The camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was jolted when former Osun State governor, Alhaji Isaka Adeleke, defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) before the recently concluded governorship election in Osun State. Among other issues, he tells PAUL UKPABIO why he took the critical decision that shattered whatever hope the PDP had to snatch the state from the APC.
I would start by congratulating you on the victory of the APC in the recent governorship election in Osun State. What does it portend for the party?
I also want to start by congratulating myself and the entire people of Osun State for standing by their votes and democratic principles in spite of all that transpired before the election. It shows that the people of this country still believe in democracy regardless of what others say.
Now that the APC has won the election in Osun, what role do you think the other political parties have to play in the governance of the state?
There are still some reasonable people in the other parties, especially the PDP. There are also reasonable people in Labour Party, the breakaway party of the PDP. I must confess to you that most of them will be coming back to the APC. But the leadership of the PDP as constituted in Osun State is very unreasonable. So, I don’t expect anything good from them.
But there are others like the elder statesman, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, Olu Alibi, Ebenezer Babatope and former woman minister, Erelu Obada; these ones are very reasonable people. They will cooperate with this government because they know that we don’t have any other state than Osun. So whoever is in the saddle is immaterial. The election has been won and lost. To me, there is no victor and there is no vanquished. Everybody should join hands together with the person that won to move the state forward.
Why did it take you so long to realise that you were in the wrong party?
I did not say I was in the wrong party. The day I was crossing over, I said the PDP was not yet that bad but the leadership of the party in Osun State was what I could not comprehend. I said we still had nice people in the PDP. I cannot condemn the PDP because I rose on the platform of that party to become a senator and also play different roles as Chairman, Governing Council of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Pro-Chancellor, Chairman, Governing Council of the University of Calabar.
Having enjoyed all that on the platform of that party, I cannot say now that the party is totally bad. But some individuals that hijacked the leadership of the party in the state are criminals. Honestly, I cannot work with them. If I had remained in that party as a core party man, I would be forced to work for them and for the success of that party, and I don’t want criminals again in Government House at all.
Some people insinuated that you were bought over by the APC?
There was nothing like that. My defection was based purely on principle. If I wanted anything, I could as well have got it while in the PDP. If I had stayed with the PDP, with those people that have hijacked the party in the state, definitely, they would have won and I’ll become this and that. We don’t want such characters in Government House. I am satisfied. I worked relentlessly and tirelessly for the success of the party and ensured that those individuals did not get to the Government House.
We also learnt that your constituency voted massively. What do you think they deserve for their effort?
That was not the first time Ede people would vote very well. And when you talk about my constituency, it is not limited to Ede people. The federal constituency consists of four local government areas which are solidly behind me in every election. That was not the first time. My journey into politics started way back in the late 80s and early 90s and they have been supportive and I have been giving back too. That is why any time I say let’s move, they move with me. We moved from APP to PDP and then to APC. If election comes tomorrow, we are going to sweep the whole thing.
I have always tried to give back to them; not only my constituency but the whole state. I have done a lot in terms of scholarship, empowerment, employment, establishment of factories where people are gainfully employed. And now, we have Adeleke University. A lot of people are working there. We have established banks, First Merchant Bank, which became Unity Bank, and so on and so forth. We are doing a lot for the people in the area because of the support they are giving us. As we give, they give back.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola is in for a second term. What are your expectations?
I describe Aregbesola as a man in a hurry to develop Osun State. He was doing a lot in terms of infrastructure and that was what we needed. But Osun is not Lagos. If you are doing that in Lagos, everybody will be happy because nobody cares about any other thing than provision of good roads, electricity, water, security and an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. That is Lagos. But in an agrarian places like Osun and Ekiti, if you are doing that without looking at the human development angle, they will say you have not done anything. They won’t even see what you have done. So, we have to do this, to support him to finish up what he has started.
