The PDP NWC has presented the certificate of return to Hon. Ladi Adebutu, yet you claim to be the guber candidate
Well, if you are well aware of the process of an election, there are roles given to parties, and aspirants, and when there is contention, there are roles given to the court. Within the complex of everybody’s role, people will do what they think they need to do but ultimately, the court will decide who and what part of it is right and in Ogun State, it is not new. We had in 2011, some people claimed that they were the authentic version with the authentic primary, but the court said Olurin was the candidate. In 2015, they said they were doing Primaries somewhere and the court said Gboyega Isiaks was the candidate.
In 2019, this particular Adebutu was all over the place, carrying the party flag up, jumping claiming to be the candidate, and eventually, the court said Buruji Kashamu was the candidate, so maybe this is a case of ‘O se kinni, o lule; o se keji. o lule; o tun se keta, o lule. O tun sunkun paapaa’.
All persons will claim what they like including me and Adebutu, Lawal, and the other people who are claiming. That was why I was very clear in my opening statement that in the final analysis when we are back from court because these matters are really before the court, we will be able to know who exactly it is. As far as I know, my intention and aspiration are very open. It’s pride in the desire to change the way things are done here, to truly encourage old people that you can aspire, yes you need some money but money will not be the only factor and we can bring in the different types of governance to bear in Ogun. So be ounces of politics is what is at play now. Eventually, one person will be declared. I just hope that it’s me because like you rightly said so many people are claiming the title of the governorship candidate of PDP but I know without sober reflection that I am the governorship candidate of PDP in Ogun State.
Well, I don’t know what you mean by the party being in disarray, the democratic process, and democratic institutions can throw up this kind of challenge. It is a difference between a party where “Baba Said” and they ship their members to the convention after paying 100 million each and everybody is getting up one after the other in the most disgraceful manner …..of their children and grandchildren in the future claiming to be stepping down not for value or excellent, not for anything that can inspire the next generation because maybe some forces at the back or whatever. PDP is not like that. We are a democratic party and democracy is usually tested by the court and jurisprudence. It will not matter, the party is going to be on the ballot, it is who represents that we are talking about. We are not talking about PDP now. And by the grace of God, I believe that if our leaders at the National pay attention to what is going on they will find a simple way to bring everybody to the table. You know who is so desired to serve will be so desperate that you can’t make sacrifices. It might be an advantage in this process, imagine four people canvassing people and trying to make sure that the party is getting mentioned. By the time the court says it’s Segun Showunmi, I want to believe that my other aspirants would then support me. And I believe that if they handle themselves right and they were chosen I will gladly support them. So it is not anybody who has a reason to go to the court must at least be convinced in his mind that he has a reason. It is for the court to sieve it and look at how they want to situate it.
Well, there’s no problem. You would notice that after 2019, we had about eight people. Eight are saying that they are speaking but I spoke and remained speaking for him. Now he has emerged as a candidate, we must give him time to structure his new campaign and of course, I’ve also been busy with my gubernatorial ambition. So if he structures his campaign and he’s able to persuade me to jettison and leave one thing to attend to that presidential campaign it will be considered. If he looks at his campaign and he chooses to go with another person to go and try that will also be quite understandable. You cannot pulley the system and I deliberately give my voice out to give them the benefit of clarity so that when they are trying to decide what to do they are not overly influenced by my ga… . Positions that are too many. They may even give the impression that I’m saying that the space or position is not available for somebody else. No! They’ve just introduced a new secretary. I wanted them to give him some space to try to build his own manner and craft his own style because I know I’m very big in the media already. He ran with Peter Obi in 2019 and it’s not looking like he’s going to roll with Peter Obi now. Every campaign as I like to tell people is tailor-made. You have to be bespoke. Measure everything because the circumstances of yesterday may not be the circumstances of today. If you are asking whether I’m supporting him, that’s a no-brainer. Some weeks ago I was in an interview on Arise TV, where I said I’m not the type of person who comes to public space to say that what I said yesterday I didn’t mean it. I always mean what I say. I can hardly recount. I can apologize at times if I felt what I said is too harsh. But if you think about it very well I truly mean what I said, therefore I said I couldn’t have been pushing Atiku the way I was pushing him in 2019. Nothing has changed, his health is still as it is, his intellect is still sharp, and the issues I talked about on his behalf then, are still the issues. So it doesn’t make sense for me to be saying something else now otherwise, everything I say was a lie and I’m not that type of person.
