Alhaji Jamiu Ekungba, a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is a governorship aspirant in Ondo State. He spoke with EMMANUEL OLADESU on his plans for the state, the proposed shadow poll and the agitation for zoning.
Why do you want to govern Ondo State?
Ondo is the only Southwest state that is oil producing, which means that, apart from the normal characteristics of that geo-political zone, that state derives money from oil production. The state also has mineral resources that are unique in the world today. Apart from oil, we also have bitumen and today, the asphalt with which we tar our roads are imported from Venezuela, despite the fact that we have the capacity to produce asphalt in Agbabu in Ondo State. The amount of money that we will use to manufacture our own is far lesser than what Venezuela is using to mine its own because Venezuela has to go hundreds of meters down to bring it out. In Ondo State, it is on the surface. Aside from that, Ondo is the only state in Nigeria that has a coastal line and a thick forest that grows gradually into shrubs and savanna. What that means is that there is no crop that is being produced in Nigeria that cannot grow in Ondo State. In terms of tourism, from the coastal to the inland, it is like a journey from the plains to the hills. We have the Idanre hills, Akoko hills. And there are virtually no mineral resources in Nigeria that is not available in Ondo State in commercial quantity. And there is the quality of manpower in the typical Yoruba, brilliant and industrious. So we have everything that makes it sickening to everybody why we should share border with poverty. That is the state I come from. One of our political leaders, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, once told me when I was apolitical, that people like me have no right to complain when things go bad. I found it unbearable that that state is one of the states that go to the Federal Government to borrow money before it could pay salaries. So, this is one of the things that is pushing me.
Do you have the experience required for the job?
With my background in academics and even in parental training, I am prepared to do the job of ruling the state. I am a certified teacher, an accountant, a banker and a financial consultant. I was one of the six, including Rt. Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, that turned the International Bank of West Africa to Afribank, the first financial supermarket in Nigeria. That bank was grasping for life when our team was set up. We worked assiduously to turn that bank to one of the most active in Nigeria. That is the experience I am putting on board. When my friend was made the MD of Trade Bank, he didn’t know what he was going into. When he got there, he saw a shell, a bank that was dying and he came to beg me to join him. I was torn between my career and friendship, but I chose friendship and we made that bank one of the surviving medium-scale institutions. If I have been able to do that to other institutions, why cant I do it for my state. When Bicourteny was trying to build the only airport that is of international standard in Nigeria, I was there consultant. I did not only rebuild he image of Bicourteny in the banking industry I put together a consortium of six banks that raised the N20 billion with which the airport was built. My own state, because I don’t have any other state I could call my own, is now in dire need of someone to take it out of the woods, from this state of comatose to life. I took up the challenge, because I want to be on the right side of prosperity. I offer myself because I have the capacity and the strength to make Ondo State the engine of national development, a model of democratic development and a state that would offer a thriving business environment for Nigerians and members of the international community.
Considering the perceived ineffectiveness of the public sector, how do you want to repeat a success story that was achieved through the instrumentality of an effective private sector in the public sector?
God has prepared me for this job because after rising to a high level in my chosen career, as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and as a member of Governing Council of the Institute, I still went to acquire more education and I read Corporate Governance at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom at Masters level where I distinguished myself. So, theoretically, I know how to handle human beings of any character traits or intent because intentions drive man. I have been trained to handle these conflicting missions of individuals to project the corporate objective be it in public, private or religious.
What is the strength of the opposition in Ondo State? There is the impression that the APC is weak….
I think when newsmen say a thing; any politician that says he does not agree is living in fool’s paradise. I would not say I do not agree, but I would say that one thing an average politician does not know is that the man who is the governor of Ondo State is my friend. One of the lessons my father thought me is that if you make a mistake and you call somebody your friend, if that friend becomes devil, you can’t say he is no more your friend. This man is what I would call active Maradona of our time politically. He knows how to handle you press, the social media and Ondo State people. I think the practical example is that, when he was seeking his second term in office, he called all the Ondo State people and said he wanted to create local governments. He diverted attention from discussing political and economic activities of the state and everybody wanted local governments. So, there was no way anybody could do constructive criticism of him any longer, he diverted attention. Now, after the election, where are the local governments he promised, for which he spent billions of naira setting up committees to go round. Where are they?
