Why Opeyemi Bamidele should vacate his seat –Ojudu

Why Opeyemi Bamidele should vacate his seat –Ojudu

JANUARY 11, 2014 

Senator Babafemi Ojudu

The Ekiti State governorship election is approaching and the polity is heating up. Senator Babafemi Ojudu representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District speaks to ADEOLA BALOGUN and GBENRO ADEOYE about the controversies among the major political actors in the state

You used to be an advocate of the National Conference, why the sudden turnaround?

I have advocated a national conference, not just a national conference but a sovereign national conference and that has even been since I was much younger than this. I believe that at one point or the other, we have to sit down, with sincerity and good intentions to discuss our being together and to decide how we want to govern ourselves. And there should be no ‘no-go’ area in the discussion. As far back as 1990 even when I was a journalist, I took three months off from work and joined the Aka Bashorun-led regional committee forum and became the administrative manager of the organisation of sovereign national conference, which was organised by General (Retd) Ibrahim Babangida. I still stand by that today. But when President Goodluck Jonathan came up with his idea of national conference and I looked at it, I started asking what could have been responsible for this sudden change. It’s not that people cannot change their position but when you are at the level that I am, you have access to information. They came up with the idea because of the problems in the Peoples Democratic Party.  They want extra two years for the president, having seen that going through an election next year will not favour their party, so they want to find a way of managing their affairs.

People say you opposed the conference because of APC chieftain, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who publicly opposed it.

No, no, no, I came out before Asiwaju to oppose it. I’ve written several times about it and in one of the lectures I gave about it, I expostulated on national conference and how it could be done. it’s not about Asiwaju, Asiwaju is my leader and what he says guides my action if we have discussed it but being my leader does not mean that I cannot disagree with him. It’s not about Asiwaju, though, I agree wholly with Asiwaju’s position on this. Again, we should also know that Asiwaju will have access to information and know why people are doing this. If there had been no crisis in the PDP, if there had been no merger of parties to form APC and if Jonathan had performed so well that Nigerians would have loved to vote for him, nobody would have asked for a national conference.

APC claims to be progressive but with all manners of characters now coming in, are you still proud to describe APC as progressive?

Some ‘non-progressives’’ will come but the dominant ideology will have the upper hand. Already, anybody coming to the APC knows the character of the party, so when you come in, you also have to subscribe to that ideology. There is also a way to influence them. As they’re coming in, they’re given the manifesto to go and read. They go to seminars and meetings and the kind of things they hear is different from the kind of things they heard in their XY party, and they get influenced and they share ideas.

One thing about APC that Opeyemi Bamidele has spoken about is the lack of internal democracy in the party, not holding primaries or not reckoning with the winner of primaries. How do you reconcile that as a progressive that you claim to be?

It’s not true. Now Opeyemi has gone to the Labour Party, we are waiting for the primaries that will take place in the party that would produce him. Nobody told him that there would be no primaries in APC. The campaign is not starting until March and there is a regulation. The electoral act stipulates when you should choose your candidate, present your candidate and when you should campaign. He should have waited till then to see if there will be no primary in APC. So, it’s not true. Before Governor Kayode Fayemi came in, there was primary and then he won. Some other people who lost felt that they could not allow him to be governor over them and so they left the party. He still won in the governorship election.

Bamidele even said that you went to the Senate on the strength of his own ticket. Doesn’t that make you feel that you don’t deserve to be a senator?

Again, it’s not true. Don’t be sold on lies and as I said, I don’t want to join issues with Opeyemi Bamidele. Anybody who is familiar with Ekiti State and the politics of our party will know that it is not true. Let him bring out his figures. I come from Ado-Ekiti. Ado-Ekiti has 13 wards and there are 15 wards in my constituency. There was no voting in Ado-Ekiti for the primaries; there were acts of violence here and there. At 2pm on the day of the primaries, the party issued a release that the election had been marred by the incompetence of those who were put in charge of it, the violence in Efon and the non-provision of materials in Ado-Ekiti. He (Bamidele) comes from a place that has two wards in Iyin Ekiti while Ado-Ekiti where I come from and had very huge support, had 13 wards and no voting took place there. They wanted to reschedule the primaries and the party said no, we can’t be wasting time. We are going to look at the candidates and we are already running short of time to submit names. We know one of the candidates who can win the general election and it is our decision to choose our candidate. If we continue this process, we are going to either miss the date of submission of candidates’ names or it’s going to lead to further problems. So, that was how the thing was decided and I was chosen. And when they did that, even in the House of Representatives where election had gone well and we already had somebody who had won, on that same day, they said okay, this man, Opeyemi Bamidele, would be good for us in the House of Representatives, and they gave him the ticket. He didn’t reject the ticket. He didn’t say no, this is undemocratic, our leaders have not done well. Generally, I don’t want to be talking about these things because people are not just being sincere. I’ve been involved in Ekiti politics tangentially. When I was even a journalist, I always kept an eye on things. When you’re a member of a society, you don’t turn your back on your society, you keep an eye even when you’re not fully into party politics. I was born there (in Ekiti) and had my primary and secondary education there. I only went to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) for my university education. I go there almost on a weekly basis, I had built a house there long before any of these people thought of doing that. I always help my people. They know me and I know them, I’m a community person.