Nobody has jettisoned the idea of zoning. The zoning parameter for PDP is different from the zoning for APC. APC has only done 1 president in the north. So it’s okay for them to go where they want to go. In the case of PDP, we have done president in the North West which is Yar’adua, South West Obasanjo, and South-south Jonathan, so we have a different way of doing our thing. We’ve never done president in the North East, North Central, and of course South East. It would have been ridiculous for you to expect us in PDP to zone our presidency to South West, that would have meant that we are pretending as if there are only two zones in the country, North East and South West. But there are six zones in the country. The APC has given the South West mandate Bola Tinubu good luck and best wishes but as far as I am concerned we have respected our own zoning and I must tell you that zoning is a purely political party issue. We don’t sit at the table and be asked let us come and do it together. Each party zone is according to its own party procedure and we have done just that our zoning had been well done. And you will notice that the candidate emerges very well in a very ideal primary.
I think the issue of the Vice president has not been discussed. Panels are being set up, screening is going to be done and definitely, we are going to have someone who will fit for that office and who will bring lots of electabilities. You know elections are very tough, I understand why APC is even playing with the idea of Muslim tickets. It is because having come to the South West and a Muslim has emerged, they are looking at the numbers in the North and they are looking at who has that numbers. Is it the Muslim or is it the Christian? That’s what is going on. In our own case, we don’t have that burden. A Muslim from Adamawa has already emerged, so we have the whole of the Christian South either South East or South West or South South for that candidate because we have not played ourselves into their trouble and if they pick a Muslim/Muslim ticket I will expect that it would have an implication on the ability to win.
You are correct about that. I believe that for us in the PDP we have plenty of zones to consider. I don’t like to preempt committees. By the time the committees are done with their work, they will produce maybe one or two names that the candidate will choose from and I’m sure that will bring a ……to the team.
Well, I don’t think people are following. I said very clearly everybody who wants to abuse Dapo Abiodun should go and abuse in their own name. The episode you talked about occurred when an interview I posited they needed to do more. And it occurred when the supposed called responsible followers now started being rude and I needed to show them that that’s not how to do it. So I described them not in the way I described them and upon sober reflection, I said that he has disarmed me in the sense that he is quite a gentleman and all that. And you will notice that from that day I’ve been very measured in the way I describe them. Most times I just leave them and don’t get involved in their matter. I’m not in that party, I’m opposition and I’m aspiring to be the governor of Ogun State, it follows that if anybody would ….that office something would shift in me. Now when the person who made the comment initially that’s Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I let it slide on the condition that I could empathize with where Asiwaju was coming from, maybe from disappointment or looking for support, I didn’t like that he described a whole governor like that but I empathized with it so I didn’t say anything. Now why did I talk now, I am amazed that that insult will now be elevated to that kind of platform where other governors were on the high table, the fellow who is introducing must introduce them as governor of this state, and in some kind of caricature manner he now introduced him the way they described him and everybody started laughing. And I was worried that if I didn’t quickly as a bonafide Ogun citizen who aspires for that office that I expected governor Dapo Abiodun to win the trust of others. If we pretend to be happy about it, let us assume that they will go all over the country and be calling him the same name. They will go to other rallies and they will convert our state into a pot of joke. And I’m really disappointed that the so-called followers of Dapo Abiodun are extremely irresponsible not to understand that even if their governor for reasons best known to him doesn’t want to make it an official issue like that, it’s not in their place to be making it seems it’s a bad joke, it’s not a bad joke because they didn’t say this one is different, they said this one and that one. And now even though I’m an opposition I’m saying that no you can’t be describing him like that, it shouldn’t continue. Asiwaju said it once after all he apologized to Buhari for saying things that were considered not to be in Buhari’s opinion but he couldn’t apologize for reasons best known to him. Am I going to sit down here as an Ogun son and everybody will be saying it? I usually pay the price for my conviction but I understand that they are all always well thought through and they are quite measured. People say I called him this and that, you can see I’m not even willing to repeat that because a governor is the alter ego of a people. I wish that Dapo will not make mistakes but he represents all of us whether we like it or not. And so long he’s still seated there as governor, they didn’t say he is the governor of his company or his wife and children or his local government, they said he is the governor of the Ogun State. So one man called him something in a meeting probably a meeting that shouldn’t have gotten into public space, but because of social media, it went out so somebody now used an elevated platform as a governorship campaign where it’s live on TV, and all over the world and say that I will not apologize for telling them not to do that again.
