Former Minister of Works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, who recently defected from the PDP to the APC, shared his reasons for the defection with Gboyega Alaka. He also spoke on local government autonomy, the politics of voting and more. Excerpts
YOUR recent defection to the All Progressives Congress from the Peoples Democratic Party came as a huge surprise to many; what informed it?
Politics is about what is predominant in your community; it’s about what the issues are. I was thinking of the Southwest. I’ve done a little bit of research. Out of the six zones in Nigeria, the Northwest registered 20million voters, the Southwest registered 16million. In the whole of Nigeria, the Southwest was second; and in the whole of Nigeria, Lagos State was first. In all of the elections we have been conducting, Lagos State has 17 percent votes, but to think that other states in the North normally supersede us by so many votes cast because they come out en-mass! To the extent that I was afraid for the future, that the North could hold us to ransom almost forever if we continued that way. Their perception is that they’re more than us, because they vote more than us and can therefore rule the nation without us. How can you have a zone with the second largest voters registered of 16million, and it is not possible for that zone to have more than 2million votes at any election? So, I concluded that something must be wrong. My own suspicion is that the level of attrition, competition, in-fighting and division in the Southwest for an election is always very strong, to the extent that during elections, many people would not come out to vote – maybe because of fear of violence, and the fact that many people don’t know the importance of voting to the future of their race.
I was checking on the internet and I discovered that the total official population of Lagos is close to 20m. Alimosho has 5.2, Ikorodu has 2.2; but in all elections, hardly would you see Ikorodu coming near 50,000 votes. In the last election, Kosofe alone had 551,000 registered voters but the total number of votes cast was not up to 40,000. Ordinarily, one ward in Kosofe should muster close to 80,000. So, I said to myself, what can we do to change this trend? We have a group, Global Mandate; so we sat down and tried to analyse the inhibitions and see what we could do to lessen the tension. Let’s see if it is possible to poll 4million actual voters in Lagos, and then see the reaction of the country to the assumption that we don’t have the votes.
So your move was borne out of the urge to put some power back to the Southwest?
Yes. Because we discovered that no matter the efforts we put in as Global Mandate, it doesn’t show in the result. We plan a lot, we mobilise a lot, but we don’t know what normally happens, because it just does not show in the result.
People just don’t come out…?
(Cuts in): No, no, no; we have not concluded on that. We have to do more research – because believe me or not, in the last election, there was no way the PDP couldn’t have recorded at least 3million votes in Lagos, but it didn’t work out that way. What may have been responsible is for another day, but it is an inhibition. And those efforts have been truncated almost every four years. So, now that I’m in the APC, we will continue the research. What must we do to save Lagos State and save the Southwest?
Your son, Moyo, himself a force in Kosofe PDP, also defected officially to the APC recently, and people are beginning to see it as a family decision.
No! That is a misconception. He is not a member of Global Mandate. Moyo has his own group that is not Global Mandate. I am talking of Global Mandate as a political caucus and the volunteer groups and other support groups and how they have been incapable of mustering enough votes. So, his decision is his own decision. You need to understand that the PDP as a political party has several groups.
Are you saying he could have switched camp with you still deeply rooted in the PDP?
He had the same problem closely related to what I’m talking about. He’s a grassroots person; he can work on the field, but it is not reflected in the results that he gets. And he’s curious to say, what is happening? Something must be wrong; this result can never be my result!
Is there a suspicion of rigging?
I don’t know. It is when you’re not in the majority that you rely on rigging. Besides, if the opposition is rigging, why can’t you rig too? I’m not a person who gives excuses.
Many have also been speculating that you are beginning to feel lonely in the politics of Lagos and felt it was time you joined the mainstream…
That is at the lower level. What I have been talking about is at the higher level. We have a structure, we have EXCO at the state level, we have elders at the state level, we have at the local government level, we have at the ward level and we have at the zonal level. At the zonal level, they are even more frustrated – because they bear the brunt at the polling booths, so much so that they sometime tell me ‘Oga, we have to change our tactics o; this place is not for us.’ They have come to the conclusion that there is no hope.
Basically, your move was influenced by the people.
Yes. That’s our secretary, he can testify to that. They have been suspicious of foul play within the PDP. We have been there for 16 years and we have been posting the same result, even with all the planning.
Your movement may also signify the death of the PDP in this environment
That is not correct because the composition of Lagos favours the PDP. Ask yourself, who are the predominant people in Lagos? Is it not the Southsouth and Southeast people, who are normally PDP in their states? So naturally, you expect the PDP to perform better. But we normally disappoint them and they are even more frustrated, because it is their business and means of livelihood and survival that is at stake more than we indigenes. You may not believe it but the level of in-fighting within the PDP is even more than the atrocities between the PDP and the opposition APC. The damage members of the PDP can do to that party is far more than what APC can do to it. How else could Rita (Orji) have lost in Ajeromi Ifelodun? But Rita was prevented from winning by PDP people. Again, ask yourself: how could we have lost 40-0 in Lagos House of Assembly? But that is history now. I am no longer one of them.
