Ajimobi: Sanusi’s Suspension Is Betrayal Of Leadership The Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, spoke to Ademola Babalola on the journey so far and pertinent issues in the polity. Excerpts: How would you assess the democratic journey so far? I am one thousand and ten days old in office. As they say, democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. The underlying fact there is ‘the people’, and when you say ‘the people’, like anything in life, you go through various levels of training and experience. If you look at the Nigerian environment over the years, we started with colonialism, and from there, we experienced the parliamentary system which was truncated by military incursion. By the time the military came in, it was no more of a value system. It was more of force; it was more of survival of the fittest and by the time we ended the war, the value system had been destroyed and then everybody was looking for money. Materialism crept in around 1970s shortly after the end of the civil war. It was no longer who you were. It was more of what you were. It had more to do with what you could get from the system and I think that was the time the psyche of Nigerians, as it were, started to change. In an industrialised nation, it is the industries that control the system. But in a developing nation, it is the government that controls the system; so everybody goes cap-in-hand to meet the government for whatever he needs and once there was government, the kind of hero-worshipping that you witness is unbelievable, and then you begin to think that you are a Super man and therefore, you can do and undo. Some can even come to you to say that if you leave office today, they will die tomorrow, even though they know they are telling lie. The fact, however, remains that democracy, generally speaking, is at a stage in Nigeria that reflects our experience over time. Are you comfortable with the system of government being practiced in Nigeria? The presidential system, of course, is like the oldest democracy where you have the emperor, the president or the prime minister. The only difference which I see between the presidential system and the parliamentary system is that there is no consensus built in the parliamentary system, whereas in the presidential system, the president or the governor is the Chief Executive. You will see that during the electioneering campaign, the party is always supreme but the moment you have chosen your candidate and that candidate wins, the party goes to the background. In the parliamentary system, the party is always there to decide for you. But in a presidential system, you must all agree; it is not like, once you are the president, the governor or local government chairman, you run government as your private business. I don’t believe that they are mutually exclusive. In fact, they are very much inclusive. And I am in favour of the continuation of the presidential system. In a country like ours, I think we need a presidential system; a strong leader; a visionary leader but if you look at the parliamentary system, it is more of the party. My own little experience in politics, particularly in the area of consensus building, is that you discover in the end that people are fighting for themselves and not for the masses. So when you are saying parliamentary system, everybody comes with his own demand which may not necessarily be in congruence with that of the masses. So, I still believe that the presidential system is preferable. When you say a strong leader, does it not connote despotism? Do not equate strong leadership with impunity. A strong leader is different from a dictator or an autocratic leader. A strong leader is one who has vision and who pursues it compassionately and ensures that he achieves success. A dictator is one that does things with absoluteness; a strong leader is not necessarily an absolute ruler. When you have impunity anywhere, people are breaking the laws. Impunity means doing something without regards to the existing law. In Nigeria today, I can tell you there is hardly any law that they have in Britain that we don’t have here. It is just that we don’t obey the law. So what I am saying therefore is that there is a wall of difference between the two, that is, a strong leader and a corrupt, absolute or dictatorial leader. What is your view on the suspension of the Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi? If I were the president, there was no need removing the man. He is supposed to be like the head of the Federal Reserve of America. He is supposed to be independent and to be nominated by the president for confirmation by the Senate. If he has nominated and the Senate has confirmed the nomination, the Governor has a term and if he has not broken any law; if we have not established that he has broken any law, you don’t have the right to suspend him and if you are suspending him, you do not appoint another person to be a substantive governor. There is a woman whom you have directed to be acting and then, the president has also nominated somebody else as the substantive governor. For me, it was done without any qualm. Honestly, since Sanusi had few weeks to go, let him shout; let him talk; that is what democracy is all about. Everybody has the right to air his own opinion, and some of the issues being raised by the man are those that need to be attended to. They are questions begging for answers. As far as the legal aspect is concerned, the lawyers have gone to court. I do not believe they should have suspended him. I think that is not a good measure of strong leadership. But Sanusi allegedly violated the laws of the land? What does the law say? The law says any money accruing to Nigeria must be deposited in a particular account. What we have been told now is that accruable incomes are now being spent and there are other accounts that have been opened where money is being deposited which is illegal and against the law. Two, you are not supposed to spend any money that is not budgeted for but what we are now being told is that as money is coming in, not only that we are not putting it in the right account, we are also spending from it on what has not been budgeted for. I think this is a double-barrel illegality. So if I were the president, I would have preferred to ensure that all accruable income goes to the federation account where it is then dispensed in accordance with the budgetary provisions contained in the appropriation law. That is all. What are the restoration, transformation and repositioning agenda of your administration about? This same Oyo State, particularly Ibadan, served as the capital of the then Western