Mr Joseph Olasukanmi Tegbe is candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Oyo South senatorial district. He had a conversation with journalists on his ambition, political trajectory and issues concerning the party in the state at the national level. WALE AKINSELURE brings excerpts:
Controversies about your indigeneship
Those stories that Tegbe is from Delta State are unfounded. I am a pure Ibadan man. My father was a born Anglican, I am a born Anglican. My father and mother met in Kudeti because they were both schooling in Kudeti. I was born March 21, 1966. My grandfather lived almost all his life in Aba-Akiode before he migrated to Labo. It was my grandfather that changed the name from Oguntegbe to Tegbe when he became a Christian. He had brothers and sisters called Ogunli, Ogunja, he was Oguntegbe. If you check it out, you will see a lot of people bearing Ifategbe; even some of my family members are still bearing Oguntegbe. We inherited the Tegbe without ‘Ogun.’ My father was working in Ibadan up until 1955. My father was the general manager of CMS bookshop, Amunigun, before he was transferred to Oyo town to set up CMS bookshop in Oyo. After my father set up CMS bookshop in Oyo in 1955, he then decided to start his own business. He retired from CMS bookshop and set up his own bookshop called Jossy and sons bookshop. He also set up the same shop in Iseyin and Saki. My father was a book seller and had a printing press, as well. My mother, from Orile-Owode, was a seaming mistress. My mother become president of tailoring association in Oyo, for 25years. That was the connection I had with Senator Monsuat because her mother was my mother’s vice president for 25 years. I started my education in Oyo; I went to St Mary’s Catholic School and then went to the Federal Government College, Ogbomoso. I left Ogbomoso with nine distinctions. I went to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, to study Civil Engineering. I finished with a First Class and best graduating student in my department.
How my paths crossed with late Abiola Ajimobi
My path crossed with the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi in 2010. Somebody called me and said somebody wanted to be governor of Oyo State and I had said he should talk to you that you have worked with many governments across the world and you will be able to draw his roadmap, and we met. I spent three months with my team, free of charge, to put together the roadmap for Oyo State. In three months, my team travelled all over oyo state, at our cost. Governor Ajimobi was so magnanimous and I still respect him till tomorrow. When we wanted to meet with him, I said we would not meet in Nigeria, that we will meet in London. Once you win the election, we will meet in London and I will take you through the roadmap. I flew with two of my staff, at my cost, and two of my friends, who are his friends also flew with us. I started presentation to him from 6pm to 6am the next day, 12 hours overnight, and that endeared him to me. For those 12 hours, Governor Ajimobi and his wife did not sleep. They would stand to use the toilet; he would come back, drink tea; I would drink my own coffee and continue the presentation. The presentation was detailed to the extent that in infrastructure, for example, I said let us decongest traffic in Ibadan, put a flyover in Mokola, put a flyover in Challenge, put another flyover ontop of Iwo Road flyover such that all those coming from Ilesa and going to Lagos would just flyover Iwo Road and with that you decongest that place. I told him we would put a flyover in Owode, another in Taki in Ogbomoso. We were that specific. After the presentation, he said my problem is I can’t offer you commissioner. I said, pro bono, I would be on your economic management team and every Thursday, let us hold a meeting and if I am in Nigeria, I will attend. The other person on his economic management team was Professor Ademola Ariyo. I told him I wanted to be on his economic management team because I wanted to make a change. I was not interested in contract award but just to review the contract to be sure it was in line with the roadmap we developed. And that was what we did for the first term. We continued to do that for the second term but for some reasons, there were a lot of political challenges and we were not following it strictly the way it was.
