Senator Babafemi Ojudu, special adviser to the President on Political Matters, is a gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). A few hours before his formal declaration in Ado-Ekiti, recently, he spoke with a select group of editors at his country home. The politician is among a number of others seeking the APC nod to fly its flag in the July 14 gubernatorial election. He spoke on the reasons for his aspiration, his chances, the need for better governance in Ekiti, why he is the best person to govern the state this time around, among many other issues. ZEBULON AGOMUO, Editor, was there. Excerpts:
You are nursing the ambition to contest the gubernatorial election in Ekiti State in July; you must have been doing a lot of consultations and all that. The question now is how far, so far?
Well, it has been quite encouraging; quite interesting and stimulating. Reception has been very good. We are ready to do battle – battle in the sense that we want to win the souls of Ekiti people.
There are so many of you seeking your party’s ticket. How do you think the party will be able to trash out issues that may arise from the primary within the limited time before the July election?
It would not be right for now to say there are so many of us; reason being that the party has not even called for nomination. In a month’s time they will call for nomination; then we obtain form and then they will see the number of people that will come forward to obtain form; and then see whether we are too many or not. Right now, I know those who are out saying they want to become governor but truth is that they want to become chairmen of local government councils. Some want to be commissioners and some want to be senators; some want to be members of state House of Assembly; some want to be Secretary to State Government. So, people are just calling attention to themselves. They want people to know them. They want to have something at hand to negotiate with. If I become governor and somebody comes to me and say, ‘I was out too; I wanted to become governor, so what do you have for me?’ You know these are some of the things and the kinds of tricks people play when they say they are out to contest for governorship and they are tricks people play in politics.
Don’t you think some of the aspirants may also be seeing you in that light? Again, shouldn’t there be a coalition between you and some others to reduce the number going into the primary election?
I don’t think anybody will think that way about me because they all know I am into the race and very seriously about it. On coalition, yes, we are talking. Some elders are calling them also for us to come together and talk. It is not going to be as difficult as you think. We are all Ekiti people. Many of us who are in the race have been compatriots and associates. So, somehow we will find time and sit down on the table and address these issues and come out with a strong force to confront the incumbent party in power.
Normally, after primaries, there are litigations which may actually distract the candidate. Is there any plan by the party to nip this in the bud?
Of course, we have elders here locally, and we have leaders at the national level who will bring everybody together, but one thing that is going to determine what happens after is the transparency, fairness and justice that people are able to observe in the course of the primary. I was one of those who conducted the primary in Anambra last year; you saw how transparent and fair it was. It was in the open. So it was difficult for anybody to come out to say ‘No, I won’t accept this’. And on the day the man declared his campaign, every other opponent of his who contested the primary (13 of them), even Andy Uba who everybody thought would have won; they all came to embrace the man who won. They went into the election in unity.
In a neighbouring state here; you mentioned it in one of your recent interviews that the Ondo experience should not be repeated here…?
Yes, somebody asked me in the course of that interview if we were prepared for the Ondo formula? And I asked him what he meant by Ondo formula; he said, it is about manipulating delegates. And I said, No; that would not be allowed to happen here. I have been to the party headquarters and they have assured me that weeks before the primary, they would give us list of the delegates; all of us would go and study it and bring it back with our observations.
They would now invite all of us to a round table to raise issues, if we have issues and that would be settled amicably before we go into the primary. So, there would be no disagreements. I don’t think that was done in the case of Ondo State. I expect that Ekiti will be different. I am special adviser to the President on political matters; I have been a journalist; a reporter and editor; a media manager and I have been a senator. It will be difficult for somebody to come and try that kind thing here. There’s Segun Oni who has been governor before; who is now deputy national chairman (South) of the party. It will be difficult to come and give him that kind of nonsense. There are others also who may want to come into the race and they have reputation and pedigree; so nobody will be able to manipulate anything where they are. So, I can assure you that I will be as vigilant as I can; I will set up a team of lawyers; one of whom is a senior advocate of Nigeria; every process of this game, they are going to examine to make sure they keep to the law and norm; so that everything will be just and fair.
