Senator Babafemi Ojudu is a special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on political affairs as well as one of the aspirants for the gubernatorial ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC in the 2018 Ekiti gubernatorial election. In this interview, Ojudu who has had a distinguished career as a journalist and activist, spoke to Ayorinde Oluokun on his aspiration, the task before the next governor of Ekiti State, the incumbent administration of Governor Ayodele Fayose, as well as the performance of the APC and the Buhari administration among others.
Q: You are one of those with eyes on the Ekiti gubernatorial contest. But how well would you even say the incumbent governor has performed?
A: It is clear to everybody that he has not done well. He is just a noisemaker, a megalomaniac. He has this idea of shouting and shouting, abusing people who are old enough to be his father and not caring about the problems confronting the state. There is quite a huge problem of unemployment in Ekiti – many people coming out of higher institutions and they have nothing to do. He has not managed the State very well, no industry and the place is like a dead end. Today, he is acting as an opposition, tomorrow, he is just acting like a thug; bullying people all over the place and deceiving the poor that he is their friend when in actual fact, he is their enemy. He is not paying the teachers, the civil servants. so, Ekiti, as it is now, is static – nothing is happening. I have been across Nigeria in the past two years – virtually to all states in Nigeria. I know the developments going on in the states in spite of the economic crunch that we have. Other than the bridge that he is building in Ekiti that is leading to nowhere, I don’t know what he has achieved.
But Fayose is working seriously to ensure that his deputy succeeds him?
That is expected. We know that he will want to cover his track and he will want somebody who is going to protect him after he has left power and that is why he has brought his deputy. But I don’t know how far that can take him, but we are watching. We are going to meet him in the field on the day of election. We are working towards completely eradicating anything that has to do with Fayose- we have seen enough of him and I am not sure Ekiti will be ready to have his surrogates in power.
But the Governor has been boasting that he is in control of the people and APC, being the major opposition in the State cannot win the next election?
He can keep on boasting; that’s what he likes to do. But if you say you have the populace, who are the populace? Are they the teachers that you have not paid? Or the civil servants who are hungry and cannot pay their children’s school fees, their medical bills why you are awash with money celebrating and having parties almost on a daily basis. Who are the masses that he is talking about? Is he talking about the youths that are unemployed or who cannot even pay their school fees in the State-owned universities? He is just out to impress and to make noise and we are used to that.
The primary to select the flag-bearer of All Progressives Congress, APC for the Ekiti gubernatorial election has been fixed for April. But there are fears that the APC may even be its own enemy with the number of prominent aspirants now fighting for the party’s ticket because of the fear that this may eventually lead to factionalisation and make the party weaker…
Let me disabuse your mind about the issue of so many aspirants – what I have seen is that quite a few number of those who have come up to show interest in contesting for the governorship just want to call interest to themselves – some want to become chairpersons of councils, some want to become commissioners, some want to go to House of Assembly, some senator, or deputy governor, but they are saying they want to run for governorship now. But by the time we have to buy the forms for N5 million per aspirant, many will drop out and there will not be more than four or five aspirants left to contest for the ticket. So, for me, that is not a problem. One thing I have done in the past one and half years is moving around, calling up people to come together that the task ahead of us is not just for one individual. We cannot do it alone. We must be united as a party to ensure that we drive away Fayose. I have not limited that to those who are in Ekiti State or who are in Nigeria; I have also gone abroad to talk to those in diaspora to ‘look, all of us must join hands to bring an end to the rule of Fayose and also develop our state.’ So, I think as soon as the primary is over, we are going to be united as a block that will fight tough, fight hard to ensure that Fayose doesn’t come back in whatever form.
Given the state that Ekiti is in now, what do you think should be the focus of the next governor of the State?
The first thing is that we have to redeem the image of the State. How are we perceived by other Nigerians and even in other parts of the world? Image matters a lot. We have to change the perception of the State. He has given us a very bad name. Our children don’t want to be identified as Ekitis anymore. When you go to a place and identify yourself as from Ekiti, people look at you as if you are from outer space and if you don’t have good image, how do you attract people, investors to help you? Ho do you attract respectability that you desire as a people to make good progress in life? So, that is the major thing we have to do. It is a big task. Today, what we have is one day, one trouble in our state and that is not acceptable to us. I want to tell the rest of the world that though Fayose is our governor today, he does not represent who we are. Ekitis are known to be responsible, have respect for elders, not known to swear and abuse people. They are not known to behave the way Fayose is behaving all over the place. So, we need to remake our image. So, after remaking our image, we need to tackle the issue of unemployment among our young people. How do we get our young people walking in the streets aimlessly productive? We have to look at rebuilding our environment, the state of our infrastructure, the state of the schools, the state of our hospitals and all those things. There is so much for us to do and we have come together as a group named Ekiti Rebirth Organisation, ERO and we’ve set up committees both within Nigeria and outside to look at all these different areas and provide solutions to the problems confronting our people.
Some of the aspirants for the ticket used to be political associates and allies in the past. Why cant all of you come together and subsume your ambitions for the purpose of the task of salvaging Ekiti ?
