services. Nigerian roads are in state of disrepair and that is why accidents are daily occurrence on our highways.

You served as commissioner in Lagos State for 12 years. How would you describe your experience in government?

Ah! it was fantastic. I declined the invitation for the fourth term. I think I should give way for others. Public service experience is good. Before I joined government, there was this general perception that people in government shared the money meant for the provision of services to the public, that public officers embezzle large chunk and spend little for the public. My experience in government has proved this notion wrong. It is very difficult to share public funds because the bureaucracy does not allow that. The mistake that people make is that they think only political office holders decide or manage state resources. No. I t is a joint responsibility of both the political office holders and the civil servants. There is what they call accountability and transparency in government. These are the guiding principles in spending public funds. When a project is approved by the executive council, the release of funds would have to go through certain stages to ensure transparency and accountability.

With all sense of humility, I’m fulfilled in serving the state as a commissioner. Any time I come across projects that were executed in the ministries I served, I feel happy. For example, the Bus Rapid Transportation (BRT) buses was initiated when I was in the Ministry of Public Transportation; Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA) was created to regulate traffic in the state; License Vehicle Factory for manufacturing of vehicle plate numbers to make it easy for motorists to procure plate numbers; efficient traffic light, and ferry service- I met only one boat on assumption of office but it was increased to eight before I left office; and the clean environment in Lagos. You see all these things make me happy whenever I come across them.

If you are given another opportunity to serve at a higher level like governorship, will you accept?

For now, my major pre-occupation is my career. I want to reach the peak of my profession. As a lawyer, my ambition is to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). To attain this status, it requires a lot of industry and commitment.

I don’t have money to contest governorship election. A lot of people have approached me asking me to contest. What I told them was that they should go and raise funds for the project first. when they come back, I will give it a thought. I belong to a school of thought that says that God empowers. whatever you want to become. I don’t dictate to God. I believe in God with my total submission to His will.

As a lawyer, do you think local government should be autonomous of State government?

I don’t think there is anything wrong in granting local government full autonomy in view of the flaws in the present arrangement. Federalism is not universal. If you like you can have two or three tiers of government depending on what suits your peculiarity. That’s my personal view.

Full autonomy will make local government to be accountable fully to the people, they will be responsible for their successes and failures. I share the position of the House of Representatives.

Do you think the APC can dislodge Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power in 2015?

Yes, it is possible. If we manage ourselves and the goodwill we enjoy all over the country, 2015 will be a walker-over for us. The party enjoys tremendous goodwill across the country.

Who is likely to emerge as APC presidential candidate in 2015?

Nobody can tell you who will be the presidential candidate. We don’t have a choice, but change has come. We will be more transparent in picking the party’s standard bearer than any other party. APC is a credible alternative to the PDP. We have to demonstrate to the whole world that we are superior to them. There will be no imposition of candidates. This is a new era. People will decide who should be the party’s standard bearer.

Has the APC zoned its presidential ticket to the north?

Technically, it will appear so. It tilts towards the north. But for now there is no decision that the presidential candidate should come from a particular region. All positions are open to all regions until the leaders meet and decide otherwise.

Are you impressed with the Federal Government’s handling of the insecurity in the country?

I’m opposed substantially to the present regime over the centralisation of security system. The in-coming regime should decentralise the security arrangement. There must be a decentralised police system. Those opposed to state police keep saying it will be abused by the state governments. Is Federal police not being abused by the Federal authorities? See what is happening in Rivers State where the State Police Commissioner sees himself as an agent of the presidency protecting the political interest of the President. What we have to do is to put in place checks and balances that will curtail the abuse of not only state police but the Federal police as well.

The advantages of State Police outweigh the potential abuses. The state police will compliment the role of Federal police thereby enhancing security of live and property. There is also need for the enhancement of our intelligence network. We must have intelligence persons on the road at all times so that if anything unusual is about to happen they will nip it in bud. Nigeria should have a think-tank working round the clock on every aspect of life.

