Governorship candidate of the Accord Party in Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Adelabu speaks on his 2019 electoral loss, the chances of his party in the next election, possibility of a coalition, how he views Teslim Folarin of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his assessment of the SeyiMakinde administration. WALE AKINSELURE brings excerpts:
Why I left CBN to contest for 2019 governorship
Why did I have to abandon a promising career, a quiet professional job, with certainty of income for the murky waters of Nigeria politics where uncertainty, backbiting, pull-him-down syndrome, mudslinging is the order of the day? A lot of people were taken aback by my decision but I knew what I was doing. It was a decision that was well thought out and I believe it was in line with my life ambition and plan. My ambition is to be remembered after I would have been gone for contributing my bit to humanity, beyond self-focused, wealth gathering, money-making profession alone. For example, you are not likely to remember the richest men of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, but you will remember the politicians of that time. You will remember the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, Adegoke Adelabu, Ladoke Akintola, Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Michael Opara not because they acquired wealth but for the only fact that they contributed to humanity and they names will keep ringing a bell. If you make money to a level and you can achieve life comfort, there is no amount of money that will be enough if you are into wealth acquisition. It is a cycle with no end but you should know when to cut it and say what next after achieving wealth. The moment you start thinking of what to contribute to your own community, you start seeing freshness of thoughts, spiritual development of yourself, you start to get happy with yourself beyond money. So, I left in the interest of service to humanity.
The game-changer that made me lose 2019 election
We had high hopes, we were the party in power at the federal and state level in 2019. I was coming from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) fully charged, with good position historically, with a very good name, so, everything was set for us to win the election. But, in politics, nothing is certain and you saw what happened. The game changed in a manner that we never envisaged. People voted for us, we were accepted, and there are empirical facts to that effect. We scored 357,000 votes, as a first time contestant for governorship, that is, 39percent of total votes. That was enough to usher in a new governor. Ajimobi won his second term with 327,000 votes; we even got 30,000 more. But, the equation was not the same. While 327,000 votes brought in Ajimobi for second term, 357,000 could not bring in BayoAdelabu as first term governor. Politics is not linear, it is extra-complicated quadratic equation. Four out of five candidates came together and said they must stop the ruling party. If SeyiMakinde had contested on a standalone basis, probably I will be addressing you as governor of Oyo State. The coalition and his victory was a blessing to him. You can see Seyi Makinde’s size when we were contesting then and what it is now. But, to us, it is a lesson. My understanding of Oyo State, its politics and governance has also improved. In 2019, the kind of campaign we did then was a jamboree, we were over confident, we were so sure that we had anything anybody contesting should have. There wasn’t interactive, personal touch, consultative forum in our campaigns. The people wanted to feel you, ask questions with the governorship candidate but we didn’t do that, so we are changing our style this time that before we go into the jamboree of road shows, rallies, we must engage the stakeholders, gatekeepers. We want people to have confidence in our going for the next election.
The pain of losing 2019 election
What happened to us was a big deal. If anybody says it is not a big deal, the person should resign their job, spend their savings and lose election, then they will know what I am talking about. It could have led to strange illnesses, hypertension, stroke and you die from there. If you don’t die, it could wreck you, take you to the lowest level and you don’t become anything again or you go abroad to drive cab and forget about Nigeria. But, I thank God the grace to once again canvass for votes to be governor.It takes emotional maturity and spiritual strength to survive electoral loss and remain a formidable candidate in the subsequent election.
Lessons from the loss
It is not money that wins you election. It is a necessary ingredient of winning election, but it goes beyond money. When people love you, they love you. If they do not love you, no matter the money you give to them, you can’t get their support. I learnt that people matter. The way you see yourself is different from the way people see you. You must strive to let people see you in the way they want to see you. We need to interact more with the people. We need to get down to the grassroot. Perception management is also critical.
Strength of Accord Party
There are those who still think we are running on a marginal party. They argue that the major parties are the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), so why Accord. As far as I am concerned, historically, Accord Party is not marginal in Oyo State. The only thing that happened to Accord was that it did not field gladiator candidates in 2019. But in 2011, Senator Rasheed Ladoja scored 275,000 votes as candidate of Accord; in 2015, Ladoja scored 257,000 under the same Accord. The night of that election, it was rumoured that Ladoja won but it changed overnight with Oke-Ogun votes and AbiolaAjimobi won. If a party could come third and second in a general election, that party is no longer a marginal party, it only needs good candidates to bring it up. In Anambra State, it has been the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) ruling the state. You can’t call APGA a marginal party in Anambra State. Who says Accord cannot achieve the same thing? You know the history of how we came into Accord. It is the better part of APC that moved to join Accord. Since we joined Accord, the party has been growing in leaps and bounds. Nobody gave us a chance at first, but, it is the leading party in Oyo State, now. We have gone to the nooks and crannies of Oyo State and we have seen the reception we have received. I believe we will get governance in Oyo State in 2023.What happened to us in APC was what happened to PDP in 2015 when this same person chased out Ladoja, Alao-Akala, JumokeAkinjide, SeyiMakinde and they went to other parties. He brought the same style to APC. He killed PDP and they did not win the election; he did not win; Alao-Akala did not win; SeyiMakinde did not win; Ladoja did not win. So, we said, this time, we will not allow him achieve his aim of commercializing our party platform. All he wanted was to make money; he knew he won’t win. He is not even our opponent. Almost 80 percent of party members and leaders said we should leave it for him and go to a party where we will use the platform to contest. How Accord party was pre-June this year and how it is now is not the same. Accord is the container, we brought the content from APC and fortunately, there are Accord Party members across the state and these complements each other. Accord Party is now more popular than APC and PDP. We are comfortable with the way we are in Accord Party.
