'Only Jonathan's Presidency stopped Fertilizer distribution corruption',---Mrs Abiodun Olujimi, former Deputy Governor of Ekiti state

Former deputy governor of Ekiti State, Mrs Abiodun Olujimi, is on the march again. After the recent Na­tional Assembly primary of the ruling Peo­ples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, she won the ticket to contest the coming election into the senate.

In this interview, she speaks about her plan for her senato­rial district, the place of money in politics vis-à-vis Gen Muhammadu Buhari’s toga of integrity. Excerpts:

I think in Nigeria we should come to terms with the fact that politics requires money. If you don’t have it, you have no business being in poli­tics. You don’t need so much, but you need the basic minimum.

How would you describe the recent primaries of the PDP for various of­fices in Ekiti State?

For me, it was alright because the process leading to the election of three statutory delegates were not fraught with controver­sies. For instance, in my local government, we agreed that those who were elected a few years back and had not completed their four-year tenure should go and finish it. So, it didn’t matter who they were for; they were all returned wholesale. And I know that it also happened that way in many other local governments. We didn’t pick new people. They were the people who had been picked by others. So, it was not bad.

In a nutshell, it was that arrange­ment that gave you the ticket to go for the senate?

Let me say to you, those delegates were the delegates that were brought in by the Segun Oni administration. And if we took them all over, it meant anybody who was contesting needed to work because a new government had come in and allegiances had changed and yet we were using the same set of people. So, you needed to work hard to ensure that you get them. In fact, that was what made us to work harder because we knew it wasn’t go­ing to be easy. If it was the new government that brought in those people, it would have been easier, but it wasn’t.

Why then is this allegation about the existence of different delegate lists by some aspirants?

For me, I don’t know where it happened. What I was told is that where people had de­camped and gone away, they were replaced. But I wouldn’t know who was replacing them.

Senator Ayo Arise particularly com­plained about the issue.

(Cuts in)… I am not from his senatorial dis­trict; So, I won’t be able to say much about that. But for my senatorial district, which has six local government areas, it was basically quiet. Why? Because we knew we needed to work and we did work. I don’t know what really would have gone wrong in his senato­rial district.

You said you worked hard to get the ticket. How are you also working hard to really get elected?

We have mapped out our plans for cam­paigns. In a couple of days’ time, we are going to start our campaign train. And I can assure you that by the time you see us, we would have saturated the state. What we are doing now is giving Christmas gift to our constituents.

With the crisis rocking the state as­sembly, do you think your party will be able to deliver the expected divi­dends of democracy to the people?

You speak like a journalist, but you don’t speak like an Ekiti man and I appreciate that. The truth is: if you get to Ekiti State, you will see that there is no crisis. What is hap­pening is very simple. The people have been put there to do the bidding of the state and to help the state develop, to move the state from the doldrums to recognition. But because it is not their party man that is there, they want to ground the wheel of progress. You think Ekiti people will sit down and watch it hap­pen? What we are doing is allowing democ­racy to prevail. If you say a new man will not have commissioner, he will not have peace of mind, he will not have a budget, how will it work? The moment you are elected into a po­litical office, representing a community, you have to shield the toga of your party, if you want solid development. If the President, for instance, says because he is a PDP man, he  won’t do anything for APC, he will not only be injuring himself alone, he will also be in­juring the whole nation. So, when you have a people who come together because they have a number and they want to hold on to the jugular of a state or nation, then something is wrong. At difficult times in other climes, you see everybody coming together to ensure development. But the reverse is the case in Nigeria, especially in Ekiti State. Why will you say because your governor didn’t win, you will shut down the state? I think people should help us appeal to them that the state is greater than any individual or a party. We must work together with the people in au­thority to move the state forward.

You as an individual who want to represent the people of your senato­rial district, what are you bringing to the table to ensure development of the state?

I am bringing experience from every sec­tor. I have been to the National Assembly as a member of the House of Representatives. I have been a party person. I was National Publicity Secretary of two parties in Nige­ria. I have been in the executive. I am also a member of the advisory body of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the PDP. So, I am bring­ing experience from all over. With a person like me, it will be easy to look into any docu­ment and see how it will benefit the people, how it will benefit any of the sectors and how it will impact negatively on any of the sectors because I have seen it all.

Your party is said to be jittery with the emergence of Gen Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as Presidential candi­date of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Aren’t you?

I am not. My party cannot be jittery because of the emergence of Gen Buhari. He’s gone through it three times before and we beat him hands down. So, there is no big deal. The truth is: anybody that emerges in Nigeria must work hard. To get people to believe in you, you must keep faith with all you have done in the past. What claim can Gen Buhari lay to having done one thing in Nigeria? He was military president where he didn’t need democracy or democratic tendencies at all. That is his biggest claim to power. He was in an autocratic setting where he could do anything at will and trample on peoples’ lib­erties and he did that so well. You all know, we all know. He was able to trample on all our liberties. He was PTDF Chairman, he left in mystery. So, how can anybody be jittery? It is nothing to be afraid of. It is a campaign of issues.

The last time I heard him on television when he contested and cried, he said it would be his last shot at the presidency. What is re­sponsible for this new remorse that has seen him come out again to contest? Having been governor of two states, military head of state, PTF Chairman and several others, he could not even pay for his form. He didn’t even believe that he should pay N27 million for his form. Yet, he went out of his way to get some people who he didn’t know and took their money to pay for the form. Doesn’t that show desperation?

