Former Senate deputy minority whip, Senator Hosea Ayoola Agboola and chairman of the Presidential Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State, speaks with DARE ADEKANMBI on the chances of the PDP candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the real reasons Oyo State people should avoid the APC standard-bearer, Senator Bola Tinubu, despite being from the Yoruba ethnic stock.
Congratulations on your appointment as the chairman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Oyo State. But knowing the nature of the state, the population and the political inclination, do you think your party’s candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has a chance in Saturday’s election?
You would recall that the PDP governed this country eight years ago and everyone knew the situation of the economy back then and everyone knows the situation of the economy now. When the PDP was governing this country, the exchange rate was about N150 to one dollar. But today, it is about N790 to one dollar. The cost of nearly everything has multiplied by seven folds. So, Nigerians have tasted the government of the PDP and that of the APC and they now know that the best government so far is that of the PDP. It is now the decision of the people of Oyo State and Nigerians that they will change the changer; they will support the PDP, which administration provided them with opportunities for better lives, gainful employment and peace of mind.
But don’t you think that decision may be difficult for Oyo people to take, going by the fact that Tinubu is a Yoruba man and he is contesting against others who are not Yoruba?
This is not an issue of being a Yoruba, a Hausa man or an Igbo man. All Nigerians are suffering now. Everyone is suffering under the APC administration. The Hausa man is suffering; the Yoruba man is suffering; and it is the same for the Igbo man, the Berom man, the Ijaw man and all other tribes. So, the decision that Nigerians have taken is quite clear. They have chosen to support the PDP, having watched what it did when it was in power. Truth must be told, all Nigerians know that life was not difficult like this under the PDP.
Now, some people are whipping up ethnic sentiments, it was Tinubu, a Yoruba man, that brought President Muhammadu Buhari to government and he also boasted about it in Abeokuta, and if you are going to support anyone, you must have studied his antecedents. You must know whether he is capable of doing the job and not just push someone there so that your party will be in control. No. What Nigerians are looking for is good governance. But Tinubu failed in that regard; he could not see beyond his ambition to have his party in power in 2015. Is that the kind of man Nigerians will trust with power? So, what is happening now is clearly Nigerians taking their destinies in their own hands to kick out APC, which has failed to give good governance. It is not about being Yoruba or Hausa or Igbo.
Some people believe that Tinubu, given what he has done in Lagos, with regards to governance…
What has he done?
That he transformed Lagos…
The development of Lagos, right from when Tinubu was governor, is not on the par with the Internally Generated Revenue of the state. Go and check the IGR they get every month; today Lagos IGR is more than N50 billion. Compare that with the developments out there. In fact, do this; compare the volume of IGR in Oyo, which is low and see the developments going on under the government of the PDP under Governor Seyi Makinde.
So, the development in Lagos State is far below their IGR. When they even say Tinubu developed Lagos and that Lagos is working and he will do the same thing in Nigeria, I laugh. When you say Lagos, it is supposed to be the entirety of the state and not just Lekki, Victoria Island, Bourdillon and a few other upscale areas. How many communities in Lagos have experienced this development they lay claim to? Has anyone gone towards Surulere to Ijora Badia, Ajegunle and other slums that are many in Lagos? Are those places not Lagos, why haven’t they developed? Are there no resources? I tell you, the developments do not measure up to the IGR. The other important issue we cannot overlook is that Tinubu’s health is not good, but some people are bent on packaging him. They want to manage him like Umaru Yar’Adua and if anything happens to him, they will put Kashim Shettima there. The bottom line is that Nigerians are suffering and they are tired and would speak out loudly by voting Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP on Saturday.
But how are you marketing Atiku in Oyo without the support of Governor Makinde?
Governor Makinde is supporting Atiku.
He has not been campaigning for him…
Has he campaigned against him? He has not. You cannot say that the governor has said anywhere that people should not vote for Atiku.
But he hosted Tinubu last Thursday and said Oyo State will vote unity, equity, fairness and justice…
If he said that; we are practising democracy in Nigeria and democracy is the government of the people, for the people and by the people and it is expected that the majority will have their way while the minority will have their say. When we did the PDP primaries, Atiku emerged and we are bound to obey it. It is not a matter of religion or where you come from. The ticket of the PDP was thrown open and he won; and when he did, we had to follow him.
