In this Interview with IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI, chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun West, socio-economic development advocate and former House of Representatives aspirant, GbengaAkinwande, speaks on the challenges before the president-elect, Bola Tinubu and Governor DapoAbiodun of Ogun State among other sundry issues. Excerpts;
Winners and losers have emerged from the recently conducted presidential election. What are your expectations for the president-elect for the next four years?
I felicitatehim on this great achievement. The expectations for the president-elect are huge, most particularly for being the real first progressives to be the president of our great country. The first person would have been Chief ObafemiAwolowo and Bashorun MKO Abiola but aspirations ended up being unsuccessful. Although President Buhari came under the progressives’ umbrella, he is not really a progressive. Thus the onus falls on the president-elect to fulfil the progressive promises by unleashing comprehensive social and economic reforms and development that will restore our nation back to the track of glory.
The president-elect must first get our economy on track by finding accelerated solutions to the power/energy crises in our country, ensure local government autonomy within the first year of his administration and put emphasis on job creation to start building a middle-class for our nation. It is important for the president-elect to acknowledge that the country is on fire with the continued exodus of professionals such as doctors, nurses, ICT engineers and others who constitute our fragile middle class away from the country; it is a signal of a society that has gotten it wrong on all fronts. It is also imperative that the president-elect adopts a new leadership approach different to his approach during his tenure as the governor of Lagos State. Although, it was understood that his leadership’s approach then was to curtail the draconian leadership of the then-PresidentObasanjo, who was determined to oust him as the governor.
There is an increasing disaffection with the present crop of leaders by the younger generations. What can be done to assuage their anger and concerns?
Yes, there is increasing disaffection with the present crop of leaders, most particularly the class of leaders since 1999. Many of these leaders have done serious damage to our nation because the Nigeria of pre-1999 is better in all ramifications than the Nigeria of today. The lacklustre performance and unproductive nature of most of these leaders are worrisome. But it is not only about the leaders alone because it takes bad followers to get bad leaders. The followers, particularly some of the youth, are terrible because once you are celebrating a bad leader, the leader will not understand how horrible he/she is. Some of the present crop of leaders you are alluding to came into the leadership scene in their late 30’s and early 40’s and by all definitions of the Nigerian standard, they arestill youths. How come they were unable to make any meaningful change? Remember, that Awolowo, Azikiwe,Ahmadu Bello, Enahoro and many heroes and patriots of our nation were all in their 30’s when they made landmarks. Remember the struggle of Wole Soyinka and others in the 70’s as student union leaders compared to the present crop of student leaders today. I can’t really figure out what the problem is, but all I know is that the issues are multifaceted, and they require determination by generations of youths to say enough is enough. The youth did demonstrate such determination in the last election by getting involved in the political process. But we need more efforts, they need to fuse into the bigger political parties and see how they can inject their ideas at the wards and local government levels.
It is important for the youth to understand that if they want to have headway or influence leadership in this country, it must be from the party’s primary elections. This implies they need to demand the abolishment of the delegate system because it is completely against them. Delegate election always favours the deep pockets and money-bags politicians who the youth cannot compete with.
How can we enthrone a sustainable responsive, accountable, and transparent governance system at all levels in Nigeria?
We can achieve this if we all get involved in politics. Politics is becoming too lucrative to the extent we have people that have taken politics as a career, and some as a family inheritance that they pass from one generation to the other. Credible individuals must begin to get involved in the social and political development of their communities and begin to influence their communities positively. By the time the number of credible and good people outnumber the unserious people, we will begin to see responsive, accountable, and transparent governance in Nigeria. We must also find ways of controlling the use of money to influence the electorate during elections, as we did in the last general elections. Particularly, we need to adopt the approach used in the United States during the party’s primary elections. One of the reasons Nigeria is not doing well is because there is no democracy in the local government areas. Democracy is like a pyramid, where the base is the local government areas, the middle is the states, and the top is the presidency and federal government at large. A pyramid is stable and balanced, but what we are operating in Nigeria is turning the pyramid upside down, thereby making it dangle. I will encourage the president-elect to get the local government autonomy fixed before the end of his first year in office.