Now, in the last election, immediately we dealt a blow on him at the Presidential Election. He came and told the Obas and the chiefs that he wanted to upgrade some of them. Like I do tell some people in Nigeria, any politician that says that the traditional institution is no more relevant is joking. Immediately he threw in that one, everybody forgot everything, even the APC that had won sizeable votes for the president and the National Assembly poll, Senate and so on, forgot everything. We started talking about promotion of Obas, promotion of chiefs and re- classification and the man went to the drawing board of how to hit the indigenes below the belt, which he did successfully. The APC, a party that scored 54.6 per cent in Presidential Election now had five House of Assembly seats out of 26.
Now, another election is coming, he now says he wants to conduct local government election. For seven and a half years, he has always told us that he could not hold local government elections because there is a case in court. Has that case been decided? No. Now he has fixed a date for local government election for 24th of April. Why? To divert the attention of the people from the rising profile of APC because, except the right people become governor, local government elections would continue to be manipulated. But like I told you, I am going to develop that state to model of democratic development. We have never seen a state governor that conducted a local government election and his party did not win 100 per cent. So even if APC is going to partake in that election, we know the result from the beginning. But now that there is going to be local council election, there is even crisis within the APC whether to participate or not, so nobody is talking about gubernatorial election any longer now in the APC, it is now local government election, which is April.
The PDP that is dying will now start waking up. So, this is exactly what you have seen in Ondo State. And so now when people ask me, APC is not active in Ondo State, I ask, which APC? Is it the APC as a political party or the Ondo State of Mimiko that he has succeeded in dribbling everybody? The 22 people on the field, the only person he has not been able to dribble is himself and I am sure very soon, he would dribble himself. The point is this, the APC in Ondo State is strong enough, to the best of my knowledge, I know my structure, my own personal structure, I am not talking of the party structure now, within the APC. It is strong enough to win election today in Ondo State. My own structure within APC is strong and intact. Now, when you add the other structures, how will we not be able to win election?
How prepared are the aspirants for dialogue and to accept any one of them that is chosen as the candidate?
The last election in Lagos State, you had many people showing interest. When there is big job, because of that job, has so many sides to many people, some people see governor of Ondo State as being the chief executive of a state. A lot of us, the 24 in the race, if you ask them, they don’t even know the extent of the problem, so they just want to be there because everybody is contesting, let me contest, if by accident, I would be there. So if that person is there by accident, he would for the next four years, ruin the lives of our people accident, I didn’t say rule, I say ruin. So that is one side to it.
There is controversy over zoning in the Ondo APC, ahead of the election….
I have never heard the party saying they would not follow zoning, but the party does not impose zoning on anybody. It is not possible. It is not possible for APC to say it does not recognize zoning, because even in presidential election, we did it. We would just have picked the president from Katsina and picked the vice president from Borno and disturbed the country’s political balance. You see let me tell Nigerians this one, we underplay some important issues, things that touch somebody’s heart, don’t say it is not important. Zoning is very important in Nigeria. So on the issue of zoning, the party will not impose it on anybody. So it is important for the Ondo people to adopt what they have been doing before if they want to. So the Ondo State people have not sat down to look at it now, everybody has come out, everybody is campaigning.
If the party adopts zoning finally, that would be good. It will reduce the number of aspirants, it will also address people wasting their resources so that there can be realignment and cooperation by groups. Whether zoning is adopted in Ondo State or not, it cannot affect somebody like me because from Ilaje to Oke-Agbe, my structure is there and working well.
Who is your godfather in politics?
All my political fathers admire me and they love me. They love something in my consistency, loyalty and integrity. From Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu to the smallest man in the party, they always show their admiration at all times, all of them. So all of them are my idols, I see them as people that motivate me.
