Former Oyo State Governor Omololu Olunloyo spoke on his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Jonathan Administration and the recent Ekiti governorship election. He predicted that the tricks employed by the PDP to recapture Ekiti will fail during the Osun State poll.
What is your view on the current political situation in the country?
In my opinion, this is one of the worst periods in the history of this country. There is a government of mediocrity. In the first instance, you can interpret that anyway you like. There is the enthronement of mediocrity, fraud and all sorts of malversation. Anybody who has been connected with murder, arson and theft should not be allowed to contest any election in this country, especially when the matter has not been settled. Anybody who has been connected with fraud, serious fraud and is under the watchful eyes of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should not be allowed to contest any election. I’m referring to the entire contestants. Ayo Fayose is my protégé. He attended the school I set up. He is a nice man, a rascal and he likes to enjoy himself. He supplies water when the people need water and meets their needs. He was good, but people misled him and asked him to go and do dangerous things. I’m saying you can’t contest any election from Agodi Prison and come out and be a senator. This is not possible, although Nkrumah went from prison during the colonial days. But, that is different and what I am saying is quite clear. No matter whose name it is, you can’t contest election from prison. We now have people convicted of fraud, arson, at the level of the EFCC, brazenly displaying their posters all about. Anybody can be accused at any time, but they have to clear their name first. A system that does not clear their name and allow them to move forward is moving the country backwards.
You were a member of the PDP. Why did you leave the party?
I left the party because the party was not serious. The party was not serious and I don’t think the party is still serious.
It is better for one to join no party than to join the PDP. First, they have no idea of reward. I have worked for this country for more than 50 years. We have been in positions for more than 50 years, in various positions. I was a commissioner at 27 years old. We were energetic, we were serious, and we had role models. In education, where I was and even then, I was not in Awolowo’s party, I would go to his house at Ikenne, Oke- Bola. Every member of his family can testify to that. I would go to his house and argue with him, talk with him and all that. I would go to UNESCO in Paris to see Awokoya, to also talk to Ajasin, those were the people responsible for the educational sector. We had people who inspired us. I tried to rejuvenate the education sector and ginger it up. Now, look at what the education sector has become. What I am saying in essence is that I have not been adequately rewarded.
We made a mistake, a bad one. Umaru fell ill, we did not know how to replace him. We did not know what to do.The slot of the presidency belongs to the Northwest, and you cannot be a President without a running mate. It is in the constitution, you can’t just go alone. Anyway, he finished his tenure. The party then committed a holler crime by choosing Jonathan. He is not from the Northwest. The ticket belonged to the Northwest. Not only did they choose Jonathan, they chose him in a way that I find revolting. What is revolting? they chose him unanimously. It was not as if it was the choice of his zone. Obasanjo, who preceded him, was a beneficiary of what one can say of all the efforts of Awolowo. I believe it was a crime for the PDP to have chosen GEJ. First of all, I believe it was the Northerners, if not Northwest that should have been chosen.
What should we expect during the 2015 election?
There will be multiplicity of mysterious tricks, which we have to prepare for now. As an old and experienced man, I know that all that glitters is not gold. An example is the Ekiti State election. Mr Fayose is a personal young friend of mine. He has concern for youths and development, but when one wins the entire local governments in an election, I can’t explain. He has been changed from a Paul to Saul. He has been associated with about two murders and also the issue of his impeachment, and I am not so sure he is even qualified to contest an election, but being a politician, it seems everything goes in Nigeria. But, being a gentleman, I think he has pluses and minuses, and I’m not so sure he has the requirement to even qualify.
Apart from raising the issue of qualification, can you identify what you call other mysterious tricks?
Yes, the materials used during elections. Ekiti has what we can refer to as ink history. Earlier, it was red ink versus black ink but it is now allegations about erasable ink, and all sort of papers used as ballot papers during elections. This trouble goes on all over the world – in Malaysia and in various countries. I am not so sure that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is fully up to the task of monitoring all the tricks that politicians can play. I’m not so sure at all; there is some kind of naivety. Something psychological bothers me. That is the fact that Nigeria might break up by 2015. Somebody has forecast this and it is exactly 50 years after the 1965 election. So, I am altogether pessimistic about the whole election issue. I don’t think people are serious at all. If the attacks of the Boko Haram eventually engulfs the country, then, any election will not be conducted in the country. The Federal Government must improve on leadership. The issue of insurgency like Maitasine and all sorts of insurgent groups which Lt. General Danjuma will call cowboy insurgency, has now become cowboy coup, a scout coup. Though Boko Haram is not in any way related to scout, it is not a scout issue because of their exponian system and firework approach. They seem to have better arms, better intelligence, better concentration of mind than the Federal Government. There was a time I thought I heard something like there were members of Boko Haram in the government. And the way Gen. Patrick Aziza perished also worries me. One can never know if it is an enemy action, which is coincidence or something else in this country. What is more important is that, as far as my mind is concerned, it is negative.
