Kogi State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain Chief Tunde Olusunle spoke with reporters on the zoning principle in the state and other partisan issues. Musa Odoshimokhe reports the excerpts:
WHAT is your position on zoning in Kogi State?
I imagine that the early campaigns for the National Assembly offices in Kogi West, especially that of the Senate, cannot be divorced from the political undercurrents at the federal level where the national discourse has been focused on the issue of the Presidency, come 2015.
There are those clamouring for the position to return to a particular section of the country, while there are also apostles of the retention of the status quo, in 2015. And both sides do have their convincing and compelling arguments.
If the noise from the Kogi West is the loudest, compared to the other two senatorial zones, Kogi East and Central, it is because the present occupant of the senatorial seat in Kogi West is serving his second term and that should be his concluding term. The senators representing the East and Central zones are serving their first terms. The general expectation among the people of Kogi West therefore, is that 2015 offers an opportunity for a change in the occupant of the seat, by which time he would have served two full terms of four years each, totaling eight years.
The former occupant of the senatorial seat in Kogi West, under the post-1999 democratic dispensation, Senator Tunde Ogbeha, served for eight years before the incumbent. It stands to reason therefore, that the people of Kogi West deserve a change in 2015.
Can you give a brief insight into the mutual understanding on the rotation arrangement in Kogi West? Why do you think it should be respected?
Like I was saying before, there was an understanding between the three federal constituencies, which make up Kogi West senatorial zone that the position should rotate between the three constituencies, after each occupant would have served two terms. The first federal constituency to produce a senator for Kogi West, with the advent of democracy in 1999, is the Lokoja/Kotonkarfe federal constituency. In 2007, it shifted to Kabba/Bunu-Ijumu federal constituency where the incumbent comes from.
Some of us who took a shot at the position from the Yagba Federal Constituency in the run-up to the 2011 general elections, heeded the advice of our political leaders and elders and stepped aside from the race, on their admonition and advice. They felt we should allow the rotational agreement take proper root, so that Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu will serve its two senatorial terms, and we reasoned with them, all in the process of developing a sustainable political culture.
Indeed, we paid so much obeisance to the pleas of our elders that we resolved to work for the return of the incumbent and to frustrate what we considered the meddlesomeness of the former Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, in Kogi West politics, because it was obvious he favoured a particular candidate from Yagba federal constituency who served his administration for over five years.
That was just how committed we were to the rotational arrangement and which we believe should be respected in the spirit of political fairness, justices, and equity, even morality come 2015.
Some have argued that, since zoning is undemocratic, the best candidate should be considered on merit and performance. Do you subscribe to this thinking?
Don’t forget that the zoning of political offices didn’t also pass the test of the recent constitutional amendment effort undertaken by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Federal House of Representatives.
At the same time, don’t forget that, if we have not made sacrifices as a people and a nation and reached an understanding to zone particular offices at various levels of government and administration, the fragile peace and national unity, which we enjoy, will be precipitously endangered.
Why are PDP chieftain not respecting presidential zoning?
And don’t forget that zoning at the senatorial level is not peculiar to us in Kogi West alone. It is everywhere. It engenders peaceful co-existence and political harmony. The Rivers East Senatorial Zone in Rivers State, for instance, is the home of the Ikwerres, the Okirikas and the Etches. Senator Azuta Mbata, who represented Rivers East Senatorial Zone from 1999 to 2007, is Ikwerre. The incumbent who has been in office since 2007, Senator George Sekibo, is Okirika. There is an understanding between these three groups – the Ikwerres, the Okirikas and the Etches, that an Etche senator will take over in 2015.
Then, when you talk about performance and merit, you cannot assess a man who has not occupied an office to be a performer or a non-performer. You have to give him an opportunity to serve before you draw up a marking scheme for him. And just like the Yoruba proverb popularized by the late Chief MKO Abiola goes, “You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence”.
You can only attempt an objective, dispassionate appraisal of performance and merit, when all parties concerned have been given a fair chance on a level playing ground.
Are you saying that Senator Smart Adeyemi does not deserve a third term, despite his performance in the Senate?
The people of Yagba Federal Constituency will consider it a gratuitous insult, the insinuation that they are in short supply, of credible, competent, enlightened and experienced human resources to fly Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria come 2015, or to hold any position at whatever level for that matter.
You seem to forget that from Nigeria ’s immediate post-independence to the present, some of the most reputable actors on the national socio-political stage form Northcentral Nigeria, are Yagba people from our three local government areas of Yagba East, Yagba West and Mopamuro. I am talking about the likes of Chief Sunday Bolunrunduro Awoniyi, CON; Chief Silas Bamidele Daniyan, CON; Chief S. Ade-John; Chief Moody Olorunmonu; Chief Olayinka Simonyan; Prof. Eyitayo Lambo; Chief Kola Jamodu, OFR; Ashiwaju Jide Omokore; Otunba Funso Owoyemi; Dr Joseph Eyitayo Adetoro (Federal Commissioner for Agriculture, Health and Industries, respectively from 1967 to 1974 during General Yakubu Gowon administration, respected activist, Chief Seth Abel Mayekogbon, who is listed in the first edition of the 5000 intellectuals of the world; sixth edition of Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in the Commonwealth; Pioneer Military Administrator of Taraba State, Col Joseph Awoniyi, immediate Director of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Osten Olorunnisola; Chief Duro Adeyele, (SAN); Brig-Gen. Samuel Teidi; Brig-Gen. Paul Okuntimo, etc all prominent Yagba people for crying out loud..
To the best of my knowledge, two out of the three Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian universities we have so far produced from the Okun country in Kogi State , are Yagba. I’m talking specifically about the venerated Prof. Adeoye Adeniyi (University of Ilorin – 1985 to 1989) and Prof. Felix Anjorin ( Bingham University ). Indeed, the joke is often cracked that, like in Ekiti State , the preponderance of seasoned technocrats and intellectuals in Yagbaland is per square kilometer.
These front liners definitely bred a successor generation who are holding their own creditably and flying the flag of our people in all the places and positions they have found themselves.
It is important to espouse the infinite human resource capacity of the Yagba people to debunk the fallacy about who can be put forward for any form of political office in the state or elsewhere.
And the last time I checked, Yagba land had not been ravaged by any holocaust of any kind which has been so impactful as to engender a holistic extirpation of our people! We are not deficient in high quality human capacity at all.
Again, I think it may be too early in the day to begin to narrow down to specific individuals. Yagba land is blessed with an abundance of such individuals and they will take their own decisions when the time is ripe.
And when you talk about resources, the people of Kogi West, of Okun land and indeed, Yagba and are not subscribers to the politics of mercantilism. Our people are traditionally republican by nature. They tell you off if you try to flaunt your pseudo-affluence in their face by our famous expression: “Me je la be re”, (translated as “You don’t feed me, anyway).
The Kogi West Senatorial seat is not for sale. It is not for the highest bidder.