Even the House of Representatives ticket you spoke about,  Bamidele said he still carries a moral burden up till now.

If somebody gives you human meat and you have a revulsion to eat human meat and you put it in your mouth, are you going to swallow it or spit it out? If somebody asked you to do what did not go with your conscience, why didn’t you walk away from it? That is the mark of honour. This is just an afterthought and he still has the chance. He still has a year to go. He could have revolted that he was occupying the seat falsely, but he’s still benefiting from it. He should resign.

Bamidele also complained that all of you sidelined him in the scheme of things; he said that you, Governor Fayemi and Niyi Adebayo (a former governor of Ekiti State and Vice Chairman of APC, South-West) all have your own permutations. He said you still want to become governor.

Let me state categorically here that I have not told anybody that I have an ambition to become governor. The task ahead of me and all of us in APC in Ekiti State is to return Governor Fayemi  as governor. What are we talking about? 2018 is far. Who knows who is going to live tomorrow? How many years are we talking about here? I’m not the kind of person who will get an appointment and start thinking of the next one or get elected and be thinking of the next election. When you give me an assignment, I want to do that assignment first. It’s a self-seeking person that will get an appointment and think about the next big appointment immediately. You get elected and you’re thinking of 2015, 2018, 2020, 2050. God owns your life, give thanks to him when you have responsibility and carry out that responsibility to the glory of God and to the glory of the people who gave you that assignment. If I stop at where I am now and don’t occupy any public office again, I’m satisfied and fulfilled. There are other ways to even contribute to the society, by helping the people who are less privileged. Must you be in a position of authority? Obafemi Awolowo is not being remembered today for sharing ankara but for being a game-changer. These are the kinds of values that should guide us as leaders, not that I brought somebody in, I introduced him to that person, what is in it for me? I was a campaign manager to somebody, they didn’t allow me; they are scheming me out. All that whining does not help the society.

Opeyemi said he was told that Governor  Fayemi is only tolerating you in the Senate.

What is tolerating? I am Babafemi Ojudu and Fayemi is Fayemi; we are collaborating. As long as Fayemi is doing the will of the people, I will sign on to him as a collaborator. We are not husband and wife. We sign on to the same body of ideas and that body of ideas is being translated into reality. We are not drinking pals; he doesn’t drink and I don’t drink. We don’t womanise together, so what is the tolerance all about? There is nothing personal about it. I’ve known Fayemi over a long period of time, so our collaboration didn’t just start when he became governor.

If by next election, the party leaders ask you to rest your ambition and allow Bamidele to go to the Senate, will you agree?

Let me say this, we submit some kind of authority to party leaders. If they came up with a body of arguments and said Femi, rest your ambition in these areas for so and so reasons and it’s in the larger interest of our party, I will. That happens every time now, do you know how many people wanted to become the Lagos State Governor when Babatunde Fashola emerged?

But Bamidele said he had endured as the good boy of the party and that nobody was ready to listen to him or give him a chance.

Somebody is in the House of Representatives and yet nobody wants to give him a chance, is that possible? What would the person he took it from say? Is House of Representatives not any chance?

You claim that Governor Fayemi has done well, but Bamidele said the economy and income per capita is lower in Ekiti today than it was under Governor Fayose, Governor Segun Oni and Governor Adebayo.

He is entitled to his own opinion; I am entitled to my own opinion and the people of Ekiti are entitled to their own opinions. And how do you then know the ruling opinion? You go to an election and present those opinions. The challenge before him is to work on his manifesto- what are these alternatives to what Fayemi has done that he has? Democracy allows everybody and there will be debates before the election. He will tell the world what he can do and Fayemi will tell the world what he has done and the other things he still wants to do. Present your ideas to the world, people then will be allowed to be free to take their decisions.