He didn’t take money from any indi­vidual. He said he took a bank loan to obtain the form.

(Cuts in)… How will he pay back? Is he not going to campaign? Where will he get mon­ey for his campaign? Who is fooling who? I think in Nigeria we should come to terms with the fact that politics requires money. If you don’t have it, you have no business being in politics. You don’t need so much, but you need the basic minimum. If a person is com­ing into the presidential race, and he is not prepared for as small as taking the form, how can he prepare for Nigeria? Nigeria is com­plex; Nigeria is not an easy place to govern. For me, that is a negative point ever.

You are looking at it from a negative point of view. But from the perspec­tive of other Nigerians, coming out to tell the world that he took a bank loan to obtain his form is a way of show­ing the man’s integrity. Isn’t it so?

Excuse me, that is not cleanliness. I don’t want to name it, but that is not cleanliness. I have children who left university and I ex­pect a minimum comfort arrangement for them because they work. You must be able to save from your work to rely on. I won’t want to go for a senatorial election and ob­tain a form with a bank loan. Who will give me money for the primary? Are they telling us that the primary was done altruistically? It is not true.

Money changed hands. Who paid? And who is going to pay for the campaigns? When he gets there, how is he going to pay them? You see, we’ve gone beyond mere rhetoric to settle scores in Nigeria. Gen Buhari has children, most of them are very young, he is paying their school fess, he is looking after them and he’s got no job for some time. How is he doing it? Is he taking loans? Our people get carried away by this issue of integrity. In­tegrity is not about I don’t have money; it is about how well you used the little you got. If a man cannot use the little he got well to prepare for the future, how do you leave the future of a whole nation to such a man?

Do you think President Goodluck Jonathan has done well enough to deserve another term?

I will be very honest with you; he is one of the few presidents who have done very well for Nigeria. What people talk about now amazes me. They talk about insecurity, they talk about corruption. These are issues we have had and no government has been able to tackle them, not even when Ribadu was there in the EFCC.

It was much of witch-hunting rather than policing of corruption.

This is the only president that has stopped corruption in fertilizer distribution. It was the most corrupt thing in Nigeria. People were milking billion from it. He stopped it. If you are going to stop corruption, it is good to be an institutional thing. He is not playing to the gallery or arresting governors. In any case, which governor has ever been jailed? Which notable Nigerian has been jailed even when we were ‘fighting’ corruption? But if you block the drain pipe from the top, corrup­tion will reduce. Whether you like it or not, there is no enough money in circulation now. Why? Because the drain pipes have been blocked. The free monies are not coming any more. You go to the ministries, due process is there. You can no longer inflate contracts like before. I am of the opinion that if we must fight corruption in this country, we must have a plebiscite of sort.

It is only now you can no longer get subsidy like before. Even though people are not being arrested, corruption is being stopped. Even though people are not being embarrassed, somebody somewhere is blocking the loop­holes. If we continue the old way, in the next four years, we will be living on our earned income. Somebody somewhere is working; he is probably a silent worker. They talked about insurgency. I don’t know how we got to where we are because it wasn’t this bad. But whether we like it or not, we’ve had it over time.

We had Maitasini before, we have had up­rising in one form or the other. I don’t know how government went to sleep and these people just gathered so much momentum that we don’t have where to put our feet again.

But if you look around the world, we are not alone. It is no longer religious extremism; it is about group around the world trying to con­quer the world. And Nigeria is not immune, especially because of our diversity. There is no longer religious connotation to it. In fact, they have attacked more Muslims and more mosques, especially in recent times. Look at Syria, look at ISIS, look at what is happen­ing in Egypt and all around the world. Our own problem is that we’ve been doing peace-keeping since after the civil war. We have not been at war or face major insurrection. So, we didn’t have the need for equipment be­cause we were keeping peace.

Now that we are at war with Boko Ha­ram, procurement is taking place. I think we should come together at this time no matter the division to confront this challenge and fight this dastardly group. It is not good for us as a people to fester the wounds of insur­gency. We should be encouraging govern­ment so that they know where they are lack­ing because the people that are being killed are our own brothers and sisters.

As a member of BOT of the PDP, do you still see former President Oluse­gun Obasanjo as a member of your party?

I believe Baba is still a member of our party. I have not heard of when he left. What people are saying is that he is too critical of a man he assisted to get into office. But as a father, the good thing will be to get close to him and tell him his feelings and watch him take ac­tion. If he does not take action, the BOT or the party could do that. The belief of people like Governor Fayose is that if he (Obasanjo) is that critical of the government and he is a member of PDP, then something is wrong.

Unlike before, two mega parties are going to slug it out in the next gener­al election. Is that not enough to give your party some headache?

It is enough to make us work harder. That is all. And will work harder. But these people have always been there.

Not as a formidable force as this…

(Cuts in)… Are you saying to me that they believe in each other the way they are there?

Of course, no party members believe in each other. People join parties and defect based on their interests.

I have been in politics for a very long time and I know that this amalgamation never worked because one defecting party will feel shortchanged. And that party is likely to do anti-party behind. Whether you like it or not, there are superior and inferior parties in that APC. The truth is that they will make us work harder and we are poised to work harder.

Interview by Omoniyi Salaudeen