When a nation stagnates, it needs a catalyst  for change. And this change can come either through a revolution or a reform. We need not delude ourselves, Nigeria is in the throes of stagnation. Unfortunately, the party in power, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has some difficulty in accepting this fact. A government that runs a nation without a definitive philosophy is incapable of identifying and conceptualising a crisis. When, therefore, you cannot see a crisis, it follows naturally that you cannot solve a crisis. You cannot solve what you do not see.

Because of their progressive inclination, the major oppositions, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), saw what the ruling party refused to see: a national crisis—one that has ravaged our values, social structure, political institutions, governmental policies and social-political leadership. They contemplated a fusion. They debated it and later began the process for a merger. Convinced that they were the solution to the Nigerian crisis, they approached the electoral authorities for formal consummation and official endorsement. This was granted and the rest is history as the cliché goes. The mega party, as they choose to call it, had since then unfolded its manifesto/agenda to the Nigerian public. Whether this can inspire the radical change the system requires or not is a subject for another day. My major interest for now is to explore the possibilities that what we have on ground may not be a merger but a synergy. I may have simply dismissed this as a mere academic exercise if I was not convinced that there were some inherent dangers in this conceptual confusion. With a merger, all primordial correlates vanish and never resurface.  With a merger, all structures, ethnic, political and religious, are collapsed. With a merger, every nostalgic attachment to the past is demobilised.

The purpose of a merger is for the groups and their members to evolve a new bonding and fraternity that will terminate previous individual relationships and allegiances. A merger is about structure and not mere images. A merger is about bonding and not branding. A merger is about sacrifice and not rewards. A merger is about vision and not friction. It is about a goal and not intention. A merger is about objective and not just determination. A merger is about the coming together of people of like minds in spirit and in truth and not just a fellowship of associates with veiled umbrage.  Merger, in simple language, is the convocation of assorted humanity who are willing to submit their individualities for the sake of their collective prosperity. The day a merger is consummated, there should be no trace of old alignments and political fraternities. All ideologies, idiocies, idiosyncrasies, philosophies and ideas are compressed into one. This is to avoid contamination and pollution. Old things should pass away and all things must become new.

However, post-merger developments, especially in the South-West, have clearly shown that what we are calling a merger may not really be what it seems. Immediately after the official announcement that INEC had registered APC, some South-West governors took the initiative to convoke a rally to formally disband ACN and inaugurate the APC. It was done in the State of Osun. It was done in Ekiti State. It was done in Oyo and Ogun States. Lagos State is still hesitating while Edo State is still undecided. I am not sure of what happened in other states in the North, Southeast and Southsouth. I am not angry with the fact that these governors were being pro-active, but I am not happy with the way some of them handled the inauguration. That of Osun was done with clinical rapidity and Raufist ‘typicality’. The rally which attracted an unprecedented crowd was held 24 hrs after the announcement. Since the day of the inauguration till date, there was no sign of division or exclusion. That shows that the governor carried the other two partner parties along by involving them in the rally. So, I have no problem with them in Osun.

The next rally was that of Oyo State which was held on August 11. I will comment on this later. I move to Ekiti State which held its own on August 12. It was also well attended by party supporters and was addressed by the governor, Kayode Fayemi and the Chairman of the defunct Ekiti ACN, Chief Awe. However, media reports did not say if members of CPC and ANPP in Ekiti State attended the rally or were allowed to address the gathering. But since there was no open protest by these two parties, I want to assume that all was well. And there is no need to cry more than the bereaved since they are not complaining.

Next was Ogun State. The APC rally took place on August 19 and it also attracted a huge crowd of party loyalists.  Nevertheless, there was no mention of CPC and ANPP at the rally. Besides, media reports confirmed that even within the party, all was not well because Chief Olusegun Osoba, one of the national chieftains of the party, stayed away from the rally just like a sizeable number of the state assembly members. The state government had not refuted these reports.

Back to the Oyo State drama. The state government, in an advertorial, had scheduled the APC rally for Sunday 11th August. But in a shocking counter advertorial, some identified members of the three merged parties called on their supporters to boycott the rally. Their reason was that “directives from the National Headquarters of the APC stated that no APC rally should be held in the meantime in any state of the federation…and what is the wisdom in scheduling a political rally for Sunday when party leaders  and followers, who are Christians, will be in churches seeking the face of the Lord?” The advertorial was signed by eight members of the APC, representing the three merged parties, namely ACN, ANPP and CPC.

Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, an ACN  Senator, Alh. Rasaq Folorunso, State Chairman of the defunct ANPP and Alh. Abideen Oladimeji, State Chairman of the defunct CPC, were some of the notable party chieftains that signed the advertorial. Of course, the state government still went ahead with the inauguration in spite of the protest.

The Ibadan scenario may appear like an insignificant fissure in the APC structure, it however, provides us a better reading of the larger implications of one group ascribing supremacy to itself after the fusion of the three groups. The attitude of the Oyo State government implies that the merger is being misconstrued for a synergy. A synergy does not have the depth of a merger. It is the power or success that is achieved by people or groups working together, instead of on their own. In this instance, APC is not working together, it is working as one indivisible party. In synergy, you are bothered about differences and incompatibilities only if they will frustrate the objective of power attainment. But in a merger, not only are you bothered about differences and incompatibilities, it is imperative to harmonize and synthesize such differences and incompatibilities. Not doing this may complicate the process of attaining power. The divergences in a synergy pose no serious threat to their cooperation but the divergences in a merger contradict the philosophy of fusion.

In this case, the APC is not about political cooperation or alliance. It is a merger meant to achieve a change in which “the power of hitherto privileged groups is curbed and the economic position and social status of the under-privileged groups is correspondingly improved.” It is about bringing a change in the direction of greater social, economic, or political equality, a broadening of participation in society and polity.

If APC operates the merger as if it is a synergy, APC may not win more than the eleven states controlled by the progressive governors and this will still make the PDP to control the centre. I understand why some of the Southwest  governors  did what they did. They needed to consolidate and strengthen the party as quickly as possible by creating the necessary awareness and enlightenment about APC because of the 2014 elections. The defunct ACN, noted for its political aggressiveness, was not willing to subscribe to any frustrating political bureaucracy. Besides, these governors knew that as a new party, the APC would have to contend with the PDP whose structure remained intact. And the only way to do this was to quickly transfer the machinery of  the  defunct ACN to the APC without prolonged delay. While not blaming the governors for being pro-active and for their foresight, my concern, which stemmed from the actions of some of them, is that in the course of prosecuting their political agenda, the partners of the merger should be accommodated and taken into confidence to assure them of their relevance and importance in the merger arrangement. It may be true that both the CPC and ANPP did not have strong following in the Southwest to warrant their being given any special attention but what happens should they also decide to treat the ACN the same way in states where they also have dominant presence? When we talk of merger, the issue of whether somebody is inconsequential or not becomes secondary with every member of the defunct groups being accorded equal respect and treatment.

I am not comfortable with the posturing of the merger actors nor am I convinced that they know how to make the merger work in other states not controlled by the progressives. To be able to dislodge the PDP from some of the states under their control, the APC need to work very hard and inject some funds into the “restoration project.” But as it is, where will the resources come from? Most of the progressive states are already saddled with their own financial burden and may not be able to raise sufficient funds for the “restoration project.” With elections taking place next year in some of the states, the issue of funding may not appeal to the governors at the moment.

The APC cannot, and should not, think of sweeping Jonathan out of power with only its 11 states namely Nasarawa, Yobe,  Borno, Ekiti, Imo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Zamfara, Edo and Lagos. My calculations are, however, based on what is on ground. There may be other variables, for instance, the PDP crisis and the possibility of some disgruntled and disenchanted PDP governors moving over to the APC, which may work in its favor.

The initial fear was whether the government will tolerate the emergence of another formidable political party which will threaten its dominance in the polity. But this fear has been eclipsed by the registration of APC and others, meaning the system has played its part. It is now the responsibility of the APC to prove to the whole world that it is indeed a threat to the ruling party. The future and strength of an organic APC are dependent on how quickly it can attenuate people’s perception of its superficiality as a result of the disparate activities of some sub-structures of the merged parties. The merger actors should amplify more on the philosophy and principle behind the merger rather than celebrating the merger itself.