Is there a meeting point between what you call mysterious tricks and the APC allegation?
It is not the same thing: one is superficial and the other is deep. What the APC is saying is about improper practices while the other is about the technology of ballot papers, ink and related issues. The APC is absolutely correct, not because I am a member of the APC. There should be members of the opposition party and the Federal Government just hovering around the state whose movements are most annoying. Examples are Mr Andy Uba, who moved about the state under the guise of being the chairman of the senate committee on the INEC and also Jelili Adesiyan, the Minister for Police and also Musiliu Obanikoro, the Minister of State for Defence. They have no business there. they are not members of INEC, and they do not live there. They were just agents of intimidation. The use of the police and other unexplainable security operatives is for intimidation. That intimidation was a major factor used in unprecedented manners during election in Nigeria. Once there is intimidation, election cannot be free, fair and credible. If there is an intimidation with the police and security officers. the election cannot be said to be free, if it is not free, the election cannot be credible. All the policing and arrest of some people who are kingpins of the party are new tricks and I think they should play evil only once. The Yorubas have an adage that says you can only trick a woman to bed only once.
In the Osun election, there are two major candidates; Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Senator Iyiola Omisore. What is your opinion about them?
They are more than two. We have another contestant, Mr. Akinwusi, dyed-in-the wool civil servant. The candidate of the Labour Party, is also one to be reckoned with, Mr Fatai Akinbade, who was an SSG. These SSGs have a way of knowing the entrails, the very innermost part of the government. They have access to information and the likes. So, many of them have become governors in the past. I think the president of the APC now, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun and his Delta State counterpart, Emmanuel Uduaghan, were former SSGs. But, I think far above anyone, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has carried out some very bold moves. He has done some hard works. He has done more work than politicking. He has been nurtured and trained in Lagos for eight years under Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Aregbesola has done very well. The first time I came across him was in the aspect of education. If I am to go through the achievement of Aregbesola and all the attempt to isolate and embarrass him, it will take time but, I will make an attempt, to talk about part of it. There was an attempt to stigmatize him as a religious fanatic and that he wanted to Islamise Osun state. That is an absolute and complete nonsense. This gentleman is disciplined and principled. In his family, he has five siblings, two are Christians, one is deceased and he is a devout Muslim and he also has a brother, who does not even care about religion at all like me. Religion is a private thing and is one of the dangerous things in the world used to divide people. I do not see how Christians are better than Muslims. When they have nothing else to do, they start fighting. Aregbesola is not involved in that. They brought up the issue of hijab. Aregbesola’s wife is a Muslim. She does not wear hijab. Likewise his daughter. Aregbesola never made the use of hijab compulsory. He has had two first class appreciative funerals for a learned Judge, Justice Kayode Esho of the Supreme Court, and Apostle Obadare, who despite that he was blind, influenced people during his life. Aregbesola gave them a fantastic funeral each. Everyone agreed that they are worth it. He did not say there must be Muslim funerals as well. Some people who are making trouble for the governor as regards religion in Osun State are doing so in vain. As a one-time commissioner for education in the Western Region, who still has interest in education, I see a lot of development in education. The people, who have been most critical of him, are the Baptist, and I do not see the point they are making. He decided to restructure the school into lower, middle and senior schools to which they do not agree. But, that is the decision of the government and they also raised the question of hijab in their schools. I do not think they have a point at all. But, one must be polite and gentle in handling them as Aregbesola has been handling them. The governor has not told them to their face in the manner in which could be said that they do not own the schools. The government has taken over the schools and is not running it irresponsibly. In Yorubaland, every family is also like Aregbesola’s family. My father was a church organist, my mother was a Muslim. My mother died as a Muslim and my father as a Christian. Almost every family in Nigeria has Christians and Muslims in their family. What Aregbesola is trying to do is to build high quality schools. If you build just 25 good schools, that is an achievement. How many schools were in existence in those days? He has done very well in education and he has brought Awolowo’s work into fore. Even though Awolowo was not a head of state, he attained the level of GCFR, based on what they have done in education. Aregbesola is a compassionate person. He has shown that, through the fantastic care of the elderly that he embarked upon in Osun, I do not think anything like that has ever been done before in Nigeria. The state will be a beneficiary of his second term, in their education and development, which is better than infrastructural development: building roads and other things, although they are also important. That is what I can say about him from what I have seen in Lagos and Osun states. I also think human development is also his forte in the State of Osun.
