Jackson Ojo is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who has just dumped the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, the political analyst speaks on the N11.5 billion PDP national secretariat building, the 2016 budget and the workings of the judiciary in the present dispensation among others. Excerpts:
Daily Trust: We heard rumour of you dumping PDP for the APC. How true is this?
Jackson Ojo: Yes, I have decamped from my ward 17, Obiakpo local government area where I vote. I am a card carrying member of the APC now; there are no two ways about it. I can’t remain in PDP because PDP is dead, it is highly mutilated, it is nailed.
Daily Trust: There are many other political parties in the country but why did you settle for the ruling APC?
Ojo: Let me be bold, most of my political principals, most of my benefactors; those people I call my role models, are in the APC. The APC may not be the best home for any politician the way anybody might look at it but most of those people that I know, that we do things together are already in the APC and cannot afford to play politics opposite their direction because I copy politics from them. These people are progressives and I am also a progressive and humanistic-minded person. If these people the majority of them are northerners, they are Muslims I am a Christian, they are Hausa/Fulani, I am from the South-west, they are from the north so if these people still accommodate me as their brother then I have to be in the same camp with them.
DT: Are you saying that the APC is a northern party?
Ojo: No, the APC is not a northern party but the majority of those people I respect in the political sphere of Nigeria are in the north. I respect only a few politicians in the entire south. Ninety percent of the politicians that I respect in Nigeria are in the north. My political role models are in the far north only; I don’t have any political role model in the entire south.
DT: The PDP has said the new governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello is on excursion in the state government house provided that the case is pending in court. What is your take on this?
Ojo: That is according to the view, the knowledge, the wisdom and the understanding of the PDP. That is not the ruling of God and that is not the ruling of the people of Kogi State and Nigeria. If they are not satisfied with the election, they should wait for the court to rule on it, if they are still not satisfied they can proceed to the Supreme Court and the court will rule on that but as it is now it is not their business.
DT: The Supreme Court has upheld the election of Nyesom Wike as governor of Rivers State where you reside. What do you make of the judiciary in this democratic dispensation?
Ojo: I have respect now for the Supreme Court wing of the judiciary. I am based in Rivers and whether the elections were done there or not is a thing of the past. No man should open his mouth to say that now because that negates the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria after the pronouncement of the Supreme Court. Governor Wike I congratulate him because I am not close to him but he worked very well, especially in the area of infrastructure; road construction, schools and hospitals to be precise. I must say this even though the platform is different. There is a particular area that he has touched the lives of millions. Immediately he came in he started constructing road massively. Roads that people never dreamt that any government could build; he has started doing it and so many other things. So I rate him high. But I think the Supreme Court has seen what you and I cannot see, that is the end and I think it will bring peace in the state.
DT: What is your take on the controversy surrounding the 2016 budget presently in the National Assembly?
Ojo: I will put the blame on the doorsteps of the National Assembly. Some of the poor people that do not have a bicycle before, immediately they get to the House of Representatives, they become multi-billionaires. How are they doing it? Over-flouting the budget. But now, I don’t think there is anybody that can jack up Buhari’s budget and that is what is bringing this controversy. I think they are the ones that are trying to see if they can change or persuade Mr. President to do it.
DT: You just left the PDP for the APC. Can you tell us why work stopped on the N11.5 billion PDP national secretariat building in the Central Area District of Abuja?
Ojo: If a party was so corrupt to have been diverting money meant for arms and ammunition for internal defence of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, what do you think would cost them to eat the money for the building of their secretariat? The money for that secretariat was from political patronage; people would supply N10 oil and collect N10 million. They know that those people got the money illegally and when it got to the secretariat, some cabals in the secretariat did not allow it to see the light of the day. Problem came when they failed at the federal level.
So the remaining money in that account must have been shared by a few individuals. As the secretariat is uncompleted and empty now so will the members also decamp to other political parties soon? I call on the federal government to investigate if the secretariat was not built with the contributions of party members through internal taxation. Those people that donated billions of naira for the building of the secretariat during the fund raising dinner at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, where did they get that money from? The federal government should go inward to investigate and by the time they discover that the bulk of the money that they used to take that secretariat to that level must have been stolen, the federal government should confiscate it and change that place to become the headquarters of the EFCC.
DT: What role will you play in the APC, your new party?
Ojo: I am going to my state to identify with my state governor and the state executive that I am in Rivers State but whatever role and contribution I have to make in Osun State which is my home state, I will make.
Daily Trust
END
Be the first to comment