I have talked about it, I have been screaming about it, and at first, I was happy to blame the government then I went to Akwa Ibom state and I see how clean they were. And I moved around, the capital was so clean that at a point I said take me to the rural areas. I wanted to see if the cleanest place was the capital, so I got to two rural areas not everywhere and I saw that they were clean, I looked into their drainage and I saw that they were very clean.I checked the median of the roads no pure water nylon, so I asked them how they do it, then they told me that of course the environmental management template is very good but the people themselves have involved to a level culturally, they don’t just drink water and throw it on the ground. That should mean we have an orientation problem in Ogun State because did Dapo Abiodun or any governor tell you to throw dirt in the dustbin, or gutter? So I saw that it’s now a two-way thing, we have a waste management issue here and we also have an orientation issue. So that if tomorrow morning God and the goodwill of Ogun State make me their governor is that how I will be cleaning your street in the morning, coming back to meet dirt in it? We should all be ashamed of ourselves. We called ourselves educated people and yet we can’t do what is decent in terms of cleanliness and all of that. That’s the new way I do the criticism compared to when I would have easily just thrown the governor under. The nearer you get to the position of a father or an elder, chief, king or governor, or president, the more you are beginning to empathize with the occupant of that seat. Because now you can sort of feel what he is dealing it.
It is extremely disrespectful, you’ve come to my house, and you’ve seen my ambiance and everything around me, what part of my life reflects that of somebody who needs someone to give them anything? Yes as human beings there’s always room for patronage here and there, but I want you people to know one thing Senator Ibikunle Amosun is my brother, he was governor here for eight years, if I was someone who loves patronage like that why didn’t I go to him, why have I been sitting in PDP since. All the ones that are talking about the day they were going to APM to collect 630,000,000 naira, I was in this state did you see me there? The day they ran up and down in Labor trying to look for funny deals did you see me there? The ones we gave tickets to are no longer in PDP because they want to get an appointment with the ruling party have you seen me there? You, people, have a duty to protect my integrity, I will protect it as much as I can but never allow them to describe me to you other than the way you know me. I hold positions, I give issues, and I talk on different levels of agenda based on what I think is appropriate at that time. When we finally start a campaign, I’m going to campaign against Dapo Abiodun vigorously. And I’m going to try not to be insultive or disobey the office of the governor. Honestly what I’m looking for in 2023 is a scenario where we will do this campaign and our children will be inspired. Your younger ones will be inspired by the quality of the engagement. We would talk about housing, healthcare delivery, education, and security. We will talk about them in different ways. But I will not be happy that we will be so careless that a governor of Ekiti will be insulting all of us put together. Even if we insult ourselves at home that’s our private business at home not for outsiders. They will not go to Kano or any state to insult him because they know we will come for them. So if you people cannot thank me for being the champion of Ogun State I will thank myself.
