APC begged Presidency to retain Lagos —Ogunlewe JULY 29, 2014 BY ENIOLA AKINKUOTU In this interview with ENIOLA AKINKUOTU, a former Minister of Works and Peoples Democratic Party leader, Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, speaks on the party’s activities ahead of the 2015 general elections and other national issues. The PDP has never won a governorship election in Lagos. Why do you think the party would win this time around? The perception that we have never won an election in Lagos State is defective. It has always been three issues. First, the support of the Presidency for us to win in Lagos State has not been too evident. If you look all through the years, there has been this tendency of compromising the interest of the members of the party and a lot of apathy – thinking that the opposition is invincible and that the opposition would support the Presidency in Lagos. Second, is the tendency of the leadership of the opposition to go to Abuja and beg Mr. President to leave Lagos for them and they would bargain. So, they (opposition) are always afraid of losing Lagos because it is their base, it is where they get all their money to fund election throughout Nigeria. So they have the tendency of bargaining with the leadership of the PDP at the top to say ‘we will support you if you leave Lagos for us’ and that is what always happens. The third reason is violence. There are black spots where people can take ballot papers and they use thugs to intimidate voters in Mushin, Fadeyi, Oshodi and Isolo. They use members of transport workers union to intimidate voters, so there has never been a free and fair election in Lagos State, it is always compromised. All the noise they make in the newspapers is all foolery. Even now, when they know the President is ready to fight for himself and win election, they will go and beg him. That is the way of the opposition, they cannot stand any competition. So, from 2003 to 2007 and 2011, there has been this compromise and begging. If you look at the composition of Lagos State, the voting does not favour them. So, I will appeal to them that they should not beg Mr. President this time around and let us see if they are not going to lose. If you remember the election of 2011, in the House of Representatives and Senate, they (opposition) were losing but because of their contacts in Abuja, they stopped the election at 2pm for no just cause. Was it not curious that it is Lagos alone that stopped election at 2pm? It is all trickery. So, why didn’t they allow a level playing field for everybody? Today they will compromise, tomorrow they will beg. Lagos government is the government of one person. Who is this one man that you say is running Lagos? It is Bola Tinubu; he is their master. He is the President of Lagos and the leader. They call him governor emeritus. He is governor in perpetuity and he single-handedly decides who will be governor without the party holding primaries. Once he has chosen the person he wants, that is the end. Do you think members of the party will be happy? There is no semblance of internal democracy, his daughter must be Iyaloja General, his wife must be a senator. The APC has said it is going to zone the governorship seat to Lagos-East senatorial district and they are said to be shopping for a Christian candidate. Should we expect something similar from the PDP? Of course, we will follow the wish of the people. If the wish of the people is that it must come from the East, we will not be left out. If the wish of the people is that it must be a Christian, we will look at it too, we will not be left out. We don’t want to be at the receiving end when there is a campaign. There is the news making the round about an imminent crisis in the Lagos PDP because some leaders in the party are planning to impose a former governorship candidate of the Democratic Peoples Alliance, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, who recently defected to the PDP and has shown interest to run for governor… It is a misconception. Agbaje has been in the PDP since 2011, he is from my ward. He has two houses in my ward. You know politicians believe that everybody that comes to the party secretariat is a member of the party but this is wrong. It is the ward chairman that can determine who is a member of the party or not. Since the Ekiti election there has been this immense talk about the grass roots. Does the PDP have grassroots support in Lagos? There are two issues when you talk about political structure in a democracy: The tangible and the intangible. The tangible are the prescribed functions of government; you build roads and you are celebrating, that is your function; you build schools, you provide electricity, that is your function as a government, you are not doing anybody any favour, so don’t celebrate as if you are doing us a favour or because you love us, no that is your job as a government – to provide for the people. Then there is the intangible and this is where all the executives fail. They only remember party members every four years. They remember party members only when they are seeking votes. There is no governor that can identify the chairman of his ward. There is no governor that has ever held a meeting at a ward level, not a single governor, not even Mr. President would remember that his basic constituency is the ward; they must attend ward meetings that is where they will be able to listen to people. Managing directors of banks, obas and chiefs are their friends, when their children are getting married, that is where they go, they don’t remember their party members. I have never seen a sitting governor attending the ceremony of a ward chairman, executive member of a ward or a local government chairman. Immediately they become governors, they are disconnected. Their friends are business moguls, bank managers and diplomats. They even detest the politicians that made it possible for them to win elections. What is your view about the removal of Adamawa governor and the removal threats on other governors? If I had my way, all the governors would be impeached because they have no regard for the legislative arm of government. As far as they are concerned, their state House of Assembly is an appendage of their government. Even when the constitution was being amended, governors lobbied to ensure that their state legislative did not have financial autonomy and it was approved. Why should governors determine the fate of the House of Assembly? Up till today, it is what he gives them that they spend whereas at the federal level, there is complete autonomy. Why is it not the same at the state level? A commissioner in a state is one million times better than the Speaker of the House of Assembly in terms of financial resources. Who did the people vote for between the Speaker and the commissioner? They (legislature) have been deprived. Look at anybody that has left the House of Assembly in any state, one year after, the man would be the poorest. Look at a commissioner and see how much money he would have stolen. So they have no regard for the House of Assembly. They only make noise when the House of Assembly wants to use its powers to impeach them.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 08:33:02 +0000
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