Steve Otaloro is the Director of Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress(APC) in Ondo State. He spoke with DAMISI OJO on the preparations for the governorship elections, the rumour of endorsement and other issues.
How prepared is the APC for the governorship election in Ondo State?
Naturally, the ultimate desire of any person or team taking part in a competition is to win and bring home laurel. In the last governorship election in Ondo State, the defunct ACN that formed part of the present APC went into that election with all available resources to wrestle power from the then Labour party that sponsored Dr. Mimiko for his second term but unfortunately, the ACN lost.
You know the failure of the ACN then was not due to weakness or unpreparedness. To me, the loss of that contest was due largely to the inability of the party to reduce itself to the level of the electorates in Ondo State. Mistakenly, the APC placed itself above the level of the voters by assuming that the genuine programmes rolled out for implementation to better the lot of the people on assumption of office were enough to win the election, rather than the artificial incentives packaged for voters on the election day by the Labour Party (LP).
Unfortunately, the role played by poverty in the last election in Ondo State was enormous. You can imagine a funny slogan in the state some few days to the election when you find on the lips of most prospective voters the slogan of “Edibo ese bee”, vote and cook soup, which sadly meant vote for Mimiko and be given money to enable you prepare soup for your meal. If you ask us how much were the voters given by the Labour Party then, I will tell you that the token was as ridiculously low as N500.
While that N500 meant so much to some people at that material time, the ACN overrated these set of people who were largely the actual voters in the State by conceding to them the ability to vote rightly even if they decided to take the money earmarked for buying their votes and see it as their share from the common patrimony.
The APC has since gone back to the drawing board to see where things went wrong with the ACN in that election in 2012 and strongly tie the loose ends to approach the coming election with more pragmatic objectives; one, by educating the people more on the consequences of allowing material incentives to influence their voting and two, by designing programmes that will bring relief to already improvished homes and promoting such with all sense of sincerity.
In a nutshell, I’m assuring you, the APC is honestly ready for the November election in Ondo State. God bless the appointed date of November 26, 2016.
With governorship aspirants in the party, how do you intend to manage the primary?
The high number of aspirants in our party showing interest in the governorship is meant to demonstrate the strength and the quality of available human resources in the party. If you care to look at the background of these party members jostling for the nomination as the party’s flagbearer, you’ll no doubt see that they are all worthy materials, eminently qualified individuals who can win an election for the party at any given time.
The question of managing these aspirants, to me, for the primary does not even arise because they themselves are quite aware that only one of them will be eventually picked to fly the party’s flag at the election and they know that whoever wins will have to be supported to win the election itself. You are no doubt aware that after the primary which will be free and fair, the structures of the rest aspirants will be collapsed to a single one to present a strong and common front to face whoever emerges from the camp of other political parties.
Why are some chieftains protesting against the party chairman, Isaac Kekemeke?
It is normal in any political process. The chairman had denied the allegations and clarified all issues raised. The few aggrieved members and the state exco have been invited to Abuja by the National Secretariat where the disagreement would be settled amicably. It is a family issue. Kekemeke remains the chairman of the party.
Do you think your party has what it takes to take over the state from the PDP that is currently ruling the state?
Let’s thank God for the fact that the ruling party in Ondo State, the PDP, has divinely shot itself in the foot to become incapacitated, thus, loosing the energy to match the APC with the required confidence at the poll. If you look back at the way Dr. Mimiko has been steering the ship of the State in the last three and a half years after securing his second term, you will see that his policies have turned many homes to graveyards, husbands to wives, children to beggars, in spite of the huge mineral and economic resources that abound in the State.
Today, all the workers and pensioners who gave him the open support during the last campaigns/election are groaning in pains, regretting their support because he has refused to make them happy partners by refusing to pay them their monthly salaries for a record of five months.
When you leave the workers’ camp, come to the entire populace in the State, Dr. Mimiko has touched their lives negatively with many obnoxious policies, throwing them into a state of hopelessness by utter neglect and introduction of various levies without commensurate service to make the people live a meaningful life.
How will the governorship candidate of your party emerge?
The governorship candidate of the APC will emerge through the traditional primary. I can assure you that there will be no imposition from any quarter as reiterated and reinforced severally by the Chairman, Hon. Isaacs Kekemeke. As you had earlier identified, we have many candidates showing interest in flying the flag and you can see that all of them are already in the field talking to members throughout the length and breadth of the state.
In a contest like this, some will make it to the top while some will opt for re-alignment for one reason or the other. Eventually, when the primary comes, based on individual candidate’s effort, industry and acceptability, a candidate will emerge and I believe, whoever emerges would be the one that will be acceptable to all of them in the contest because of the level of transparency and neutrality that will be displayed by the party and its leadership.
There are speculations that your party may not conduct the primary election. How far is this true?
This view is not for the enlightened and sophisticated members of the All Progressives Congress. Our primary has been fixed for Saturday, September 3. You see, our party is not a party of deceit, it is not a single man’s business empire where anybody can just wake up one day and give instructions and that instruction will be binding. That is dictatorship. We say this is APC where there’s equality. For your information, if it is the desire of the Party to impose candidate, there will be no reason to allow all the interested aspirants to throw up their resources, the resources that can be deployed to further develop the Party to run after non-existent or already compromised position.
I, therefore, plead that our aspirants should simply ignore this unfounded and irritating view of the opposition aimed at maligning the party and pursue their ambition with the view that their party will never toy with their ambition or disappoint them with any hidden agenda to truncate their ambition. Let me assure you that the positive way we conduct our primary will push other parties to turn and learn from the APC for guidance.
Is it true that the National Leader of your party, Senator Bola Tinubu, has a preferred person among the aspirants.
This is clearly one of the many amusing behaviours that some people employ in an occasion like this just to demoralise others in the race. You remember, the National leader, Asiwaju Tinubu, has never proclaimed anybody as his candidate. Of course, candidates, like in the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, were dropping his name to achieve their political ambition without the knowledge or the express permission of the great Awo. And this time around, with the level to which God has helped Asiwaju to attain politically in our country, I won’t be surprised if any of the aspirants or just anybody even outside our party is using his name to achieve one or two things for self aggrandisement.
In a nutshell, the National Leader has no anointed candidate. To borrow from Mr. President’s popular words, “Asiwaju is for everybody and for nobody”. His position is for everybody to face the primary and whoever emerges will then be the party’s standard bearer and be supported by the Party.
How will you assess the Mimiko administration in the last seven and half years?
You see, I will describe Dr. Olusegun Mimiko as an exceedingly lucky man who came into the life of Ondo State when fate actually beckoned on him and when the people were yearning for a change, either consciously or unconsciously, but largely due to orchestrated conspiracy against Dr. Olusegun Agagu, the then governor of the state.
What is the take of the APC on the zoning of Governorship position in the state?
Zoning? Is there anything like that in APC? If there is, it is not to my knowledge. Don’t forget, the APC is a party that believes in democratic process. Like I said earlier, the APC will never have any clandestine arrangement in place to pick its candidate and allow other aspirants to deploy their resources to unproductive venture. That is wickedness and that is even capable of making members to loose confidence in any party that does that. On this note, I am reiterating that whoever emerges at the APC primary among the aspirants will be supported by the rest of the aspirants to represent the party as our standard bearer at the poll and he will win the gubernatorial election and become the next governor of Ondo State by God’s grace.