Secondly, when the governor said we would vote for the unity of the country, no one can unite Nigeria better than Atiku Abubakar. He was once the vice-president of the country and he was able to build bridges across the Niger. He was an active member of the Peoples Democratic Movement led by the late Shehu Yar’Adua and that organisation had membership across the entire country. Atiku also married from the Yoruba, Igbo and other ethnic groups. If you want to do anything against the Igbo, Atiku has a son or daughter whose mother is from the East. If you want to do anything against the Yoruba, there is Alhaja Titi Atiku, a Yoruba woman. That, to me, speaks of ability to unify. But you also need to look at his friends; you will realise he is truly detribalised.
Now, let me tell you that the single greatest act that Atiku is known for was how he stepped down for Chief MKO Abiola in 1993, when they were both pursing the SDP presidential ticket. If that is not the mark of a man who loves and works for the unity of Nigeria, I don’t know what is. He sacrificed his ambition for a Yoruba man and he told the South-East that if the PDP zoned its ticket to the region, he would step down.
There is a lot of desperation ahead of Saturday’s election; how desperate is your man to become president this time round?
Atiku is a believer in God and he recognises that all positions come from God. But on the other hand, Tinubu has not shown he has belief in God. If a mere human can play God and say “emi lo kan,” meaning it is my turn, when in actual fact, it is only God that can say it is someone’s turn to be something, then you can see what we are talking about. He is so much desperate to be the president of this country and if he fails, only God knows what he will do.
Does that mean you are afraid of Nigeria being thrown into anarchy like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar warned?
In 2015, the APC threatened fire and brimstone ahead of the general election, thinking that they would not win. For now, we in PDP have no fears. President Buhari has said that he would allow everybody to vote according to their conscience. So, I believe if Atiku wins, nothing untoward will happen. But for Tinubu, who believes he must win, I think Nigerians must watch him.
The PDP campaign started very late in Oyo, don’t you think this will affect Atiku’s chance?
No. Oyo State is a PDP state and the performance of the governor will attract people to vote for the PDP, because the governor has done well. You cannot compare what happened in the state with what happened in Rivers State, where the campaign was not held at all. But even in Rivers, PDP will win because it is a PDP state.
As the chairman of the PDP presidential campaign council, what would you say is the major reason Oyo people should consider in deciding who to vote for among Tinubu, Atiku and Peter Obi of the Labour Party?
Atiku Abubakar and the PDP know where the shoe pinches and will do everything possible to uplift Oyo through different programmes and policies highlighted in his Recovery Agenda for Nigeria. When he campaigned at Mapo, he clearly said he would prioritise the restructuring of Nigeria and we all know the immense benefits that will bring. As for Tinubu, I don’t think there is any reason to consider him. He didn’t give any promise as he did not even campaign to anyone when he came to Ibadan. Tinubu is obviously not the best material to govern Nigeria. That is why our people should not vote for him. For the country to move forward, Tinubu is not the best material. Nigerians should come together and entrust Atiku with this important responsibility, for the good of Nigeria and all Nigerians. You can imagine a presidential candidate coming to Ibadan, the political capital of the South-West and he did not campaign? He did not say anything or tell anyone the plan he has for Oyo State or the Yorubaland that they are using to campaign. You know what, maybe by the time he got here, he was already tired and he could not perform any other task than to just lift the governorship candidate’s hand up. I want to warn our people; someone who did not promise you anything cannot be taken to task if he fails to perform. That is why I said he is not the best material to govern Nigeria at this point in time.
But he spoke when he met the governor…
What can you derive from his speech? What commitment did he make? Nothing. So, no one can hold him to anything if he fails Oyo State people. The only thing is they are saying ‘he is a Yoruba man, vote for him,’ there in nothing tangible.
There is this general impression being created out there about Atiku; that he is corrupt. Tinubu even called him Mr. Sell Everything during his campaign in Ondo State. What do you make of this impression?
It is not a correct impression about Atiku. In Nigeria, government’s business in nobody’s business. If you want anything to work well in this country, use Public-Private Partnership arrangement. Otherwise, you will not achieve anything, because our people see government’s project as nobody’s project. On the issue of corruption, whatever accusation of corruption has been levelled against the PDP, what is happening under APC is triple. I don’t see Atiku as a corrupt person; I see him as a seasoned administrator, who is only being blackmailed for the role he played in the privatisation option embraced by the government under his watch. If anyone says Atiku is corrupt, didn’t Baba Olusegun Obasanjo, whom he had a problem with in their second term in office, create EFCC? If he was corrupt, why didn’t EFCC or ICPC prosecute him after he lost his immunity? Atiku left office as vice-president in 2007; that is 16 years ago. Why hasn’t he been prosecuted and jailed for corruption? If you have read el-Rufai’s book, Accidental Public Servant, he even alleged in one section that Atiku prevented Tinubu from short-changing the Federal Government on a power project.
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