When he started, the revenue base was so high. He had a lot of money to play with. That was why he embarked on all those projects. The roads and the schools he built were so fantastic. They were designed like elementary schools in the U.S. When we were in college there, everything was enclosed; all the facilities were there. He has provided school buses. They have lunch out there in the school and they don’t have to go out. That is fantastic. If he can complete that throughout the state, he will be one of the primus inter pares of such in the country. So, we have to give him that support and I know very well he will do it.
Are you content with being a kingmaker or you still intend to contest political positions in the future?
I am still going to run for an office in 2015. But that will be at the federal level. I have always said I would love to go back to the Senate. I enjoyed the Senate and I will love to go back there to help in making laws.
How do you think the Senate has fared?
We are growing with time. Right now, I have a lot of bills that are hanging because I didn’t go back. There are certain bills I wanted to introduce. I am a criminologist. I have a master’s degree in Criminal Justice and there are certain bills I will be introducing to the country to improve on the criminal justice continuum. I introduced the issue of plea bargaining, but a lot of people don’t understand what plea bargaining is. It wasn’t that anybody that steals money would have to plea bargain. Plea bargaining is a tool that we use to detect crime and nip that crime in the bud.
For example, if three of you conspired to commit a crime and one of you is caught and is told that this crime you have committed, if convicted, you are going to jail for 10 years. But if you plea bargain and you let us get the other two, we can sentence you to two years. That is plea bargaining. You do that in court. It makes you to detect the crime, arrest the criminals and all that. Those are the issues of plea bargaining.
We also have what is called probation. Our prisons are congested. Our criminal justice system is punitive rather than correctional. It is not every crime that you sentence people to prison. Sometimes, you give them a suspended sentence. Put them on probation for certain crimes. That is what probation is. Let them serve the sentence within the community. They do community service. If you put everybody in the prisons, it criminalises the individuals. There are hardened criminals in there that would teach somebody who ordinarily wouldn’t have been a criminal to become a hardened criminal, especially in an impoverished society like ours.
Then again, we have what we call ‘parole’, which is where you serve the rest of your sentence within the society. If you are sentenced to a 10-year period, there is something we call good time; one day off upon your good behaviour. It makes that person to be of good behaviour in the prisons. The prison should be a place just like outside the society.
We have schools. We have had people who obtained Ph.D from the prison walls and they are good people today. So if you behave yourself every day and you are sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, for every day you stay in prison and behave well, they take a day off. At the end of the day, they take off five years or two and a half years during that period.
We introduced certain reforms in the prison system, like schools where people can teach. You study for bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and so on. Those are some of the bills I want to introduce into the criminal justice system, among many others that are still in the Senate. I want to pursue it when I get there.
Let us take a look at the militarisation of elections. It happened in Ekiti and Osun states. The APC cried out when it happened in Ekiti and Osun states, but some people believe it helped to make the elections free and fair. What is your take on it?
What I witnessed in Osun a week to the election was hell. I thought the SSS are a secret service. They are not to be seen. They are supposed to detect crimes and hand over criminals to the police. But these guys have turned themselves into thugs. The first day they came, I saw them with masks, standing atop their vehicles and shooting sporadically in the air to scare people. What was that intended to achieve?
Then the police were not doing much but the soldiers too joined. We have a barracks in Ede. I was held in solitary confinement after the Tuesday mega rally at Ede a couple of days to the election.
The soldiers from Ede barracks were very friendly. When we were doing our campaigns within Ede, they were passing peacefully and we were waving at one another. There was no such thing as harassment. I believe they have this special killer squad that came in to harass, intimidate, arrest and kill. I am saying this because I was a victim.
Although I had heard about it, but a day preceding the election, I moved from my house to my mother’s house because of its proximity to where my voting unit was. At 1.45 am, we were woken from our sleep with sporadic gunshots outside the gate of my mother’s house with shouts of, ‘open the door.’ They were shouting and banging the gate. I was upstairs. I looked through the window and saw hooded men in black dresses. I could see them because there was light. Some of them were in camouflage. I said they could be armed robbers or assassins. Fortunately, I had my security people with me. I now shouted that they should not open the door because we didn’t know who they were. Even if they were policemen, do you execute warrants at 1.45 am for God’s sake?
