Wale Oshun, chairman of Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) and a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in this interview with INIOBONG IWOK, spoke on the genesis of the crisis that led to the division in the pan-Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere in 2007, the 2019 general elections, among other issues in the polity. Excerpts:
What is your view about the just concluded general elections?
In Nigeria, I think there must be time for politics and time for governance. No matter what we feel about the general elections, the constitution and law is clear about resisting election, going to court and if you point out the weakness in the election and your evidence must be obvious, and tribunals are empowered to take decision.
This is because government all over the world understands that no election is perfect and that there would always be weaknesses. If there are weaknesses, the judiciary system is there and available, people can take advantage of it.
For me, I would rather not talk about the quality of elections; I would rather talk about the availability of the system that enables those who are aggrieved to seek redress.
By now, what we need to be talking about should not necessarily be the quality of election but availability of system where people can seek redress in court. The court is there.
I believe that no system is bigger than the people who evolved it. That is to say whether you are talking about election or the judiciary; they are only a reflection of the people themselves.
In terms of expectation, in terms of the outcome, it is the kind of people that we are that would reflect in the kind of elections we conduct.
The Judiciary system is there to checkmate, no institution can be totally faultless, but all I can say is that the system checkmates itself. I am not saying the electoral process cannot be made better.
I don’t want to begin to talk about the election because saying this election went that way or that way, because we have agreed that the judiciary system is there to always determine the final outcome of elections.
That is rather than talking about the election, at the end of the day there must be a government in place; whether the party that won the election or the party that expects to win in court. Either way there must be government.
So as ordinary citizens, we must talk in terms of the governance that we expect; are we really setting target for ourselves? Is the government meeting its target? I will not want to engage my time in talking about that.
But a government must have legitimacy?
Yes, that is what I said; that at the end of the day the judiciary process will give judgment which could go either way. Whatever government emerges from that as its own legitimacy and any government that comes out it we believe it is legitimate.
Do you believe in the present set up of the judiciary in Nigeria; do you see that independence in their ruling?
Yes. But for a Nigerian, in spite of the seeing failures, shortcomings, if you don’t believe in the judiciary then you are talking about creating anarchy all over. Then you must always talk about investing in the judiciary, if there are problems Nigerians would have to point out what the problems are.
We need to do this and at the end of the day; whether we believe in the judiciary or not, the judiciary needs to put its house in order. I personally think at the end of the day it is still left for everybody to take a gun and bottle to fight for it. So that is why when some people get judgment and they are not satisfied they still abide by it; because that system is not total faultless. If on the balance there is some measure of conflict it is acceptable to us.
How do you react to the statement by some leaders that the 2019 general election was the worst in the Nigerian history?
Yes, but the election you have to take it from when it is organized; for instances; I will say the best election we have had in Nigeria’s history is the June 12, 1993 election. I will say that confidently. Some others may say that it is another election. What I am saying is that there is always this subjective assumption that is bound to take place. It all depends on your education, exposure and political beliefs. When you start comparing elections, I would say that some people would see this election and say something good about it.
What I am saying is that we have to agree that this system must evolve, the constitution is there to guide us; if you are not satisfied by what went on, you can go to the court, let the court take decision. In recent years, there have been precedents. But I think Nigerians agreed that instead of being concerned about election issues why can’t we show concern about governance?
But if you don’t have credible election, how do you produce good leaders?
That is what I am saying; once an election has been held and you have the opportunity for challenging the result; a final decision would be taken by the court. I have said it before, the institution created it. Even when you have flaws you still have to determine how you can get the best out of it. That is how we can set the pace for governance by talking about it in your media houses.
That is when you talk about it, you ask how many people get employment; when you talk about government providing quality education for the people and so on. Look at American election, I think Clinton had the larger support votes from the people, but Trump won and Americans were not held down by election litigation ones a final decision had been taken. And of course, they keep on saying how can we make this system better? Did Russia intervene in the election? Governance was not related to the background.
The times have come now that there must be a government in place come May 29, and that government must govern us and make sure that the interest of the common man predominates other issues.
Do you believe President Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election?
I am a member of his party, so what do you expect me to say? Because in any case I am a politician, I belong to a party and I worked for my party to win the election. In any case, does any individual have any methodology of who won the election? That is why the party has to work together to challenge the system. They have the resources; an individual like me may have prejudices assumption. Apart from that who has the capacity to determine the outcome of elections?
That is where the judiciary comes in; I am still saying whether an election went bad or not it is the fault of everyone including the security agencies and political parties.
That is why I am saying that Atiku has the right to challenge election result; every decision given by the court he also have obligation to respect the decision of the court. That is why I am saying the judiciary is the last hope to determine the result of election and conduct election.
