Yoruba, Nigerians behind Jonathan —Gani Adams

Chief Gani Adams is the national coordinator of O’odua People’s Congress (OPC) and a member of the recent national conference. He speaks on some issues, including the postponement of the 2015 elections, the South-West zone, political parties and their candidates, among others, with some select journalists. BOLA BADMUS was there. Excerpts:

HOW will you react to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s shift of the election dates by six weeks?

Well, the shift in dates is as a result of issues that have to do with security and inadequate logistics for the exercise. Let me explain these by reminding you of the fact that the shared Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) was just 66 per cent, while the remaining 34 per cent are yet to be issued out to their owners. And when you realise the population of this unfortunate electorate, it is about 24 million eligible voters.

I am so sad with the way the opposition handled the development. I just can’t imagine how comfortable they are that about 24 million Nigerians are to be disenfranchised; as a matter of fact, I won’t even be comfortable with 10,000 Nigerians not to talk of 24 million Nigerians being denied the opportunity to vote. Even if the 24 million Nigerians are not going to vote, the party that, at the end of the day, loses the election can hide behind the excuse to foment trouble after the exercise.

I watched the National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Muhammed, saying it was just 22 local governments that were not given the PVCs and may not vote, forgetting that some states don’t have up to 22 local governments. For example, Ekiti State has 13 local governments and Ondo State 18 councils. So when you say it is just 22 local governments, you are unwittingly saying it doesn’t matter if about two states don’t participate in the election. If this ever happens, it will give the party that loses to seek redress at the tribunal, thus hampering the development and progress they claim to stand for.

Secondly, the security chiefs declared that they couldn’t guarantee security of INEC’s ad hoc staff, how then will any sane person push for the exercise without the support of security chiefs? For these two cogent reasons, I don’t see us going for free, fair and credible elections. We still have more than three months for the handover of government. There is no need for them to be too anxious more than the umpire.

Moreover, we have 27 political parties and 17 of them have declared that the election should be postponed and eight insisted that it be held. In as much as 17 have indicated interest in the shifting, it simply means that majority of Nigerians have spoken. The INEC have limited power on the date even though they have the right to postpone the election, they still have to consult stakeholders which they have done by consulting the parties.

Unfortunately, APC has ceaselessly been blaming the Peoples Democratic Party as if it was the only party that called for the postponement. APC just have to be careful when it comes to propaganda. The opposition has always been hiding behind issue of insecurity to condemn Jonathan. Now the president wanted to tackle security challenges before the elections, the opposition is again shouting foul. What they are criticizing Jonathan for is what the gentleman wanted to face in six weeks. Come to think of it, with or without the necessary amendment, he has insisted on May 29 as handover date.

But some people alleged that President Jonathan is working towards Interim National Government (ING), what is your view of this?

Jonathan cannot propose an interim national government and at the end of the day be the head of such arrangement, such move won’t be in the interest of Jonathan.

But most Yoruba are not supporting Jonathan’s re-election bid, how do you expect him to scale through?

We don’t need to deceive ourselves. The main group in Yorubaland, Afenifere has spoken; Afenifere the political arrowhead of Yoruba people have declared support for Jonathan. Even Dr. Frederick Fasehun, the owner of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) has endorsed Jonathan even before Afenifere. I don’t have problem with Buhari, but I have serious problem with the people that surround him. I am talking of no other person than Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

For the four years of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), they shut their doors against our organisation. Definitely, if this group has access to the central government, it will shut more damning doors. Most importantly, the Afenifere has endorsed Jonathan, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) has endorsed Jonathan; the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Accord Party (AP) which happen to be among the main parties in Yorubaland as well as the Labour Party (LP) have endorsed Jonathan. In the East, the Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo has endorsed Jonathan; most groups in Niger Delta have endorsed him as well. It is only Tinubu APC and a handful social media parasites that have not.

Most religious bodies including Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the PFN have doffed their caps for the president.

But some people are calling for the head of Jonathan in Lagos. What do you think must have accounted for this?

I honestly don’t know how you got this information, because I quite know that only partisan politicians in the opposition want him out at all costs. As a grass-roots’ leader in the South- West, Nigerians in the zone want Jonathan; Nigerians especially Lagosians want Jimi Agbaje as governor. Some who never loved Jonathan now want him because of Jimi Agbaje. In a nutshell, our own independent studies show that 85 per cent of Lagosians want Jonathan.

