In this interview with ALLWELL OKPI, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2012 Ondo State governorship election, Chief Olusola Oke, speaks on the politics of the South-West and the 2015 general elections
When the Peoples Democratic Party won the Ekiti State governorship election, it looked set to take over the South-West but it was halted in Osun. What went wrong?
I believe by now all Nigerians would have realised that President Goodluck Jonathan is committed to the conduct of credible elections. In 2011, when he was contesting to be the President of Nigeria, he did say he did not want anybody to rig the election for him; that his ambition is not the worth the life of any Nigerian. He promised that it was going to be one-man, one-vote. He told us in the PDP that even with elections being credible, we will still win. He told the opposition that he would allow a level-playing field for everyone, but they didn’t take him seriously. He never did anything to influence that election and he won.
When the PDP went into the Ekiti election with a good candidate and good mobilisation strategy, coupled with the obvious invitation for change by Ekiti people, the PDP won the election. The opposition cried foul and elevated their loss to a trauma for Nigerians and the international community, despite the fact that dispassionate observers said the election was credible and reflected the wish of the people.
Also, despite the fact that its candidate Dr. Kayode Fayemi, conceded defeat, the APC leaders went on to mount vicious propaganda against the credibility of the election, wanting the world to believe they did not lose; that they were robbed. The PDP, in its character, went into the Osun State election, mobilised voters and did everything within the law. At the end of the day, the people of Osun spoke; they did not prefer the PDP.
Ostensibly, they still preferred the incumbent governor, maybe for his achievements or maybe they didn’t prefer the PDP because of our candidate. Immediately, the PDP, the President and others leaders of our party congratulated the APC and its candidate. Noise went dead in Osun because the APC won.
The APC is an intolerant opposition. Any election they lose is bad; anyone they win is good. The PDP is not desperate to win elections. We’ll go into every election with our machinery with the hope that the people will prefer us and if they don’t, we bow to their wishes. We have no agenda to take over South-West by force, our agenda is to govern South-West if the people agree to go with us.
With the current situation, does the PDP have hope of winning in Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states in 2015 and Ondo in 2016?
The electorate in the South-West are politically conscious, mainly because of their level of education; they would be able to make their own decisions. Many factors will determine our victory or otherwise in 2015 and 2016. The first is the popularity of our candidates; second is the performance of our incumbent governors; the third is how cohesive our party is; and fourthly, the ability of our party to choose its candidates through transparent internal democracy.
The people today do not vote for the party but for the candidate, if you put forth a candidate that is right by the people, you would have scored about 40 per cent already. I’m very confident that given the wind of change that is blowing across the country and the fact that in the South-West people are tired of the hegemony of an individual and the imposition that is characteristic of the APC, our people would prefer the PDP. We have tasted the difference between being in the mainstream and being outside. I don’t think anybody in the South-West would want to remain outside the main stream of Nigerian politics.
The PDP in the South-West have been making several reconciliatory moves recently. But why does it seem that former President Olusegun Obasanjo is not being carried along, considering that he is still a member of the party?
It’s true that we are resolving our differences. The conflicts within our party had been our main problem. An example is my personal experience when I contested the governorship in my state, Ondo, there was internal wrangling in the party. Apart from the orchestrated deprivation of our victory in Ondo State, internal disharmony was a factor. After the election, we decided to reach out to everybody, and now in the PDP in Ondo State, we are together.
There is unity in the party now. Reconciliatory moves are also being pursued by the PDP in Ogun, Oyo and Lagos states. As for Baba (Obasanjo); he is the father of Nigeria’s modern democracy. He may be aggrieved over one thing or the other (but)that does not take him out of the PDP. He remains the father our party, especially here in the South-West. We cannot really go too far without carrying Baba along.
Let me assure you that those involved in this reconciliation are Baba’s foot soldiers and in the PDP we have a peculiar way of doing our things without running them on the pages of the newspapers. Baba is not only being carried along, he is at the centre of whatever you can see happening by way of reconciliation, which has led to the revival of the PDP in the South-West. The ability to reconcile is our strength. It played out well in Ekiti. It’s unfortunate we could not achieve that in Osun and that was part of the reasons we lost that election.
When you contested the Ondo governorship in 2012, many believed President Jonathan and other leaders of your party supported Governor Olusegun Mimiko in your stead and they were quick to congratulate him after the election, while you challenged the outcome of the election at the tribunal. Why was it so?
Certainly, in 2012, whereas I would say with all sincerity, that the national leadership of the party gave me support in terms of attending my campaign, and financial support, albeit belatedly. It is also true that the party did not come with all its strength to participate in that election. This in my view had to do with the well-organised and orchestrated campaign by Governor Olusegun Mimiko that the PDP in Ondo State could not win election; that PDP was not on ground.
That seemed to have weighed down the spirit of our leadership at the centre. They didn’t believe we had the strength we actually had and because of that, it was preferable to allow Mimiko of the Labour Party to remain in the saddles than to allow the Action Congress of Nigeria, that later became the APC, to take over Ondo State.
Had the leadership of our party known that the PDP was by far stronger than the ACN in Ondo, that scenario would not have come up. Mimiko is a Machiavellian politician. He was able to manipulate the system to believe that he is the beginning and the end of politics in Ondo State. He had wanted a situation where the PDP would not even sponsor a candidate in the election and he got a few of our leaders in the South-West involved in the conspiracy.
They created confusion to the extent that we were not taken too seriously, even though when the campaign started, we enjoyed some support from the leadership of our party. The conspiracy was accountable for why Mimiko managed to score about 40 per cent of votes in that election with a marginal difference between him and I.
Do you think the perception of the national leadership of the PDP has changed?
A lot of things have changed since then. Before now Mimko was masquerading as a friend of the PDP, as the only governor in the South-West who was not totally opposed to the President and that was giving him some measure of leverage. He used the absence of a PDP governor in the South-West to get all the benefits in LP and the PDP and in the process, he was decimating the PDP.
But with Ayo Fayose now as a true PDP governor in Ekiti State, everything would now revolve around him. We are praying that in Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states we would be able to have additional governors to complement the efforts of Fayose.
The pranks of Mimiko are now known to the leadership of the PDP. In 2012, he went round and deceived them that immediately he was pronounced governor he would return to the PDP. He did that same thing in 2007 to get the support of some PDP leaders. Now they know his tricks and pranks. The PDP in Ondo is now four times stronger than it was in 2012. People are trooping to the PDP on a daily basis.
What is your opinion of the Mimiko administration, particularly this second term?
Since Mimiko was sworn in for his second term, no project has been initiated, ongoing projects have been abandoned. He has been trying to subvert the system through extravagant expenditure on politics. Ondo people are tired of Mimiko’s government. There is poverty in the land and there are broken promises all over place. The people of Ondo State have decided to take their destiny in their hands and they have resolved that never again would they be deceived by a government that has no vision, mission or plans for them. Unemployment is the companion of our youths. There is no economic empowerment for our women. There is no industry; no infrastructure. The government is just drifting. But the failings of the Mimiko administration have given an advantage to our party. I can assure you that notwithstanding the deceit Mimiko orchestrated on the national leadership of our party for six to seven years, the PDP in Ondo State is waxing stronger.