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Possibility of coalition
In 2015, Ajimobi won election with 327,000 votes, Ladoja followed with 257,000 votes, Alao-Akala followed with 180,000 votes, TeslimFolarin with 69,000 votes and SeyiMakinde with about 50,000 votes. It is almost the same total as we had in 2019 election. If Alao-Akala had joined forces with Ladoja, probably Ajimobi will not be governor then; even if Teslim had joined forces with Ladoja, they will have defeated Ajimobi marginally; if the three had come together, Ajimobi will not have been governor but they were not able to achieve that coalition. The one reason was ego, as we had in the race three of them with one the incumbent governor and two who were former governors. Folarin was a Senate leader. So, they did not know who to put forward. Ajimobi was gunning for a second term, just as Ladoja and Alao-Akala wanted one more term so coalition was impossible. But, in 2019, it was possible. None of us that contested that election was a governor before. None of myself, SeyiMakinde, SarafadeenAlli, OlufemiLanlehin, BolajiAyorinde was a governor so it was easier to decide to put one person forward. Everyone decided that they had had enough of Ajimobi and whoever had any affiliation with Ajimobi will also be rejected. They felt that Ajimobi installing a successor was a third term for him. The political survival of several of them then was hinged on Ajimobi not installing a successor having got a lot of stone-throwing during Ajimobi’s second term. It was not that they liked SeyiMakinde. Moreover, SeyiMakinde dribbled Ladoja out of PDP but they resolved that there must be one person if Adelabu is not to win. So, all of them dropped their ego. Money, probably came into play. They probably perceived that SeyiMakinde had more money than them to fund the election. I have heard it from all the coalition partners that they never expected to benefit from Makinde but he was a better devil than Ajimobi. This time, virtually everybody agrees that SeyiMakinde is not the best for Oyo State and that he should be restricted to four years. So, I see a possibility of coalition because it may not be so easy for a single party to defeat an incumbent governor. Accord came out of APC, but Social Democratic Party (SDP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came out of PDP. So, I see coalition partners coming together against the incumbent. If the coalition will be against the incumbent, we have high hopes that Accord party candidate will be lead coalition partner.
Are your 357,000 votes from the last election still there?
What we have in our kitty is more than 357,000 votes. Politicians’ votes is always 20 percent of total votes. It is the general votes that are always higher. Those public, general votes are still there and they see how SeyiMakinde has performed. They now say that they know that Adelabu was the better candidate but because of Ajimobi, they voted Makinde. They threw away the baby with the bath water. They are still ready to vote for us. For the 20 percent from the party, we brought out 80 percent of the APC, the remaining 20 percent are those from PDP who are with Folarin. Also, we have new members joining us from aggrieved PDP and by God’s grace, we know those other parties will be ready to do coalition with us. So, don’t be surprised when we have between 550,000 and 650,000 votes in the next election. They have seen Makinde’s capacity; they have not seen mine but they have seen indicators from my antecedents and current activities. An average Oyo State voter is more confident that it is likely Adelabu performs better than SeyiMakinde so they are coming for us.
Do you consider Teslim Folarin your major opponent?
Folarin is not in this game. SeyiMakinde being the incumbent is the one we want to chase out and the one we see as our opponent. He has displayed that he does not have integrity. He has failed everyone he has promised, starting with the coalition partners to every other sector he has made promise. A governor will promise a bus to an association and in four years, he will not be able to buy that bus. If you give them buses three months to the election, do you think it is the same? It is simply because you want their votes again.
Your assessment of Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration in over three and a half years
I do not see any aspect in defining good governance that governor Seyi Makinde has scored 25 percent. Roads, generally, he has not scored 25 percent. Ajimobi started Moniya-Iseyin road and he completed it, on that alone, he tried. But, that road is accident-prone; if I were to do that road, I will not do a single lane. A lot of people have died on the road; erosion even washed a part of it, at a time. I will have made it double lane. Makinde has scored below 25 percent, in general performance.
Loans and debt profile of the Makinde government
There is nothing bad about piling up debts. It is a function of your repayment capacity, your stream of revenue and the utilization of that debt. I don’t support borrowing for recurrent activities. You cannot borrow for salaries and maintenance expenditure. When you borrow for capital projects, the returns will be much higher and you will be better for it. You can create a scenario where that substance can pay back the loan. I have an issue with Makinde on the amount of loans he has taken, in addition to what he met or inherited from the Ajimobi government. He has taken us for granted a lot. The Makinde government has not been able to publish its accounts to let us know his streams of revenue from federal government allocation to Internally Generated Revenues (IGR). Once you get your revenues, what are your expenditures, your recurrent expenditure, your salary, you maintenance expenditure and your day-to-day expenses and what is your capital expenditure. If you cannot do that, any loan you have taken is deemed to have gone into personal purse. I cannot point to the number of projects that this government has done vis-à-vis the loans it has taken. You have claimed that your IGR has increased, then you should have more money left to do capital projects. Why are you borrowing more? How many schools have they renovated? How many hospitals that have degenerated have they resuscitated? How many farm settlements have they built? How many kilometres of highway roads have they constructed? How many kilometres of internal trunk C roads have they constructed? How many bridges have they mounted? These are indicators for justifying whether the loans you took was good or bad. If you cannot give us this information, you are just taking us for granted and it is unfortunate. You need to give full account of the application of those loans.It is sad that people don’t ask questions. They just say Makinde is not the only governor taking loans so he should be left alone. We need to move beyond that.