The job of election is house-to-house campaign not using facebook to

write jargons about personalities. A majority of those who do so are not even known on the streets where they live. So in conclusion, 85 per cent of Lagosians want Jonathan.

Let’s look at the issue of violence during campaigns which had led to killings and injuries. How do we curb violence in our campaigns and elections in this country?

I think it is as a result of some politicians who do not have conscience, because I don’t see how  and why you are employing violence in elections.  With the introduction of PVCs, it will be extremely difficult to rig these elections. With the system that Professor Jega used in 2011 and during some of the governorship elections that were held recently, it will be very difficult for people to rig.

This is because you go to the polling unit and do accreditation till 12 O’clock. After 12 o’clock, voting will start and it will end before 5.00 p.m. and at each polling booth, the winner will be announced whether it is the state Assemblies, the national assembly, governorship or the presidential election. So at the polling booth, you will know the winner and through the process, you can use the figure by the returning officers to collate the results yourself even before the announcement of the results by INEC.

So within three hours after election, the people of a state would have known who won among the parties. So I believe that Nigerian politicians should not concentrate on thuggery or act of intimidation, but they should continue to tell the people what they will do when they get to power.  They should stop blackmailing or discrediting each other. They should come out with facts to convince people and stop calling people who have sacrificed for the nation different names.

In my own opinion, there is no difference between the two major political parties, the APC and the PDP. For instance, 99 per cent of people in APC today are from PDP, including Audu Ogbeh, Bukola Saraki, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Abubakar Atiku, Segun Oni, etc. Most of the people now in APC were PDP stalwarts. Saraki served two terms as governor under the PDP, Oyinlola served about six years as Governor under the PDP, Atiku was vice-president for eight years under the PDP. The few people in APC who were not in PDP are, Tinubu, Aregbesola and

Oshiomhole, as well as some of the South- West governors. Okorocha was in the PDP to APGA and later to APC. Most of them don’t have strong antecedents when you talk of ideology, and those are the people crying for change, what kind of change do they want to produce?

You are talking of change, I remember vividly when we were going for the National Conference, most of these APC leaders condemned the National Conference. They were calling for personality change, but they were not calling for institutional change. What they are saying is that the present structure should not change, but the president should change. If you say Buhari should be the president, what of the institutions that have not changed. We went to the National Conference to restructure Nigeria, to change the institution because we feel the institutions are always powerful than any individual. If you defeated Jonathan, don’t be surprised that most of the people that worked with Jonathan will come to the APC and they will infiltrate your government and cause the same problem. There is no way you can check them out because after winning the election, you need more people to lend voice to the victory and to the growth of the government.

After the recommendations of the National Conference, they were still using the media to condemn the recommendations. Those are the people calling for change. An example of a change could have happened in Lagos, with the kind of resources that the Lagos State government has is free education. Do we have free education in Lagos State? Do we have free health?

What kind of benefits have the citizens of Lagos State enjoyed from the government?

It is only about paying multiple taxes. They taxed you to your toilet. If the students union of the Lagos State University, LASU, were not so strong and resolute, a person studying medicine would have been paying about N360,000 per session  while Arts students would have been paying N250,000. One of the reasons why they agreed with the students’ leaders was because they knew that election was coming. They drove away most people riding motorcycles (okada) and you didn’t provide alternatives. Most of the lands in Lekki Area were acquired by the government from their owners. A toll gate was built and you are collecting tolls, what kind of capitalist government is that?

So I don’t know the kind of change they are talking about. The only state that has free education in South- West is Osun State under Rauf Aregbesola. He is giving one meal per day to pupils. Now they are campaigning that they will give one day meal which is already happening in a poor state like Osun. It has not happened in Lagos or Ogun states, but because of election now, you say you want to give free meal in schools. That is deceitful.

I don’t know how long Tinubu and his cronies are going to destroy Nigeria. I am not saying Jonathan is a saint, because if those people around him are corrupt and he cannot deal with them, then it means he also has some skeletons in the cupboard.  But Jonathan is quite different

from the calibre of people we have in APC. You know what is happening in Ogun State, where somebody is building bridges where there is no water; you are having multibillion naira bridges and there is no free education. People of Oyo State are crying because the government of the state has shut its door against the masses.