There was exchange of gun fire between them and my security men because I didn’t know who they were. After about 30 minutes, they left. The local hunters all converged and I told everyone to remain calm till the morning when we would report the issue at the police station. I called the election DPO because they had transferred so many people. He came to me. I called the DSS guy and he also came. He said they were there and they would protect us till morning. And they did. Till the morning, nothing happened again. I walked to my unit. After accreditation, while waiting to vote, about nine lorry loads of soldiers, SSS men and all kinds of paramilitary agents with AK 47 surrounded the whole place. I knew full well that it was me they were looking for, but I packed my books and walked through them and left. They didn’t see me.
Why did you think they were after you?
I don’t know. You should ask Omisore. I am coming to that. I was in the third house upstairs looking at them. They now were asking my friends, ‘Where is Adeleke? The guy answered, ‘I have not seen him since yesterday. I am here just to cast my vote.’ And they said, ‘Your best friend, you have not seen him since yesterday? You are lying.’ They picked him up and threw him in the car. There was somebody who was wearing a hood inside a black van, pointing out the people they would go to. They picked up all my security people. They said, ‘You were the ones shooting at us yesterday.’ We saw an SSS guy slap a uniformed police officer. They took all of them away when they couldn’t see me after about 30 minutes.
But the people insisted on voting. They queued up and were voting. They didn’t even mind them. A lot of people told me after that incident that some people who had wanted to vote for the PDP resolved to cast their vote for APC because of what happened on that day. That is why I said the people stood by democracy. What is this? Is this how we will continue with voting? This has to stop. They voted APC. Now, when they left the voting place, they carried all those people along with them. They went to my house. When they got to my house, they saw CCTV cameras everywhere and they started breaking them. They were so crazy. All the posters of Aregbesola and the APC outside were torn.
Meanwhile, the people they had arrested were still in the vehicle with them. Then they banged on the gate but there was nobody because everyone had gone out to vote. The few people remaining might not have heard because the gate to my main house is far. They now scaled the fence, entered the house and opened the gate for others to come in. They got inside and started breaking down doors. The only door they did not break down was that of my bedroom because they didn’t get there.
I have a friend who came from Ekiti State. The guy is the younger brother to the deputy governor of Ekiti State. Immediately they saw him, they said: “You again here?’ The same squad had arrested him on the day of the Ekiti election and prevented him from voting because he is a younger brother to the deputy governor of Ekiti State. The Major that led them that day was the same person in Osun. He asked him what he was doing in Osun. He replied that he came to visit me. He was told that he could not go and vote because he is not registered in Osun. That was why I said probably the government has a special killer squad.
They did not stop there. They ransacked everywhere. Unfortunately for them, somebody was working on the CCTV. I could have recorded everything but it wasn’t on. They left the house and took those people to the SSS office and told everybody to lie down. And do you know what they were telling them? That Jonathan wanted something and one stupid Adeleke was telling them not to do it. Who is he? How much does he have? They said that they were given N200 million to waste anybody they could waste. I won’t give you their names now because I am going to go to court. They included a Major, a Brigadier-General and a Captain. The Captain was the only one who did not have a name tag. In the course of the situation, they said a call came in and the Brigadier General said, ‘Otunba, Otunba, we could not get him.’
Who is Otunba? These are criminals. If you didn’t see it when they pointed a gun at me when I was in the PDP, what about this one? Honestly, it is becoming frightening and very dangerous. I have written a petition. I am waiting to see if President Goodluck Jonathan is going to institute a probe about all these things because I want to believe that he doesn’t know about it. It is very likely that these people are doing this behind his back. It is very likely that these people are not sent by government, because if the government sent people to maintain the peace, why arrest people indiscriminately? I was told that about 300 people have been clamped in detention at the SSS office in Osogbo, all from Ede Local Government. I also learnt that they were brought there in the vehicle of the deputy candidate of the PDP by his driver. All they needed to do was point at you and they would pick you up.