Don’t you believe Nigeria is ripe for electronic voting?
If you look at the issues of telephone for example in Nigeria we have all been using and applying our telephone now, when you think of this you want to say those saying we are not ready for electronic voting are not serious. Go to the market, the women are using telephone.
So which is to say if we are truly interested in applying electronic voting the capacity is there. I mean the capacity to develop it and make sure it works is there.
Do you think the 2019 general elections would have been less controversial if INEC had been empowered by law to use card reader?
I don’t have the means of assessing the general elections; the election has been held and result declared. It is only an institution that will look at the election and say this is what happened; I can’t do that. Though there were violence and disruption in some parts of the country.
I spoke with Chief Ayo Adebanjo recently; he said your group and other Afenifere factions were impostors; how do you react?
Well I think it would not be a time wasting effort to say how we emerged starting from 1998, after the D Rovals Hotel experience when Olu Falae was chosen ahead of Bola Ige to be the candidate of the AD in the 1999 presidential election.
I mean the story had been said that the crisis was what polarised Afenifere; that crisis made it possible for the differences in Afenifere to blow to the open.
Because by 1999, we had the new governors coming in and Bola Ige accepting to serve in the government of Olusegun Obasanjo, and all this help to further polarised Afenifere; this polarisation has affected the Yoruba nation as a whole. Me, and the present Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, Ayo Afolabi, Yinka Odumakin, Jimi Agbaje, Demola Oyinlola and some others were worried by the seeming polarisation in the Afenifere and especially among the elders, by that time Bola Ige had passed on. We have said it so many times.
We decided that we want to bring all the sides together; that is how we the young people decided to convene a conference in Ibadan; it was a three-day retreat at the IITA. We brought all the sides together; Bisi Akande, Ayo Adebanjo, governors in the region and we all agreed that it was time to move on because we had achieved our aim to unite everybody.
But when we came out of the conference, I can remember it was in 2007, approaching 2008.
When we came out of the conference, an elder of Afenifere who was in his 80s then was seen in an interview with the Guardian newspaper lambasting all the state governors of the region, the governors were unhappy with this.
But we the young element in Afenifere, most of us then were relatively young we were in our 50s, 40s, 60s. We said how can we be engaging ourselves with all this crisis of confident, and then we decided to set up our own group, because we know the importance.
At that time, the problem among the leaders was about their egos. We were worried about ideology of the group; and that is how we evolved. We decided to establish Yoruba Academy in Ibadan and so many other projects across the Southwest region.
At the 2014 constitutional conference, there were members of Afenifere who were there and we had agreed on common issues such as restructuring, we made a joint presentation on state police and common vision that would help the Yoruba people, we were there. We are more engaging. We have no ego to massage and we are no rival to anybody because what we are doing is different from what the rest are doing.
Atiku said he was confident of reclaiming his mandate in court, he is at the tribunal challenging the presidential election result; do you see any reason for this?
We must develop. We must move away from politics to governance; and we have had election no matter what you feel about the election, the constitution and the law is clear on how you can resist an election. That is by going to court and if the judiciary is dissatisfied about the election, they can take action.
Why is the APC opposed to restructuring of the country since some of you so much believe in it?
That is not true. I can say that even APC went round the whole country and came back and presented their report; that Nigerians have said that there should be political restructuring in the country. They came back and say that; so for anybody to say they are opposed to it I don’t know. The issues is that the country has no alternative to restructuring, if it is not now, it must be in the immediate future, if it as not happening now, it does not mean it would not happen.
Are you in an alliance with the Ayo Fasanmi-led faction of Afenifere?
We are pushing for the restructuring of the country, if we are doing different things; we also agreed that restructuring is at the centre piece of the whole country.
See, in recent time at the Senate, the issue of insecurity was put on the front burner; they spoke on the issue of state police and people are condemning the present structure that we have.
Even the people of country are clamouring that nobody can stop restructuring of the country. No body. We at Afenifere Renewal, being the younger elements; we know the kind of future we would want to leave for our children and it is important for us to protect that future and that is why I have to say this.
But your group was silent during the herdsmen crisis in the region?
Many years back we prepared a document after an extensive research and came up with report on the consequence of unhealthy migration in the country and if you want to see it is there for you to see. What is important is what we have been able to accomplice in recent time. The government in Osun State conceived a stakeholders’ meeting on how to control it and to make sure it does not become a calamity for the state. What this group is doing with like minds is to lobby state governors to take action.
But there is the allegation that your group is being used by Tinubu to accomplish his self-interest?
But they themselves know it is not true. Those who even started the rumour know the truth. No single individual can say he is the one influencing us. What we have are people of my age-group who are concerned about the region and meet regularly, and to take decision regularly.