Nigerian media should be very careful; they should not play themselves into the hands of those who are gullible. Those who own the oil, we should give them the opportunity to serve their term and go. We in the South- West served our two terms, and I don’t see what stops Jonathan from serving his second term.

But despite the Afenifere’s endorsement of Jonathan, prominent Yoruba leaders are supporting Buhari. What do you have to say to this?

How many of them were in the struggle except for General Alani Akinrinade and Hon. Wale Osun and Osun is very close to APC. There is no way you can separate Akinrinade and Tinubu. Yes, they are always together. Akinrinade may not be partisan, but you can’t separate him from Tinubu; they have close relationship. I got to know that when we were at the National Conference. When you are, however, talking about the core people who always fight for the cause of the Yoruba  and those whose voice you hear about regionalism and introduction of parliamentary system in the country, you talk of myself as  the leader of the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, and the Afenifere leaders who believe that, no matter the situation, the cause of Yoruba must be championed at the conference.

For the past seven years, do you ever see Tinubu talking about regionalism? Do you ever see Tinubu talking about parliamentary, even to the extent that because of the Federal powers he believes he is close to, he does not talk of state police anymore? He does not even talk of restructuring anymore because he wants to please the North. I remember vividly when we were at the National Conference, one of the people who represented Oyo State said in an interview that they were given instruction by ACN governor, that they should align with the interest of the North. And what happened, Tinubu had his interest aligned with the North to fight Jonathan.

Those of us who supported Jonathan knew what we are doing, because the way Tinubu is going, he is erasing the legacy Baba Awolowo built in the South- West. Before Tinubu emerged as leader in the South- West, not just anything goes in the South- West, we played our politics on the basis of ideology.

I read some things that were being written on facebook that 25 investments were being cornered by Tinubu in Lagos State. I now saw some journalists supporting or arguing that we should realise that some people gained employment in these investments and, therefore, we should give kudos to Tinubu for creating those investments out of the people’s wealth, commonwealth in Lagos and South-West. So you can see the way he is changing the mentality of people in Yorubaland.

In the past, if you made such an allegation against Chief Obafemi Awolowo the following day he would call a world press conference to defend the allegations and washed his hands of the publication. But for the past one week now, Tinubu could not come out and defend himself against those allegations, to say I didn’t own Alpha Betta; I didn’t take this; I didn’t own that media outfit or this and this share. So you can see that some people have continued to defend him.

People are saying a lot of negative things about Buhari and some politicians who called themselves progressives are defending them. In Yorubaland, I remember when I became leader of OPC, people say I did not have enough education to be a leader. Therefore, I went to school, I trained myself; self-training and I went to school. I got my first diploma, I went to even write WAEC. I went to write NECO. I wrote WAEC again. I went to Ghana to get a diploma. I got a diploma in Lagos State University and later bagged a degree. But now Buhari is being accused of not having a school certificate and you see somebody like Lai Mohammed defending him that it doesn’t matter if Buhari does not have a certificate, and a lot of other things like that. So you can imagine.

This cannot happen in the time of Pa Awolowo or Bola Ige. They would sit down and say there is a problem. Before they put up in a position, they would X-ray you to see that you have the quality; if you don’t have the quality, they can’t pick you as a leader. It is not about money; it is not about intrerest. It is about integrity, but the integrity we are talking about has faded out with the kind of Tinubu›s brand of politics. Everything about Tinubu is money. He has said it in one of his campaigns that he can bribe God if he has the opportunity you can imagine that kind of thing.

I, as Gani Adams, have made up my mind. I will never follow anybody who does not like Yoruba. I will never follow anybody who pretends as a progressive and who is not a progressive.

I don’t say Jonathan is a progressive, but I believe Jonathan is better than Buhari. His humility as president for six years without being accused for only one state killing is commendable. He always says that a live is not worth his political ambition, that he would not want a live to be lost because of his own ambition.

I saw a newspaper yesterday, where they highlighted what Jonathan had done for South- West. These include the seaport being sited in Badagry; it is going to be the largest port in Africa. Another seaport in Lekki; a free trade zone in Lekki and an airport in Lekki. We will not be using only Murtala Muhammed International Airport. At the same time, the road between Lagos and Ibadan is being constructed while a lot of projects are ongoing.