What actually is your selling point? Put differently; why must your party delegates choose you and not another aspirant?
Well, why the Ekiti people should vote for me not just my party is that I am involved here. I am passionate about this place. I was born and bred here. I have struggled for this place. I don’t think there’s anybody who has been governor here, since 1999 till date that I have not been involved with. I have headed many associations here.
Ekiti Progressive, E-11, Human Rights Organisations, Pan-Yoruba organisations; I have done so much here; I have removed governors here; I have installed governors here and I have done quite a lot. On the social level; I belong to the Ado-Progressives Union (APU); Ekiti Parapo, an association of all Ekitis generally.
I have given scholarships here. I have assisted people; quite a lot even before I became a politician. I have empowered and employed Ekiti people in high figures. I think I have paid my dues; I have done quite well. For me, as I tell everyone who cares to listen that this is not an ambition, it is a mission. A mission to make an example of this place that governance should not be as difficult as you think; that we can do it and show example to the rest of the world. I want to show that we can shun governance of all those things that make governors swollen headed. I told people that I am going to live in my compound when I am elected and I would work from my house.
This is because if I leave office (governance) I will still come back here. So why would I not live here and then drive to the office every morning. All of these riding in big cars with several others following you, blaring sirens and throwing people off the road – forget about it; I won’t be part of it. I want to live my profession. Journalists make things work. When you leave your house in the morning you are supposed to come back with result to your office in the evening.
That result is your story and when the story is published the following day; you feel accomplished; that’s the kind of thing I want to bring.
What about zoning issues?
There is no zoning here. This state has never had issue about zoning. Ekiti is not like Ondo where you have Ilaje, Akoko, Owo, Akure, etc.
In Ekiti here, the kind of thing people are talking about is just geography. When you talk about zoning, you want to satisfy interest of different languages; different cultures and backgrounds. Here, there is nothing like that. Ado-Ekiti is central; Ikere-Ekiti is south. Between Ado-Ekiti and Ikere is less than 10 kilometres.
You can get from one end to the other in 5 minutes. Between Ilawo and Ado-Ekiti, it will take 10 minutes to get there.
Ilaja and Ikole is just 10 minutes drive. From one end of Ekiti to the other end is less than one hour on the road. We speak the same language in every town in Ekiti.
Every town has Ekiti behind its name. We have Inyin-Ekti; Ado-Ekiti, Ikere-Ekiti, Orun-Ekiti, etc.
We are all related; why do we want to divide ourselves? What we want is someone who can bring about development. I am a development agent.
All this idea of people saying I am south and north, am central, they stress in geography; not in ethnicity, not in tribes and not in any difference.
The opposition party says why there’s an influx of aspirants in APC is because you are relying on federal might. How fair will the election be?
There’s not going to be any federal might. You witnessed the election in Anambra; did you see federal might? You have witnessed elections everywhere since this administration came into power; there has been no use of federal might. President Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of our party, does not believe in all those things. He will tell you to go and work. If today I contested with his wife Aisha, he would not raise a finger in favour of the wife.
He would advise her to go and do her work well, and canvass to the people and wait for God’s judgment. That’s what he would tell her.
You sounded as if the incumbent governor won’t be a factor in this election. With the ‘stomach, infrastructure’ he seems to have got the hearts of the people. Why do you sound so optimistic?
Yes, Ayo Fayose is going to be a factor, but for the failure of his party. Look, the ‘stomach infrastructure’ thing is a myth.
People have not been paid here for 12 months. Local government officials have not been paid. You said he is providing for the people and their salaries have not been paid. If I am a teacher of a local government worker you have not paid me for 12 months, what is ‘stomach infrastructure’ in this place?