You still speak like someone who has passion for the PDP?
How can you have passion for failure? That passion is gone. I am for voting, I am for figures. How do we get the figures and make a political statement? The East is facing the same challenge. They have to sit down and make sure they know what they are doing. Their vote is so negligible too. If you want to be president of Nigeria and you cannot muster 20 percent of the total votes, how does anyone take you seriously? Look at their results? They must have lost over 800,000 votes collectively in the five Southeast states, minimum. Why can’t they sit down and address that issue, like we are doing?
I am going to champion that thought. In the north, if you have underage voters, they don’t quarrel; they just say to the other, bring your own underage. But here we are too critical of each other. Why must we be recording 17 percent when we have the numbers, while a disturbed area like Northeast and Northwest, are polling 1.8 million and 2million?
There were strong allegations of multiple thumb printing
Why not we do it here too?
Coming from your calibre of person, you may come across as promoting indiscretion at elections?
But they are casting aspersions on you and your people; that you don’t have the votes. Southeast wants to be president with that number of votes? How possible?
The president has just been sworn in for a second term. What are your expectations?
In terms of the person, Mr. President is the ideal leader that Nigeria needs. But he doesn’t use enough technocrats, university professors and researchers. That was what Awolowo and Zik were doing. You don’t restrict yourself only to your party members. There are experts in every field. Yes, we have Professor Adewole and a few others; but those are academics on paper. They are not researchers. Besides, they might be afraid to tell the president, this is the way to go. An Adewole may say, we are going to build 10,000 health centres; a Prof. Osinbajo may go about distributing money to market women; but that is not the work of the federal government. That is the work of the local government people. The structure, as we have it is defective, and no matter what we do and the level of integrity of Mr. President, he may not get the desired result. I was happy when he said he was going to start releasing money to the local governments directly. That is the first way to go. There are functions of the local governments as stipulated in the constitution; no state should be allowed to usurp those functions. Local governments are the owners of markets; they know the local market women; how then can the federal government be distributing money to the market women, leaving out the LG chairmen and councillors? You are feeding children in primary schools that are owned by the local governments and you’re not involving the local governments; how do you get the right statistics? They have very good programmes, but who is supposed to implement them? If the 774 local governments perform to half of their capacities, Nigeria will not be where she is today.
How will you score the president in his first term, looking at his three-prong agenda of economy, security and anti-corruption?
He has done his best, but let’s assume that was a training period. However, this four more years should be extended to involve researchers and universities in whatever decisions they are going to take.
Let’s zero down on the security situation in the country. Yes, it may seem like Boko Haram is at its lowest ebb, but we have heard of herdsmen and now bandits’ actions are really devastating. Why is the country so beleaguered?
Does Nigeria have capacity to pay such money to nearly 50million youths?
Do you know how many trillions of naira you use to service oil subsidy to service just one percent of the population? Such money is enough to fund social security. That’s what they do all over the world. You don’t expose your citizens to such level of hardship and think they are not going to carry guns.
Let’s go back a while to when you were minister. You had quite a frosty relationship with the then Governor Bola Tinubu; now you’re going to be working with him at close quarters …
That is history now. Every minister and it has happened with Fashola too, has responsibilities and every governor has responsibilities attached to their offices; so everybody wants to protect his own turf; it’s not fighting. Just that each wants to do his job.
The APC has been categorised as a party of strange bed fellows, and this panned out well towards the elections. We saw how Rivers APC and Zamfara bungled their chances and it almost happened in Lagos as well. Can you proffer a solution?
I think INEC has realised that now. Under the appropriate section of the constitution, INEC is supposed to guide and monitor political parties. All congresses, all primaries must be conducted by INEC. That should solve all the problems. They have 805 cases in court now; they have lawyers there; they are wasting money. INEC should not just supervise congresses and primaries only, they should conduct them. Then, there will be peace and harmony in the country. The problem is that the governor wants to control, the minister wants to control and the senator wants to control, but once INEC issues guidelines and takes charge, there will be no problem. A situation whereby the courts have to determine winners of our elections is not good for our politics.
Ambode’s one term, what lesson do you think the fact that he couldn’t do second term would have on Lagos politics?
Any governor that is detached from the citizens would run into trouble. Let’s give it to an Awolowo or Jakande person. Jakande used to have a day devoted to meeting with anybody who wanted to see him. That doesn’t happen again.
Isn’t that going to be rowdy?
So why did we vote for you if it is going to be a problem for you. The people who voted for you should have access to you. See them, listen to them; it is not all their problems that you’ll solve but they would appreciate having access to you. It is not fair to those people who voted to you, if they cannot have access to you.
You think that it was his detachment from the people that made him lose out?
Of course! It is the people who said ‘we don’t need you again… the party has not felt your impact….’
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