Region where the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo administered the whole of the region. Then, we were noted for firsts in many things. We then found out when we came in, all these firsts that we were known for had been destroyed. We found out that even this same Ibadan that would boast of being the intellectual capital of Nigeria, where free education first started, had become a place where our students who sat for the West African School Certificate Examinations came 34th out of the 36 states in Nigeria. It was very disheartening. We then said, look, maybe education was so bad, let’s go to other areas. We went to agriculture, to health and other sectors and we found out that it was the same story. So we then came up with a tripod of development which we said would be based on restoration, transformation and repositioning. When something had been destroyed, the next thing is to repair it and restore it. Having restored it, we believe the next step is to transform it to the level where it is supposed to be. It is not enough to restore but we must also update it to a level that is contemporary. Then we believe that the next level after reforming is to reposition it to be a preferred state in the comity of states. So we came up with our own tripod and the tripod is based on safety and security of lives and property. There is nowhere in the world where you can develop without safety, without security and peace. They are foundations for development. It’s like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So we now have this pyramid of safety of lives and property; next to that are social infrastructure, health, education, electricity and water which are all basic requirements of a modern society. Therefore, we believe that so far, we can say we have done commendably well. In the area of peace and security, we can give ourselves first class. Since we came in, we have been having peace in Oyo State. We are happy with the safety of lives and property and Oyo State is now becoming a preferred designation to investors. When it comes to social infrastructure, we have also done very well and made an appreciable progress. In health, we have introduced free medical services; we are also refurbishing hospitals, establishing mobile clinics all over the state and providing health services in some of our remote areas across the state. So in health, I believe we are also doing well. If you also look at the area of physical infrastructure, we are modernising our roads. We are making sure that our own roads can stand the test of time; we are making sure that any road that we do, we can use it for next 25 years minimum, without worrying about all these disappointments that we have witnessed in the past. Besides, virtually all major entries into major cities in Oyo State are being currently dualised, while new roads are being constructed and the existing ones being reconstructed and/or rehabilitated. So I think generally when it comes to restoration, we have restored our pride. In Ibadan now and in Oyo State in general, we have seen big malls springing up everywhere. Odu’a Investment has just finished one while another one will be opened in April in Ibadan which will be the largest shopping mall in Nigeria. I think for us, we are beginning to have some of the firsts that we used to have; we are doing what I call a Leisure Center right at the Agodi Gardens where we are going to have recreation facilities like lake, botanical garden, health farm where we are going to be doing acupuncture; where we are going to be doing massaging; we are also going to have chalets, among several other things. The project, when completed, is going to be what I call one-stop shop where, once you get there in the morning, you will spend the whole day without knowing. Let me also say that the South Africans who are planning the centre are telling us that they have gone round the whole of Africa and that that place will be number one in Africa. It is about 60 hectares of land, in the heart of Ibadan City. It is going to be called Agodi Leisure Centre. We are very proud of the repositioning. This brings us to the question of financing. How are you sustaining these projects? Some of us are lucky to have exposure in managing organisations, and when you have financial problem in your organisation, you try to look for ways and means of doing what we call forward financing. Like people will say, ohun ti agbalagba fi n je eko, abe ewe lowa (what the elder eats alongside bare corn meal, he hides under the leaf). The first thing we did was to get reputable contractors who are financially viable and who can go the extra mile to finish the job; contractors that you don’t need to pay money immediately, and so we ensure that all the major jobs that we are doing, we give them to those contractors. We look for people who are reputable; people with track records, with international exposure. Second, when we first came in, we went to some foreign countries, talking to development partners and many of them bought into our vision and they were able to give us support. Some of them are doing a lot of things for us and we are not paying them anything. There are many foreign establishments that are willing to give us intervention fund and that are willing to support us, even the World Bank. Many of them are ready and I think basically once they see integrity, once they see good governance, transparency and accountability, they will support you and I think we are getting that support. That is how we are able to manage some of them. However, we are getting to a stage where we just must take a bond and we are one of the few states that have not taken the advantage of the bond. If you go round, you will see some other states with hundreds of billion Naira bond but we are just trying to get about N23.5b and it is already over-subscribed. That is to show the level of trust and confidence that the investors have in us, because they have seen the way we are managing it and they see what we say we are doing. So we are very comfortable with what we have been doing but I will not tell you other tricks. Anybody who wants to know should come to my school and be ready to pay the price. How can you ensure the sustainability of some of these projects? What I see in Oyo State is that our people are very good; they are very kind-hearted; they are very hard-working and God-fearing, but they need good leadership. Even now, when you go round, people who used to complain about our resolve to stop our traders from selling on the road are now commending us. Go to Oje Market now, the traders are already selling off the street. Unbelievable! These were