How long are we going to continue like that? This is a new dimension to it. If it is not stopped, any election that is coming up, people will employ self-help. If they decide to be lawless, people will decide to be lawless too. I want to believe that Jonathan is not aware of it, and I want to appeal that they should institute a high probe panel to investigate all these things and whoever is involved should be punished to serve as a deterrent to others.
There are reports to the effect that Omisore has not conceded victory to the APC, even though the PDP has reacted differently…
Omisore has the right to challenge the result of the election if he so desires. But it is my hope that all the materials used for the election would be kept and not tampered with, because they can go to any length to tamper with the result of the election because they tried it. I know full well from my own account. That was why the announcement of the results from Ife area was delayed. We won in two of those areas but they went and tampered with the results. But then, they couldn’t go more than were accredited. So, they couldn’t go further. We still won with about a hundred and something thousand. I know we defeated them but I don’t know what the margin is. We will make sure that all the electoral materials are kept.
What was your relationship with Omisore like before you defected to APC?
When we were in the Senate, my relationship with Omisore was cordial. He wanted to be governor and I wanted to go back to the Senate. I wasn’t supporting him. I told him that I could not support him. I know him. I was supporting some other persons and they were holding meetings in my house, and he knew it. He even came to beg me at a time but I said, ‘Young man, I am sorry.’
You don’t look your age at all. What has been the secret?
I will be 60 in a couple of months. I play tennis and I exercise a lot. These are good for me.
What do you foresee about 2015?
I want to see an internal democracy that would be acceptable to all at least to start from 2015. The PDP, in the Electoral Act as amended in 2010, states that there are only two ways by which you can conduct primaries, direct and indirect. I believe the PDP conducted their primaries indirectly. By that, they used delegates. But direct primaries is where all card carrying members of the party vote for a candidate of their choice in the primary election. Any one you take is okay as long as it falls within the ambit of the law. I want to see that happen rather than consensus. Even if it is by consensus, it must be by everybody. If one person says no, there is no more a consensus amongst the contestants. I want to see the elections free fair and to a large extent credible.
The election in Osun, to a large extent, was very free and fair. But can we say it was credible? It wasn’t credible because the processes leading to that election were fraught with irregularities by the military. A lot of people were scared. A lot of people were disenfranchised, arrested, humiliated, and so on. If we remove that, what transpired on the election day could be described as very peaceful, free and fair.
So, it will be good if we can prevent soldiers from usurping the duties of the police. A soldier is not even supposed to be seen on the road. When we were growing up, we were not seeing soldiers. Today, soldiers are everywhere. Instead of going to Chibok, they are roaming around, harassing people on election day. The SSS are not supposed to be seen, but today they are wearing uniform and mask. How can you go to peoples’ homes at 2 am, shooting in the air and expecting the person to keep quiet, and you come over to take that person to do whatever you want? If they are going to execute a warrant, no magistrate will issue a warrant after 6 pm.
Once it is dark, you cannot execute a warrant even if it is for a criminal. As a criminologist, I am aware of situations where you don’t need a warrant to arrest or search anywhere. We call it warrantless searches and seizures, such as during hot pursuit. You are in a car and a peace officer has every reasonable cause to believe that criminal activities are afoot, he can pursue and arrest you without warrant. When he has every cause to believe that the evidence he is seeking in your house may be tainted, maybe you can flush it or something like that, among others.
But when you are coming for an individual, you want to come and search his house, there is no way they will remove things that you will not know. All you need to do is to take the place out; if it is at night, put the paper on the ground, go for a warrant and move in the morning to execute your warrant. But people coming at night in black hoods? Anybody can wear a camouflage or put DSS badge and come in to do all kind of things. They could be assassins. They could be armed robbers. These are areas I see and pray that we should remove from electioneering. I’m not saying we should not bring security people, but we don’t need soldiers.