The possibility is there. As we move closer to the day of the primary, we will begin to see the reality and we will begin to talk to one another. I believe that what have just said is possible. We are not enemies. We have been friends, we are members of the same party. We will find time to sit down and talk and decide on what is the best for the State and the best interest of our party and agree.
How do you intend to tackle the issue of revenue challenge?
Let me give you the picture of what Ekiti is today- as I am talking to you, what we have in Ekiti is the civil service, the teaching service and possibly, the local government service as well. There is no any industry in Ekiti State that employs up to 30 persons. You have petrol stations, small scale sawmills, and I think that is all you can point to. With the way it is, what do we do? You need somebody who can think creatively, who is innovative to now look at it and said, what can we do to make Ekiti State vibrant again? And that thing is agriculture. Somebody once asked me, what would be your major preoccupations as a governor? And I told him, number one is agriculture, number two will be agriculture, number three will be agriculture. We want to mobilise people to farm in a massive way and we are not talking of farming with cutlasses and hoes. As I am talking to you, I have already started talking to people in the private sector who are ready to invest in agriculture, who want to bring in the finance to clear the land, provide equipment, and get the people involved. We are thinking of getting the people involved by building farm settlements in the 16 local government areas of the state. The ones that Awolowo constructed in the 60S, we will revive them and make those farm environments livable for young people. But we will not stop at that. We will get private investors to come and invest in agro allied industries, the processing of the products of those farming enterprises. Just about this time last , week, some Chinese investors came here and we were discussing and they said, look, China alone requires 80 million tonnes of Cassava chips and Nigeria is providing just about 60, 000 tonnes. They have a lot that Nigeria could still do in meeting their needs. And I told myself, if I become the governor of Ekiti, I will turn almost all available lands into cassava plantation and then process them to the point of having the chips and shipping them to China. The bye -product of even the cassava chips, you turn it to ethanol, whatever you peel away from the cassava itself, you turn it into animal feeds and even the leaves can become vegetable. So, there is so much in agriculture and there is nothing you cannot grow in Ekiti State- from cassava to rice, beans, banana, corn, yam and cocoa. A large chunk of the resources Awolowo used to develop Western region in those days were from cocoa planted in Ekiti State. The southern part of Ekiti State is called the Cocoa Belt. The cocoa plantations are still there, but the trees are getting old, people have abandoned the farms, but we will just need to renew those farms and get back our reputation as cocoa producers. And this time, unlike the Awolowo time, we are not going to be exporting the cocoa raw- we will add value by processing them up to a point before we ship them to wherever they are required. So, the way to generate resources to run the state is to invest in agriculture. All the young people roaming the streets doing nothing can be mobilised to the farms just the way Kebbi has mobilised its youths to the farm for rice, Jigawa is also doing the same thing. Ekiti is even well located between the North and the South- some of the products coming from the North can be received in Ekiti State for value addition. Take the cow coming from the North- already it has travelled for hundreds of kilometres, they are emaciated, but you can receive them, set up a company to take those cows from those who are taking them to Lagos, put them in a ranch, fatten them- where they are 100 Kg, you turned them to 300 kg, before you now take them the market in Lagos. You can even set up a processing plant where you can do meat processing and package those meat and sell across Nigeria. We have done our research, we have found out that as I am talking to you, the food bill of Lagos is almost N6 billion per day. if Ekiti can take a chunk of that, let’s say 10, 15 per cent, Ekiti will be awash with money. Our vegetable, fruits, plantains, yams can get to Lagos in just three and half hours. We were in Taraba the other time to go and look at a greenhouse farm that produced vegetables for Shoprite and other stores in Lagos. From Taraba, you have to package the vegetables, put them in a cargo and fly them to Lagos. But you can do the same in Ekiti- you leave the farm by 5am and by 8am, you are in Lagos. So, there are a lot of possibilities in agriculture. And of course, we are not going to abandon the area of education which the Ekitis have been known for. And we are going to leverage on that and make sure that we have schools- i am not talking of universities occupying 100, 200 hectares of land- I am looking at schools that can be run in a flat or on the floor of a building where you can train people on how to do things – artisans, software writing, fashion designing, film production- all kinds of things so that we can be producing sophisticated labour for the rest of the country. And then, we also want to engage the youths in the area of sports borrowing from the idea of late Brigadier General Samuel Ogbemudia who as the military governor of old Bendel State set up a sports institute at Afuze which was producing sportsmen and women for the whole of the country. Why can’t we do that here in Ekiti State? We can produce footballers that can find their way all over the world- swimmers, long tennis players, long distance runners and all of that. So, we have a total package of what we want to do and I can tell that within three months of putting my foot in government’s house, this would be felt everywhere.
There is this irrigation dam project you and the other Ekiti Senators chose as your constituence project when you were at the Senate. What has happened to that now?
The project is working, but unfortunately for us, the young people in Ekiti were not mobilised to go and take advantage of it. And that is because the government we have now is not interested. But when we get there, we are going to do that, even by personal example- they will see me at the farm, at the construction site, – it is not a life of affluence I want to live as a governor. I will wear my own jeans and go out with the people to be on the farm, working very hard.