Some people called for an interim government following their dissatisfaction with the election. Do you subscribe to this call?
Those are the enemies of our democracy and enemies of this great nation of ours. The interim government is unconstitutional. What they are calling for is a state of anarchy and they are all military protagonists. They are unfit for a just society, and we should label them Nigeria’s enemies for trying to truncate this democracy. My advice for them is to tailor their grievances through the courts if they feel aggrieved in the electoral process as civilised people.
What aspect of our challenges would advise the president-elect should focus on in his first year?
There are two major challenging issues in Nigeria today; the economy and insecurity. Though, globally, there are economic downturns for the two years lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Ukraine/Russia war. In the first year, the president-elect must find a way to improve the country’s economy by engaging in programmes and projects that will create jobs across the country. Most central to this economic development is improvement in the power and energy sector. Industries and domestic users should be able to enjoy a minimum of 18 hours of uninterrupted power supply daily. The president-elect should also roll-out massive road and infrastructure projects across the country, which will create both temporary and permanent jobs for all ages all over the country. The president-elect should run the country as a socio-economic enterprise and not as a business enterprise. My reason for this is that running the country as a business enterprise will only benefit the monopolists, thereby widening the gap between the rich and the poor. But, as a socio-economic enterprise, citizens’ engagement will be encouraged, with equity, and fairness to both the rich and the poor. It is imperative for the president-elect to know that Nigeria needs visionary leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, and most particularly the visionary ideologies of Obafemi Awolowo.
He should focus greater attention on agriculture for both domestic consumption and export. Farm machinery, implements, lands, fertilisers, and loans at a low single-digit interest rate should be made available to farmers, particularly young people who should be encouraged to go into crop farming, livestock and animal husbandry. The president-elect should ensure that before the end of 2023, local government autonomy becomes a reality, and by the first quarter of 2024, election into the local government should be conducted by INEC and all state electoral commissions across the country should be outlawed. He should declare a state of emergency on security and overhaul the whole security architecture, reform the police force both personnel and equipment while recruitment into all the security arms should be essential. The president-elect should not forget to focus on research and development, with a complete overhaul of our educational systems.
Coming to your state of origin, do you think Ogun fares better, given its human resources and material endowments as well as its strategic location?
It is not peculiar to Ogun State alone. I think all states across the nation have not maximised the opportunities democracy provides. It is unfortunate that despite the huge potential in both human resources and material endowments available to us in Nigeria, we have not tapped into that potential for the greater benefit of our nation. I will attribute the lacklustre state of our economy to a lack of focus and unpatriotic leadership across the country. We have leaders who are less enthusiastic about the nation and come into governance to do shabby jobs and leave huge debts for their successors. Although, the last four years have been quite challenging for political leaders all over the world. The COVID-19 outbreak created a serious economic mess and challenges for political leaders across the globe. In the UK, for instance, the country was in recession for quite some time, the same thing happened in many developed economies.
How can Ogun State’s potential be further unlocked?
I really pity Governor Dapo Abiodun because he is a victim of circumstances beyond his control. First, he inherited huge burdens and problems deliberately created by his predecessor, due to the bitter rivalry from the fallout of the APC governorship primary in 2018. Secondly, his predecessor created a huge mess of problems for him within the civil service and traditional institutions, thereby making the governor to firstly understudy the civil service for about six months before constituting his cabinet. He barely constituted the cabinet when COVID-19 broke out, which caused another loss of momentum for about two years.
You can see that you cannot blame the governor and many of his colleagues for the last four years. We still thank God that despite the challenges, the governor came across. He still stands tall among the governors in the last four years. Today, Ogun State can boast of an airport which will boost economic activities and aid the industrialisation of our state.