You and Fayose used to be close friends, what happened between you two?

I was not Fayose’s close friend. Any decent Ekiti person or anybody who is well educated and wants the best for Ekiti will not come out and say I collaborated with Fayose. Rather, I mobilised professionals from Ekiti who felt his regime was not good enough for us and we did what we had to do. I swear I was never chubby with him. If anybody has evidence of what I did, let him come out and say it. No, there is no way. I come from a background of activism, of knowing what is good for the society and what is not good for the society. I am educated and I’ve read quite widely. I know the things that are good for the society and the ones that are not. I know a good leader when I see one and I know a bad leader. I know people who can be a bad influence on younger generations when I see them. And the moment I saw that, I knew that this must not be allowed to go on.

But Fayose too was bitter that he was used and dumped by the present government in Ekiti State despite that he was also instrumental to the coming into office of the governor. Is it a reputation for Ekiti APC to use and dump people?

How? I don’t know the value he added. If I come to you and say support me to become a governor and you support me, what is wrong in that? In supporting me, you heard my manifesto and you knew what I was going to do there. So, if you now came to me thereafter and said I should do something that was opposed to my manifesto and I said no, is that use and dump? So I can’t understand. Let them tell the world, what were their expectations, either Opeyemi Bamidele or Fayose.

Are you saying that they made some demands on the present government?

What I’m saying is that if I canvassed to you and you voted for me, you voted for me because you saw a reason and believed in whatever I said I would do. So if I start implementing, then how does that become using and dumping you? By saying I’ve used and dumped, to me, that means there are expectations, and it should rather be: he said he was going to build roads but he didn’t build the roads. He said he was going to build schools, and so on and he didn’t do so. So if someone comes out and says you have betrayed me because you promised to do these things for the people and you didn’t do them, then we can start debating. But any of them has not come out to say these are the expectations upon which they were betrayed.

But Bamidele said he was your campaign manager.

(Laughs) Okay, we had elections on the same day, so it’s like US President Barack Obama is going for Presidency and somebody else is going for Senate and the person going for Senate saying he campaigned for Obama, does it sound logical?

Bamidele said he and  Fayemi decided on the manifesto that was based on a collective rescue mission, but that  Fayemi reneged on that.

Please come on a visit to Ekiti and do your own private investigations. There are things you can touch and feel and there are things you feel in the environment and then you will be able to make up your mind on how far Fayemi has gone. It is not that I would award him 100 per cent, nobody who has governed any society has been able to succeed 100 per cent but largely within the limit of the resources available, I believe he has done well.

Now that election is approaching, was it right for the APC leadership to make up its mind not to have primary election between  Bamidele and Fayemi?

Have we done so? If he had waited and stayed with the party, our primary would come either by the end of February or in early March. We are just in January and he left the party. Nobody says there will be no primaries, and nobody has pronounced anybody as candidate, except that some leaders came and said we were supporting this person. Somebody can say I’m supporting Fayemi but nobody has chased Opeyemi Bamidele out of the party. I’m interested and I am going to make myself an observer at the primary of the Labour Party in Ekiti State to see who is going to emerge among the contending candidates.

Bamidele already said that he was looking forward to working with Fayemi as ex-governor.

Has he got the ticket yet? We wish him good luck.

You mentioned your background of activism as a journalist, how do you reconcile that with being in the Senate which many Nigerians see as a drain of public funds, with its members earning ridiculous salaries and allowances?

First of all, people saying that lack information. Rather than going around with rumours, I’ve said that they can write to know how much money senators earn with the Freedom of Information Act. If they don’t have the information, they are free to take the matter to court. You cannot have a Senate of 109 and not have people of all kinds of ideas. Any parliament all over the world can boast of people of different ideological viewpoints.

Are you saying that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was ignorant of the information when he came out to say that the National Assembly was consuming a large chunk of the country’s budget?

I’m telling you now that he was wrong, just as he also led the country astray in the last information he provided on the money missing from the oil income. I was one of the people who were outraged when he said over N40bn was not remitted only for him to go before the camera and say that it was an error. I don’t know how he comes by his information, but I’m sorry to say, it does appear as maybe he has axes to grind with the National Assembly and with the President. That’s why he keeps supplying wrong figures.

But he’s the CBN governor, are you saying he doesn’t know what senators earn?

Well, I just told you now that he was wrong in one or was I the one who said over N40bn was missing or was I the one who later recanted?

Even international organisations have said Nigerian legislators earn the highest pay in the world?