Your journalism career as well as your engagement as a senator and now, a Special Adviser to the President – how would you say they have prepared you for the ambition to become a governor?
I think the fact of my having worked as a journalist, reporting governance in Nigeria for over 20 years, the fact of my serving in the legislature for four years and the fact of my serving now in the presidency have given me a lot of understanding about governance. I am ready, I am prepared now to run and lay good example in Ekiti State. I have seen quite a lot, I have learnt quite a lot, I have been at meetings where decisions are taken, where ideas are given birth to and I believe that governance should not be so difficult if you are sincere, genuine and committed to what you want to do. So, for me, working in these different areas of life have really prepared me for the task ahead.
There is this fear that the structure of APC in Ekiti State is under the control of some of your opponents and they many use it against you. Are you entertaining any apprehension about this?
No, no. We are going directly to the delegates to talk to them, nobody has anybody in his pocket. if you say you have the structure in your pocket, they will ask you, what have you done to better the lives of those people? Where has that taken us? We lost election to Fayose which we ought not to have lost. I don’t even want to talk about it. But what I am saying is that it’s a mirage – people are just building unnecessary myth around themselves. The fact is that no masquerade is going to vote in Ekiti State, there is not spirit that is a delegate. They are our people, human beings – we know their families, where they come from, we know their aspirations. We are going to talk to them, we are going to persuade them. They know those who can fight for them, those who are courageous, strategic enough to win the battle ahead. So, for me, I am not worried at all. Let anybody who thinks he has the delegates in his pocket be deceiving himself because it is not true, those of us who are from there knows what is on ground.
There has been a lot of talk lately that President Muhammadu Buhari should not run for a second term…
I don’t think anybody can compel the President not to run. He has the right as stated in the constitution of the party and the country. It is for the President to decide whether to run or not to run, there is nobody – whether one tin god or something that can tell the President not to run. it is for him to decide if he still has something for Nigerians- if he is still strong enough to do. He will come out and tell Nigerians that I am going to run or I am not going to run. if he decides to run, he will be the one to persuade Nigerians to vote for him. So, he has the right under the law. He is not going for a third term. if he is trying to upturn the constitution now for what he does not qualify for, we can say you cannot do that. But seeking for second term of office is within his rights as allowed by the constitution, so let him decide if he wanted to do that.
But do you think Buhari and the APC has done enough to justify seeking to continue to rule the country?
Talking from within, I will tell you that the party has done quite a lot, though it may not have shown in the lives of the people. But what has happened is that we have all being beneficiaries of corruption in the past – we have always find it easy spending money that we never earned. But this is a man who says, ‘look, gentlemen and ladies, no longer will anybody benefit from what he does not earn’ and so, that free money that used to be there is no longer there. So, people are feeling the pain, they are having a sense of loss and that is why you are having all of these happening now. I tell you this country has been importing rice for how long now? But we are on the verge of not importing a grain of rice into Nigeria any longer. That itself has taken so many people back to the farm. You talk about unemployment in the formal sector, but you are not talking about the employment of the people who have gone back to the farm, producing rice, producing wheat, people who have gone to revive cocoa farms, people who are producing tomatoes and several others. So, there is a change already. Diversification is already going on in the economy, but what you do not have is free money. Those areas of wastages have been blocked and the beneficiaries of the wastages cannot be happy with government and they are going to do so much to try and wrongfoot the President between now and the election time. They will cause crises all over the country will publish fake news on social media, abuse the President, insult him. But the President is not moved. He is tenacious. I am just calling on Nigerians not to be carried away by this noise. When the man first came, that was how some people manipulated us until he was overthrown. Some of the policies he put in place when he first came, if we had sustained them for some years, we won’t be where we are today now. We later regretted that we didn’t allow him to carry though all the policies then. If we now push him away this time again and go back to the reign of corruption, bring back our corruption, we are going to be the loser for it. But if we try and sacrifice now for another one or two years so that the foundation is well laid and then , we now start building on it. A man who is trying to build a rail line from Lagos to Kano – do you know how many people are going to be employed? Dou you know the economic catalyst that will be? The man is trying to construct a rail line from Lagos to Calabar, trying to construct the second Niger bridge, do all manners of projects across the country, but because we are no longer having that free money- Bishops are not having that free money, traditional rulers are not having that free money, politicians are not having free money everybody is shouting Buhari is not good, there is hunger in the land and so on. So, that is what is happening. There are areas that call for improvements and that you can find that in any organization. We appreciate people that are pointing those areas out in very objective ways. But there are those who are just shouting because they can no longer service their private jets, pay their pilots and they have dumped them in airports across the country. You should ask where they got the money with which they bought those aircraft in the first place. What were they manufacturing? It is all about rent-seeking for these people that are shouting and whatever they have in hand, they are going to put it in Facebook, Twitter and so on to demonise the government. So, for me, the Buhari government will get there.
Leave a Reply