In Sure-P, many Yoruba are being given N20,000 every month. Also in YOU Win, many Yoruba benefited.

When you are talking of appointment, when we started complaining that we needed juicy positions, he (Jonathan) gave a Yoruba the position of Chief of Staff, and you know what that position means; it is gateway to the president. The importance of power is the person close to power. Doyin Okupe is a media person to the president. Reuben Abati is a spokesman to the president. So in one way or the other, we are moving and this is a man that from the time of winning his election in 2011, he planned to make a Yoruba the number four person in his government.

You remember Mulikat Akande-Adeola was the target of Mr. President for the speakership post, but the like of Tinubu worked against it and brought Aminu Waziri Tambuwwal. The then ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) collaborated with some PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) members in the House of Representatives to do the damage.

Look, the Northerners always forget about party affiliation because they believe it is their turn.

Don’t you think President Jonathan ought to have acted by putting his foot down to ensure that his candidate for speakership emerge?

No, in democracy, there is a limit to which you can use your power to pull down the wish of the people, especially in the parliament, in the National Assembly. When you are a member of the House of Representatives, you have your own power. You are entitled to your own view. It is different from a minister in the cabinet. He is different from a special adviser; he is different from a special assistant. But when you are in the National Assembly, that is another arm of government. You know that the arm that usually gives the executive arm of government more problem out of the other two is the National Assembly. When you are telling Jonathan to use his power, there is a limit to the power he can use on the National Assembly.

You should remember that when he wanted to impose state of emergency on Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, the National Assembly resisted it because the parliament approval is a game of number. At the end of the day, they put it to vote. If you do not have enough people, how many people do you want to lobby?

The Northern people rose up against Akande-Adeola. They threw away their party affiliation; the people in then CPC, the people in PDP, rose up and Tinubu from South-West did not even think we should put party aside, that this is a Yoruba woman. So, Tinubu gave them the Yoruba quota of APC in South- West to support a PDP Northerner to knock out a Yoruba lady who is supposed to be the speaker.

He has been in this damage game for a long time. I was not surprised when he brought Buhari out, when he was aligning with the North by all means to bring a Northerner. We know what we passed through in the hands of the Northerners in the North. It is like a battle before we got the recommendations we got at the national conference and Buhari criticised the conference. He did not support the national conference. Tinubu did not support the national conference. Most of the APC chieftains did not support it. So, how are we sure that if they win the presidential election, our recommendations would scale through?

So, it is only Jonathan that set up the national conference that can approve 80 per cent of the recommendations.

What advice do you have for Mr President towards the coming poll?

My own is to support Mr President. I am not a PDP member. So, Mr President is not for public consumption. I don’t want to be too partisan. We have two people in the race and I have the right to decide on who to support for reasons best known to me. But not withstanding, I would advise Nigerians politicians. We should not play politics of do or die. We should play according to the rule, we should place our nation first before our personal ambition. We should learn from the way the last elections in Britain, America and the European Union countries were conducted. Spreading false information among the people, creating unnecessary propaganda, bringing deceits because you want to win an election will not work.

The US is said not to have favoured election postponement and now that the exercise has been postponed, don’t you think as some Nigerians are against it, the outside world is also against the country?

There is no way the election can hold. Thirty-four per cent of Nigerians have not got their PVCs, amounting to about 24 million people.

Denying 24 million people their franchise to vote for candidates of their choice is not ideal. It is only 66 per cent that got their own PVCs. So, their is no way you can hold election under that circumstance.

If you go and conduct election under such circumstance, there would be war. There would be a serious war. Even though some of the affected people may not vote, if you deny them their PVCs, there would be serious protests and the party that loses would support them and there would be anarchy.

I don’t know why the opposition keeps on hyping that the election should hold even when their party members have not got their PVCs.

The opposition said the election was postponed because Jonathan was afraid to lose the election could that be right?

That is propaganda. Many things you hear from them, about 50 per cent of them, is propaganda. Sultan of Sokoto said he had not got his PVC. I just got my PVC on Friday and in my house, almost all the 35 people that registered, it is only me and two others that got theirs; 32 others are yet to receive theirs. And you now say the election should hold. And you are blaming Jonathan. If there is crisis after the election, they will now say Jonathan has caused crisis. The Service Chiefs said they were not ready for the election.