Again, I say let the statistics be provided. Don’t let us depend on rumours and things that are not substantiated. And I’ve told you the best way to get the figures out for the sake of our planning, sensible criticism and for all of us. The best thing is for that figure to be obtained and made public.

Why are you afraid of Bamidele? He always says you’re afraid of him.

Afraid? Okay, I’m afraid of him since you have started from the viewpoint that I’m afraid of him. Look, I’m a Nigerian, as a young man, I fought Babangida and went to detention. I fought a former Head of State, Sani Abacha, and went to detention. I’ve opened my mouth and say things that go with my conscience and I’ve never been afraid of being thrown to jail or being killed. Everyday, I wake up and I’m alive, I believe that by the grace of God, no threat can silence me, and you say I’m afraid of Bamidele. If that’s your own conclusion, too bad, because it means you don’t know me. You don’t know who I am, what for? (Laughs) Is it not ridiculous, somebody like me to be afraid of Bamidele?

Do you also carry a moral burden that you are in the Senate on his ticket?

I don’t have any moral burden, he has a moral burden. I know what is mine and where I am and what I’m supposed to do with it. It’s when you steal what belongs to others or appropriate other people’s resources either as an appointee of government or as somebody going for an election and you now flaunt that all over the place, that is when you can have a moral burden. I don’t have any moral burden. I know what is mine and what I’m supposed to do with it.

How was it like being an activist and a journalist and then becoming a politician?

Each time I go to any occasion, I still approach the occasion from the standpoint of a journalist. I still look at it as if I want to report and think within me this will be a good lead and things like that. Sometimes, I have the urge to call my office in Lagos but when I know it’s a privileged information, I have to keep it to myself. But when the information is open, I try to tell journalists that that’s an angle to look at. Sometimes when I see something on the road, I stop to take pictures and report it because I have a Facebook page that is very active. There is still so much nostalgia that I want to do reporting and editing. I also have an active website; I get my aides to write and do some writing myself and put it there. I’m called from time to time to give lectures in universities and address organisations. I’m not sure I can do away with journalism; so when I’m tired of this (politics), I will still go back to journalism.

Do you honestly feel you have done enough as a senator who is accountable to the people?

There are a number of things you do as a senator. One, you attend plenary and make contributions. Two, you work at the committee level. Three, your relationship with your constituency. I want to draw your attention to my website and see the things I’ve done in my constituency. I don’t want to be the judge.  I relate with my people and go home on a weekly basis, although it’s not convenient travelling seven hours on a dangerous road from Abuja to Ekiti. I make sure I attend functions and discuss with them (the people). Go to the National Assembly in Abuja today and ask the people we have to relate with their views about Babafemi Ojudu in terms of what I do at the committee level; raising vital questions, examining documents,  getting documents prepared before going for meetings. You know, also standing on principle at the committee level. Talking about committee work, there are a number of things I’ve done to the benefit of Ekiti that I’m representing. At the plenary, I would love to talk more than I’m talking now but that is not my fault. The President of the Senate has the prerogative to call on whoever he wants and I’m not unknown to the Senate president before my coming to the Senate. Perhaps, the Senate president also knows my viewpoint and the kind of battle I and my organisation had engaged in before coming to the Senate. Even when I raise my arms and legs and everything, shouting, it’s still his prerogative to call me. At a point, I even decided that if I had an opinion, I could push it out to the press, do a press release, write an article about it, make my opinion known, collaborate with others. Sometimes, if you have an opinion, pass it to somebody you know that he will call and then let him express it. But at the committee level, nobody restricts me from talking. I belong to the Committee for Establishment and Public Service which deals with ministries, departments and agencies, either we are probing privatisation or pension, people know how active I could be and the kind of opinion I express. Most of the time, if they are things that their party is concerned about, and my opinion could throw spanner at it, no matter how many times I raise my hands, the Senate President won’t call me. But it’s all politics; it’s allowed in politics. Some are seen as allies and some are seen as enemies. And I don’t have the nature to go and beg people and prostrate or go to somebody’s house in the morning and in the night so that I could be the favoured boy; I don’t have time for that.

So since you members are not ready to disclose how much you earn, why has the leadership of the Senate not come out to deny reports of jumbo pay allegedly paid to its members?

That for me too is a puzzle. Sometimes when people go out to become conveyors of lies and misinformation, some people have different approaches to correcting it. Some will just say- is that what they want to believe, let them believe their lies. And some will say no, we can’t allow this to go, let us fight this. It depends on who you are and how you manage the information. But then, the leadership knows why it is taking that approach.

Source: The Punch