What about the other candidate Omisore?
What I can say about it is that he is from an illustrious family. I will not like to say more.
What can you say about the election in Osun state?
I see a clear win for the hardworking incumbent governor because there are many things that go on in Nigeria. The Bible says the race is not for the swift, nor the strongest. A prophet deserves honour at times in his own country and I think he should be honoured. If you take a statistical review, he has a large number of supporters, a large percentage in the rural areas like the conservative party in England. He also has not less than 50 percent support in not less than seventy-five percent of the state.
Is a free, fair and credible election possible in Osun State on August 9?
The remedy is partly in the hand of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? When he came to canvass in Ekiti, there was nothing wrong with it except that the canvassing was very biased. There is, in this country, a national security council and there is also in every state, a state security committee, but some of the unwritten rules were broken. The governor is the chief security officer of the state. It is very dangerous for the president to move about in a manner that he is accompanied by people who represent wicked force in the communities, even when such forces could be unleashed by the state security committees too. All this little argument about state police, if this country is truly a federal republic and there is a state election, and the governor starts canvassing for votes and the vice president starts talking about insurgency and so on, there will be chaos. There must be give-and take. There must be gentlemanly exchanges. We have to be very careful with all we do in this regard. In Osun, there is some kind of envy of Osun State. some people are very envious of Osun State. Some people are even afraid of Osun State. Why do I say so? In the last election, Osun State came out uniquely as one in which the incumbent president did not get 25 per cent of votes, but he got more than that in Lagos because it is a cosmopolitan city with multi-ethnic groups. You can almost ignore the indigenes there. I think that this time the president must be careful with what he does and what he leaves undone. The Vice-President must be ‘Mutantis Mutandis’ meaning that he must also be careful. I believe that the state security committee has a very important role to play in this election and if they decide to flex their muscle as the Federal Government seems to have flexed his muscle in Ekiti, they will be right to do so on their own peril. This is a federation and everybody knows that. Security is on the concurrent list, and the Attorney General in the 1979 constitution in the federal as well as the state, the Attorney General can only hold two positions though the two positions are separated in England. He is the Minister of Justice, and Attorney General. The Attorney General is the lawyer of the government, the commissioner is the lawyer of the people. The government is a body of cooperate groups who can sue and be sued. Now, under the 1999 constitution, the Attorney General can only be appointed through a political post. The Attorney General is the Attorney General, Commissior for Justice and the Chief Law Officer. Some of these things will be incompatible without having a state police. Even in the colonial days in Ibadan here, we had three kinds of police. We had the Akoda who were in Mapo, we had the local government police in Yemetu, then, we had the Nigeria Police Force at Iyaganku. Each one of them knew their level of jurisdictions. What can spoil an election is the clash between the state and federal security committee. I think the federal are the people to be reminded that there is a certain security apparatus that contains some laws and also which is entitled to oversee the security of the state, and should not just sit down and watch while they are overrun by overzealous federal officials.
Sir, you talked about integrity of ?ballot papers in Ekiti State election. But, the same INEC is going to conduct the election in Osun State. What do you think is the implication of this on the Osun State governorship election?
I think they are making some omissions. I think the representatives of each political party must see same sensitive materials of the INEC. There must be transparency in it. If you think you are smart, somebody can be smarter, if you think you can run, somebody can run faster. In clear terms, the representatives of each political party must have access to some of the so-called sensitive materials that are being used during the election. For example, during the Ekiti election, the Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro was sited at Akure airport with some boxes and so on. What the boxes contained? Don’t ask me because I will not be able to tell you the answer.
Source: The Nation
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