If you are doing that you must regularly pay them so that they can feed themselves. This last Christmas, he didn’t even give them rice as he used to give them. It is a government of deceit, he is just deceiving our people. So, forget about the ‘Stomach Infrastructure’, it is a myth. Go around with him now, nobody hails him anywhere again. In 2006, I chased him out of this place. I took all his lawmakers who were members of the PDP, to Lagos and kept them there for two months.
I brought them back to impeach him. In 2011, he contested against me for senate, I defeated him. I have 68,000 (sixty-eighty thousand votes) he had twenty-one thousand (21,000) votes. Forget about the news they sell to you outside there.
I am back again. I am the one who can chase him out; if there’s any one he fears here, it is me. We will take care of him on July 14.
What gives you the confidence that you will defeat Fayose who, from outside power, sacked an incumbent governor, Kayode Fayemi. What arsenal do you have to defeat him now that he is in power?
We all knew what happened. Those are the things I have told you. He is not contesting, mind you; even if he were contesting; I told you I have defeated him many times in the past.
If somebody was an incumbent; I was not a politician, I was a journalists like you and I was able to impeach him. Again, I was not an incumbent, I defeated him in a senatorial election so what are we talking about? I am telling you that I am the one who is capable of defeating him again.
I can tell you too that I came from a constituency in Ekiti State if you don’t have it (the constituency) you will not win; if you have it, you win; whoever Ado-Ekiti supports, wins. Whosoever Ado-Ekiti does not support is taken out of the Government House. I am from that community and that community has not produced a governor before; we always conceded deputy; but now we are saying that we want to be governor and our people are ready. From the traditional rulers, to market women, to workers, to NGOs, to our party members, they are determined and have decided that this time around, Ado-Ekiti person must be governor.
If you look now, Fayose is demolishing people’s house all over the place. He would just wake up and go and call bulldozers to demolish people’s house; no notice; no compensation, no nothing. These houses are not on the road; whatever that has happened to him nobody knows. I think and suspect that because Ado has removed their support from him he wants to punish them before he leaves.
What are those specific things bothering you that you want to change if you get to power?
There is hunger in the state. People are hungry. If you go round and see the faces of our people you will see that they are malnourished. People should not be malnourished in Ekiti State. People should not be hungry. Less than 10 percent of the land space here is cultivated. The land is fertile; there is nothing that cannot grow in Ekiti State. If we don’t have Ibiras here, Igedes from Benue, there will be no food at all in this state. Our people are not farming. So, we must motivate people to farm. Our young people are roaming the streets, doing nothing.
The infrastructure is dilapidated and bad. Schools are in terrible shape. I want to apply my mind to it and solve this problem. Within one month of my inauguration if I win as governor, I would heavily mobilise people to the farm. I am not talking about cutlass and hoe; but massive modern agriculture, that’s what we are going to do. We are going to make sure that food is available to the people at cheap prices, to buy and eat. Whatever that is left we will bring to you people in Lagos. We sell to you people and bring back the money to Ekiti. We would also export our farm produce to make dollars from outside. Lagos has a food market of N6billion per day. We have done the study and we want to take about 20, 25 percent of that market, so that you will eat our oranges, banana, plantain, our rice, our gari. We would produce starch; we are going to produce ethanol. Let me tell you; under Chief Awolowo in the 60s, about 45 percent of the cocoa that formed the resources that built Ibadan and provided for free education came from this part that we know as Ekiti State today. The farms have grown old. We are studying; we are consulting and we are going to renew those farms and cultivate new ones.
Now we have a variety of cocoa that grows and gives fruit in two years. Unlike Chief Awolowo, we are not going to ship this cocoa raw to foreign lands; we are going to bring private investment that will bring processing plants here; we are going to do our chocolate as they are now doing in Ghana. You know, nearly 100 percent of the yam consumed by Africa Diasporans all over the world is produced by Ghanaians. We grow a lot of yams here; what we don’t have is the motivation to take these yams outside. We are also going to make some money from that. Again, we are well-positioned as a state, between the North and South. All of those emaciated cows going from the North, passing through us to Lagos for you to eat; when they are passing through here, we would have private investors who would buy them up; put them in ranches here in Ekiti and fatten them. From 100 kg they will become 300kg and we would come and sell them to you in Lagos at a good price. I have a lot of things I want to do that can absorb young people into productive activities; and they will generate a lot of income for the state.