places you could not drive through before. All these traders have moved back, although we still have some recalcitrant traders; when they see us, they start running away and I will stop, get down and talk to them, and they will start begging. But now, they have accepted that it is not right to trade on the streets. Before, they did not accept but now they have accepted. So for me, there is improvement, but now, how do we sustain it? I believe that people are now inculcating it in their heart and in their mind, and they are beginning to change. We will not relent. And by the time we do something like this for eight years, it would have been part of our system. By the grace of God, another person like us, who believes in what we believe in, will come after us and will continue the policy until it finally sticks. If you have consistency, you can sustain it. Our prayer is that we are able to sustain it and Oyo State will be better. What is your gender disposition? I can see your concern about this gender policy. It is understandable. But I am also very concerned because if you know my own family make-up, I have five children and four of them are female with only one boy. I found out that the female gender is extremely devoted and brilliant. Therefore, I am very female-sensitive because, for every female I see, I see my daughters. But I believe that the female gender is not doing enough for itself and if you wait for somebody to do what you should do that will benefit you, you will wait for a longer time than if you are to do it yourselves. I believe that the more enlightened, the more sophisticated and industrialised a country is, the more gender-sensitive such a country becomes. Don’t forget we are coming from the background where, in the past, female children were not seen as children that should go to school. We started from there to accepting that they could go to school and become doctors, lawyers and engineers, and that they can even become ministers. I found out that we need to go three layers. The first one is that women should respect themselves more; they should strengthen their associations. Life is about lobbying; they must ensure they intensify their lobbying to better their lots. If you look at the achievements of this administration, especially from the gender angle, I cannot imagine not having my wife beside me. She has taken the job with so much passion and in terms of women empowerment, health facilities and even empowering widows, distribution of foods every month, she has been doing her best. She also takes good care of the low income earning women but I think we must begin to go beyond that. You must begin to fight for women to be in positions of authority. However, if you think men will do all the fighting, when they too are fighting for themselves, you have a long way to go. So I think the first step for the women is to strengthen their organisations and their lobbying capacities. That is my own position. How have you been able to manage the NURTW and contain the excesses of its members? Members of NURTW are Nigerians like you and I. They are decent people but some politicians are using them. But once we don’t interfere with what they are doing, it is not my business to know who their Chairman or leaders are. So what we have done is that we brought in our own buses and we will bring more so that when they misbehave, we will just be using our buses and you know that our prices are cheaper than their own. So they know that, and they are behaving. However, when you see any NURTW member engaging in violence, go and check; the politicians are behind it. It is either the government of the day or the opposition. And you know, election is coming and I am already hearing that they are grouping; that they are now ganging up to say they want to cause trouble in Oyo State. Let us just pray that they don’t start it. If they start it, we will deal with them. We will get those behind it and we will tell the whole world who they are. We are not interested in who becomes their president or their chairman but those politicians who realise that they cannot win any election unless they cause violence and rigging, we want to tell them that those days are gone and that Oyo State people now know better. They will rather continue to enjoy the peace they are already having. So we will not allow anybody who wants to cause violence in this state. What is your relationship with former governor Rashidi Ladoja? The funniest thing about politics is that even your twin brother will disagree with you, especially when you are looking for the same position. The fact is that former governor Ladoja is my egbon; he is older than me; he is my cousin and I respect him a lot. We have a good relationship. Recently, one of his daughters got married and I was there. I sat next to him and we were eating and drinking together. Like anybody, if your father wants to take your wife, you will fight. So if we are looking for the same position, we must definitely fight. Let me tell you however that most of the things they are ascribing to former governor Ladoja, he is not the one doing them. There are some political mercenaries with him; they work with every governor and once they work with you and you are no longer the governor, they go to the next person. Some of them will say ‘can I be writing for you?’ ‘Can I be abusing people for you?’ They are political jobbers. You (journalists) are lucky you have jobs that you are doing. Some of them don’t have jobs; so they must look for job desperately and that is fighting for their principals. If I give them job tomorrow, they will also work for me and abuse people on my behalf. So I don’t think it is Senator Ladoja in particular that has problem but he has his own people who can only make money by abusing us; by fighting; by cursing. How many times have you seen Senator Ladoja coming on stage to abuse me? He will never do that. It is all politics, and I think gradually those ones too will realise that what we are doing here is politics of development; politics of intellect and not of lying, rumour-mongering, name-calling and character assassination. The moment they tell lie against us, we debunk the lie and you will see that gradually, they will go down. You will see that the more they play this pedestrian politics and we don’t play it with them, the more they change their tactics. So with Senator Ladoja, I have a good relationship and I have no fear about him. If he wants to run for governorship, we will meet on the field. We are ready for him. This Day.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 10:45:35 +0000
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