Going forward, having been re-elected for his performance by the good people of Ogun State, the governor should see it as an honour, and increase his own productivity. First, we need to overhaul our educational sector with mass recruitment of teachers into our primary and secondary schools, especially those schools in rural communities. In connection with this, parents should be encouraged to contribute something to assist the state. Secondly, we need to unlock the potential in the agriculture sector. The anchor borrower programme should be made more robust for large-scale farming by the participating farmers. Loans, farm implements and machinery should be made available to farmers for large-scale farming. Horticulture, fishery, poultry farming, piggery and animal husbandry should be unlocked for young farmers. The governor should be equitable and magnanimous to all the senatorial districts in the distribution of infrastructure projects and political appointments. Moreso, he should inject new vibrant and brilliant minds into this second term; people who are developmental in nature and have big and innovative ideas that can help Ogun State rank among the best five in the country.
Buhari recently assented to bills that moved certain items from the exclusive list to the concurrent list. Through this legislation, state can now go into power generation, railway projects, and run their own prisons. How can Ogun State key into this?
I really applaud the president for his bravery regarding that bold step that will help this country in the long run. I am happy for the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the next president of our nation because he is a man of foresight and vision. Can you remember the Enron’s power project during Tinubu’s tenure as Governor of Lagos State? If not for President Obasanjo’s politics of envy and bitterness, Lagos State will be selling electricity to other states and countries by now. As I said earlier, I commend President Buhari for signing those bills into law, but the failure of the president to assent to the local government autonomy bill is a serious show of lack of leadership. Thus, it is imperative for the president-elect to ensure that local government autonomy becomes a reality within six months of his administration, and by March 2024, INEC should conduct elections into all the 774 local government seats in the country.
I appeal to Governor Dapo Abiodun to take advantage of the new laws to Ogun’s advantage. Now, the governor should particularly pursue power generation by partnering with Dangote Cement for a joint venture of power plants in the state. We should also see how we can build more prisons and police posts across the state, for the security of lives and property. A light rail system should be incorporated in the Sango and Ota areas of the state to improve the transportation challenges in those dense communities.
Do you think it is too early for politicians to set eyes on the 2027 elections and its permutation?
I think it is too early to be talking of 2027 when 2023 has not taken off. But we know why the stake is high. It is because of the perceived believe that ‘Ogun West l’okan’. While we understand that the Egbas still think it is their turn after Governor Abiodun’s eight years of governance. Our appeal to the Egbas is that they should be considerate, having been governor for over 14 years and the Ijebus for about 20 years. The Yewa/Aworipeople are appealing to them to let us also have a shot at the Oke-Mosan government house.
The stake is not only peculiar to Ogun State, but politicians are already setting eyes on 2027, PDP and LP are beginning to mend fences against the APC in 2027. This is why Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s achievement in the first year of his presidency is very imperative. If there are improvements in the economy and electricity distribution, local government autonomy, and enhanced security across the country, then our party, the APC will be in good shape for the remaining three years of the Asiwaju presidency.
What calibre of politicians or leaders would you want on the political stage in Ogun State in 2027 and beyond?
My appeal to my party, the APC is to zone the governorship position to Ogun West in 2027 because Ogun West has made sacrifices for the party and for Ogun State at large, but we have only benefited little from our loyalty to both the state and the party. There are quite a lot of interesting candidates from Ogun West come 2027. Senator Solomon Olamilekan (Yayi) is a formidable candidate that is appealing to the electorate, Prince Gboyega Nasir Isiaka is still eyeing the governorship seat, and Hon. Isiaka Akinlade is also a strong contender. We have Adekunle Akinlade in PDP; I don’t know the platform where Barrister Biyi Otegbeye will contest from again. My stake is that whoever emerges from Ogun West must be developmental in nature which can make Ogun State among the top five states in Nigeria.
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