Besides, you must have heard about Afuse Institute of Sport in old Bendel State which was established by Ogbemudia. When he was in government and even after he left, Bendel produced a lot of people who went to represent us in Olympics. I want to try that here so that we can occupy our young people. So that when you are looking for best tennis player, the best sprinter, the best wrestler and the best footballer you find them here in Ekiti. We already have our manifesto. Which we call F-I-N-E AGENDA, This simply means- To foster economic growth; invest in the people; nurture enterprise and innovation, and ensure wellbeing. We have our experts everywhere. I am going to collaborate with Ekiti in the Diaspora. I toured the Western countries – America, Britain, Germany, Australia, etc. I went round to talk to all Ekitis there. We are united to build Ekiti State. We have the human resources, but unfortunately they are not at home. We want to bring them home to come and develop the state. So that when anybody wants to become governor in future, the person will come and study what we have done.
Considering the alleged poor performance of APC in the country; do you think the party is electable?
APC is electable. I am standing before you as an accomplished journalist, and somebody who has been in the senate and is now working in the presidency that APC is electable. What you are seeing is what you see when Change is about to happen. I can tell you today that the billions of dollars we used to take to Thailand to buy rice we are no longer spending that kind of money again.
Millions of people have been mobilised to farm. I have been to Jigawa, Kebbi, Ebonyi and I have been to Cross River. When I saw rice farms and processing plants, I knew that change has come. We need to consolidate on the foundation before we build. You may say, ‘O they are fighting corruption, has corruption been eradicated?’ There is nowhere in the world where corruption has been eradicated but we have succeeded in making the fight against corruption an agenda. When we continue to pursue that agenda, one day we will succeed. A lot of things are happening. We are diversifying the economy; we are trying to build a rail line from Lagos to Kano; from Lagos to Calabar; the second Niger Bridge which became an issue during Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan’s regimes, now people are working there; they are piling and it will be delivered very soon. Many other things are taking shapes and we are blocking all the loopholes in governance.
If after the primary election, the party picks someone else; how would you react?
If anybody who is contesting against me now becomes the winner tomorrow, I will go and give all the support I can. I am not doing this because I like to be called ‘Your Excellency.’ I want to intervene here to send this shame away. Anywhere I go and introduce myself as coming from Ekiti, people laugh at me as if I am pouring faeces on my body. There is a problem of image for us in Ekiti State. We must remove that. There is a problem of underdevelopment, we must remove that. There is the problem of diseases, we must remove that. Go to the hospital, there are no medications. People are just going there to register to die. We must make sure that we solve problems. That is why I am doing this, so, if the people think I am not worthy, why not? Democracy is about the people. If you want to serve and the people say you cannot serve; it is anybody who does not have a second address that fights when he is not being chosen to lead.
You have outlined so many things that you intend to do, but we are aware that so many states are insolvent, do you plan on increasing tax to generate revenue or how do you intend to raise funds?
There is no state that is insolvent. What is happening is that we are not planning very well. This Fayose that you are seeing here, he travels out of Ekiti at least three times in a week. Each of the chartered aircraft that he uses is $13, 000 per trip. That is $13, 000 to fly to Abuja and $13, 000 to fly back. That is $26, 000. Multiply that by three and multiply that by four. You will know what I am talking about. The man is riding four bulletproof Range Rovers. Each one bought for N18million. I don’t need all of those things. If you block all those areas of waste, you will have enough money to pay salaries of people. Even when they don’t have the money and the Federal Government gives them bailout, they still misuse it. Let us look at it. How much are you earning? How much are you spending and what are you spending on? There is so much waste here and there; there is lack of creativity. For me, Ekiti is a canvas and I will paint the canvas in colour that will show to all Nigerians.