Reasons I exited APC for PDP
I was in APC until all the charade of congress, result being modified. We did ward congress, results were changed; we did local government congress, results were changed. At that point, I said, all my life, I have been trained in an environment of ethical values and I know everything you build on wrong foundation will always fail. So, why do I want to belong to somewhere where all the results are being falsified? So, I decided to exit APC. Sometimes, we can trivialise things that we did not experience. If you go through a process where you sat for an exam, you were sure you did well in the exam, result came out and you came first, you scored 97 percent and you are qualified for scholarship, they said they will forward the result to the headquarters. Then, Abuja announces a result and you see you score and instead of 97percent, you see 37 percent, and you see people that you know who did not score up to 50. It was so bad as my ward excos were changed. We did local government congress; the results was clear, and it was submitted. But in Abuja, it was a different thing. But, I have moved on. If somebody changes your score, and you go to the principal and the principal says sorry, there is nothing he can do about it, are you going to bother to do the next exam in that school? This is because it is a waste of time. Weeks after I left, people started leaving APC. In deciding to leave APC, an option was for me to go back to my practice; another option is for me to look for another party; the third option was for me to start a new party. You know how expensive was is to start a new party. People said I should not go back to my work; we have invested so much in politics; we want to change governance; we wanted to change the environment. Then I looked around and I said if I really want to join an existing party, the only party that made sense to me was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The two reasons it made sense to me were: first, it is an existing strong platform; second, I said since I am going to shelve my gubernatorial ambition, who are the likely gubernatorial candidates I would work with; We had predicted that Teslim Folarin will get the APC ticket after all the ‘Jagba’; then we had Seyi Makinde in PDP; and Bayo Adelabu, who will want to contest by all means. Out of the three, I said it is only SeyiMakinde that I could really relate with and that was why I went to PDP.
Why I preferred Seyi Makinde to Teslim Folarin, Bayo Adelabu
I had three options and my preference was Seyi Makinde. I know the three of them. I met Seyi Makinde in 2018/2019 and we interacted. Seyi Makinde is my preferred option from the point of view of style, outlook to life. Our outlook to life is similar. Probably, because he has engineering background, he is more analytical, so we have a touch point. Today, he is my preferred person. But, those I might not like to work with today, might change and pick up some of those things that I will like them to pick up. So, never say never.
How I got the Oyo South senatorial ticket
Before I got to PDP, I was being talked to by various people and I said I was not interested. In fact, I wanted to just quit and do my private business. But, I was asked to join PDP, and I asked what is in it for me. I was told that there is an opportunity for me to become the party’s senatorial candidate. This same opportunity was offered to me in 2018. After I stepped down after APC primary, Seyi Makinde saw me and asked if the PDP can offer me the same Oyo South senatorial district and I said in 2018, Governor Abiola Ajimobi, my mentor, wanted to be senator in that same area, I would not go and face him, it is a matter of respect and I won’t do it for anybody. I have people contesting against me today that were my people. But, then, in 2018, I said, I would not. How can I go and compete against Governor Ajimobi? Politics is not do or die for me. When I got into PDP, it was already clear that the ticket would not be given to my egbon, Senator Kola Balogun. There were other people that were being considered and one of them was Dr Nureni Adeniran. He was the one that offered to step down for me. He said, ‘if it was Tegbe, I will step down for him’ And publicly, he stepped down for me, that Tegbe deserves this ticket. It was in the news that he even collapsed his political structure for me. I won’t be part of any shady dealing; I am not desperate. By God’s grace, I will win the election; then, you will see a committed man.
Why Senate
I looked at everything and told myself, you can’t keep fighting from outside. If I keep staying in the private sector and keep shooting at governorship, I am seen as an outsider, let me shoot at Senate and work with a person like Governor Seyi Makinde and let us make a change. As a Senator, I have a duty to sponsor legislations and bills that will promote development in the country, more importantly, for my senatorial district and for Oyo State; but, beyond that, also attract development into Oyo State through multilateral, bilateral agencies or from the Federal Government and you do that in conjunction with the governor, it makes life easy. As senator, I want to focus on issues of federalism, human capital development, education, health, technology.
G5 and Atiku ambition
The crisis is being settled. Efforts are being made to make sure this is settled. Honestly, AtikuAbubakar is the most prepared candidate of the three frontrunners. Whatever it is at the end of the day, we will vote PDP. The difference between GovernorSeyiMakinde and governor NyesomWike and AlhajiAtikuAbubakar will be resolved. What G5 is fighting for, ideologically, I agree with it. We don’t want marginalisation of the South, and that is what they are fighting for. But, as a party, you can’t be divided against yourself. We will keep encouraging our people.
Distribution of Okada as constituency project
I don’t know, who brought the idea of just giving people okada and you increase the number of people driving Okada all over the place. My idea is to empower people to set up their small and medium scale enterprises. Let us go back to vocational studies. Let us go back to skill acquisition. I am happy at some of the things happening today in Nigeria. People never thought you could be an actor or actress and you will be doing well. People never thought of confidently saying they want to take up photography as a profession. There are a lot of things that can be done from a skill acquisition point of view, as constituency project, rather than simply giving out motorcycles, fridges that they will resell. Why don’t you set up three or four people together where they can be partners? Those are the kind of things I want to explore when I become senator.
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