Why PDP Lost Kwara – Oyedepo

In this interview with select journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo the State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, x-rays the performance of his party in the 2015 elections, gives an insight into his new book entitled “Letters To The Emir”, the sack of the Service Chiefs as well as his take on political office holders cutting their salaries. Stephen Olufemi Oni was there for TheNEWS. Excerpts:

Q: You must have conducted a post-mortem on the dismal performance of your party, PDP, in the 2015 elections in Kwara State; what was the outcome?

A: After the elections, I called a meeting of the critical stakeholders of the party where I delivered about six or seven-page address. And in that address, I documented why we lost and immediately after the elections too, I set up a strategy committee that also reviewed the elections and they came
up with reasons why we lost in all the elections.

Briefly, let me just tell you why we lost. Firstly, PDP was not one in this state ahead of the elections. There was lack of unity, making it pretty difficult for us in that kind of situation to win the elections. It is not possible.

Secondly, we lost because we have over-ambitious members. When we say ‘change’, they would say ‘yes’, when we say we want freedom, they would say ‘yes’; freedom was our slogan and it is still our slogan but freedom to many of our members is that if I can’t be governor, there is nothing like freedom. That was why you see 13 people vying for one office with nobody ready to step down for another despite that we were facing a sitting governor who was re-contesting. So, what do you expect to be the result of that exercise? It should be a foregone conclusion.

Thirdly, we didn’t have among the contestants people with deep pockets that could finance the elections. In fact, we fielded about 34 or 35 people for the legislative and executive positions and I can tell you that there was none of them that was rich enough to finance an election, including our gubernatorial candidate. So, we were waiting endlessly for money to come from outside and when the money came, which was inadequate, it came too late.

Q: Since the election was won and lost, the belief in some quarters is that your party has gone comatose arising from its failure to provide credible opposition to the ruling APC in the State. What is your reaction to this assertion?

A: If you know my antecedents and I still remain the chairman of this party, people should expect a very vibrant opposition from the PDP in the state. You should naturally expect that as long as I remain the head of the party in Kwara, the issue of saying the party is dead is not there. What we need now is to at least attack the bad policies of government or even commend them where they are right and that I promise the people of the state. The seeming lull was as a result of the Ramadan fast and since the fast is now over, people should expect more constructive firework from the party.

Q: Recently, there was a change of guards as the Service Chiefs were sacked and replaced with new ones; what is your take on this?

A: I am not always excited about sacking this or sacking that because it is normal. In fact, we have been expecting such. I don’t know what is newsy in that because if he doesn’t do so, maybe it would be too newsy to me. Now that he has sacked them, let us see what the effect is going to be. There were so many of them that had been sacked in the past even under former President Goodluck Jonathan but the problem of insecurity still persists. So, it is not sacking that really matters but whatever that would make us secure in Nigeria.

Q. What is your reaction to the announcement of salary cuts by the President, his Vice and other political office holders in the country?

A: I want to say that legally, those people cutting their own salaries don’t even have the power to do so. There is a body known as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC. This is the body that has the responsibility to either add more to the salary or reduce the salary; that is its own responsibility. Besides, there is what we call Salaries and Wages Commission. You know in Nigeria, we want action, we respect symbols and shadows sometimes more than the substance. A chapter in my new book entitled “Letters to the Emir” is on cost of governance. If you see the cost of governance in Kwara State alone for the past 16 years, then you will know that this thing is far more than the salary of the Chief Executive.

For example, I have detailed the number of times that a Chief Executive of Kwara State used to travel out of the State throughout his tenure and this man would travel with chartered flight and I have gone to the extent of even going to the source to know how much a chartered flight would cost and I have multiplied it over a period of eight years, it has given us about N2 billion to maintain our Governor on air. So, what is salary to that one? Even in this book, you would see things like the number of vehicles that a Chief Executive would go out with every time he goes out. Our Chief Executive here would be in a convoy with bullet proof cars at the middle and there would be four jeeps and he would be sandwiched among these four jeeps. In fact, I have calculated that to maintain our governor on the road at times, we shall be talking of millions of Naira; that has nothing to do with salary. So, number one, I don’t believe they are the one to reduce their salaries. Maybe the President has done it to serve as an example but I would have thought that he would go to the National Assembly with a bill suggesting the reduction, not only in salary but in the number of political appointees that he, as President, and even the Governors, can appoint.

In this document, which is my new book, luckily I was once a commissioner in this state in 1992, we had only 10 commissioners and only two Special Advisers. Today, as I recall in this book, we have about 114 Special Assistants and Special Adviser on this, Special Adviser on that. In 1992 we had only 12 as against 120 now in a State which geographically is still the same as in 1992 and the economy is not improving. So, this thing goes beyond reducing salary. He has to go further and do what is quite necessary.

Q: You have written a new book which is a document even for generations yet unborn, but where lies your confidence that coming out with this type of information will change the status quo?

A: Number one, I believe in the veracity of what I put down. You would not see me putting anything down if I don’t believe I am telling the truth. So, my confidence is on the truth I speak most of the time. Secondly, I believe that I should not allow timidity to disallow me to perform what I consider to be the role that I ought to perform as a politician who believes that the society can be organised in a better way. Thirdly, I don’t also believe that anybody can kill me before the day of my death as destined by God. If they are able to kill me, God has permitted it and if God has permitted it, it then means that He doesn’t need me again on this planet. He has so many people in this world that can do the work that I am doing today. So, when He decides that I should leave, He would provide an alternative to carry on with His own assignment; that is my belief about this thing.

I also believe that government, at all levels, should be held accountable from time to time. I don’t believe that political office holders are our masters, we have elected them to serve, not to come and boss us. So, at every time we should hold them accountable. They are not the owner of the money that they are using, they are not even the owner of the time that they are spending. So, if you are not the owner of the money, you are not the owner of the office, you are not the owner of the cars you are riding, you are not the owner of whatever, then he who gives you must hold you accountable. Government is not just like an incorporated company that is owned by the Directors, government is an institution owned by the people but just because people cannot all go there, they have to elect some people to go there and if we elect you to be there, you have to come and render account.

Q: To what extent do you think writing books would go in changing the situation especially with your assertion that we seem to enjoy oppression here in Kwara State?

A: You see, once I have written a book like this, my work is half done. The second aspect is to let it be available and cheap so that it would not be too costly for those that may want to read it but would not have much money on them. They would all have access to it. Also, we are writing for about 2.5 million people in Kwara State. For example, may be only 100,000 or less would at the end of the day read it. Out of that 100,000, maybe a few of them, after reading, would be able to embark on what would change this society.

We don’t have to wait until everybody would have to read before a society can change for better; a few people are just needed to carry the message to other people to be able to change the society. And we need not fear whether they would read or not, let us write first because the first thing is to raise the level of consciousness among the people, if people in Oyo or Ekiti could stand up against oppression, what type of people do we have in Kwara State that they must enjoy oppression? So, we need to write and educate them. One thing I even admire is that we only think people don’t read; anytime I am privileged to write something in the newspaper, I know the number of messages I receive every day. So, one person that would read can spread the message. And we are targeting the youth who are the most powerful agents of change in any society.