Immediate past governor of Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, believes his re-election next year as governor is a fait accompli, highlights the factors that will play out in 2015 polls and speaks on other issues in this exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune Excerpts:
THE political field of Oyo State has been very active lately and it appears people are speculating about your intention to come back as governor. How untrue is this?It is not that it appears that I want to be governor of Oyo State again. I am coming back by the grace of God and there is no doubt or speculation about it. Very soon, I will formally declare interest in the governorship election slated for next February. This will clear all doubts and sensitise the good people.
While you were governor, you could not win a re-election. How easy will you find it this time around, especially since you have been out of office for more than three years?
I was not in the office as governor when I won in 2007. In that regard, history wants to repeat itself in the politics of the state.
Are you coming back as governor to right some wrongs that you noticed after you had lost the 2011 election?Not at all. Although nobody is perfect, I don’t think I have any mistake to correct. I am coming back to build on the solid foundation that I laid while in office. There is basis for comparison now and when you compare the immediate past and the current government, you know that the difference is clear.
But people are saying Governor Abiola Ajimobi has changed the face of the state, especially Ibadan and that it will be difficult for you or any other person to send such a man packing.
It is good you mentioned Ibadan. But Ibadan alone does not constitute Oyo State. We need a governor that will be for the whole state. Are the people who are executing the projects and contracts that the government claims to be doing from Ibadan?Government anywhere in the world is the biggest spender and if the money a particular government spends circulates within the economy of that state, it will surely help the economy of the state.
You stole the show when the Ekiti State governor-elect, Mr Ayodele Fayose, visited Ibadan two weeks ago on a thank-you tour which turned out to be a massive rally. I am a grassroot politician and I have a solid political base and structure. I have been oiling the structure since I left office and that was why it was not difficult for me to mobilise my supporters and loyalists within just two days that we had to prepare for that rally. What happened at the rally was merely a tip of the iceberg. More will follow soon and in quick succession.
What we only did for Fayose was to welcome him to Ibadan, show that PDP is still the largest party in the state and to felicitate with him for sending the so-called progressives and pretenders out of office. The victory of PDP in Ekiti will be replicated in Oyo State next year by the grace of God.
But, your party is in about four factions in the state and this may affect your chances of staging a comeback to the Government House.I don’t know where you got the rumour that Oyo PDP has factions. Oyo PDP is one, united family under the chairmanship of Mr Yinka Taiwo. Every other person may have interest here and there. There are interest groups in the party but these groups are not factions. Whoever is saying anything contrary to this is just trying to protect his interest within the party but definitely not against the party.
You don’t seem to enjoy a good relationship with Senators Hosea Agboola and Teslim Folarin who are some of the leaders of the party currently.Are they the only people in the party? My relationship with all members of the party is very cordial. Why did you single out those two individuals?
Because people say they are in control of the structure of the party.Those who say they have the structure of the party in their pockets are not members of our party. How can an individual or two people have the structure of a party as big as the PDP in their pockets? Agboola and Folarin will never say it anywhere that they have the structure of Oyo PDP in their pockets. The party is not a limited liability company; it is there for everybody and open to all. Senator Ayo Adeseun is currently in the PDP. Did he come to me or go to them before re-joining the party? He came to the party and was welcomed to the party. Who will now say a serving Senator is not important in PDP? Anybody is welcome anytime. The party belongs to all of us. The only thing is that, when you are a big fish, you are a big fish. An elephant will always be an elephant. If you take an elephant from Ibadan to Ilorin, it will still be recognised as an elephant. And we know the political capacity of one another.
What role did you play in the return of Senator Adeseun to the PDP?I did not play any role. Adeseun is a seasoned and versatile politician and he has acquired a lot of experience in Oyo State politics and knows what is good for him as a politician. He took the decision on his own and decided that this party called APC is just Aggrieved Politicians Congress (APC). These aggrieved politicians put themselves together to fight an elephant. They will just die.
A gang up seems apparent from politicians in Ogbomosho zone against any candidate that may emerge from other zones, which is why you and Adeseun are now closely knit.
Politics is about ganging up against your opponent. If they say those of us from Ogbomosho are ganging up against our opponents, we say yes to that. I was once ganged up against. We won’t allow our opponents to rest.
So, there will be a bloc vote from Ogbomosho?That has always been the case, even right from the time of our forebears. Have you ever seen anybody challenging us in Ogbomosho? We go in one direction and that is what we are going to do in 2015. We have always aligned with the central government and we don’t play tribal politics in Ogbomosho. It is national mainstream politics that we play in our zone.
In case you get the ticket, don’t you foresee the possibility of the division that made some leaders of the PDP to work for the opposition to thwart your re-election?The factors that played out in 1999 were quite different from what played out in 2003. In 2007 too, the factors were not what they were in 2003. And so it was for 2011. I can tell you authoritatively that the factors that will determine who wins in 2015 will be quite different and unique. A lot of water has passed under the bridge between 2011 and now. Expect anything in 2015 because people are now wiser and our democracy is growing. The electorate in Oyo are yearning for a change and they know what to do.
And do you see the PDP bringing about that change?We have already done that.
Even before the election?Oh my God! I am telling you that we have already done that.
Are you underrating Accord and the Labour Party, if you think the APC is not popular?PDP will have a field day in 2015 elections and I can guarantee you that. The APC folks talk too much; they are propagandists. One of them, the chairman of their party, Akin Oke, was abusing me the other day.
Your followers still keep faith with you. What is the magic?It is God and not me. I am a grass root politician. I come down to the level of the people and I don’t believe in sitting on a high horse and dishing out orders to people. That is not good leadership. A good leader mixes with the people, wines and dines with them, shares in their joy and pain. That is my idea of leadership.
As I am, I can tell you what can be done and the people of Oyo State will be very happy. For instance, when I was doing my campaign in 2007 and I moved round the state and promised to do one thing or the other, I fulfilled every of the promises I made to the people during my time as governor. This is on record and you can go to any community in the state to verify this. This was why I was able to develop Oke Ogun. No governor in the state since 1999 has ever developed Oke Ogun, Ibarapa the way I did. Yes, the current governor may have developed Ibadan, but I laid the foundation and also did well for Ibadan. It is on record that my government constructed at least five kilometres of road in every community in the 33 local government areas of the state. Go to the secretariat and check the record about how much I awarded each of the roads.
I built over 1,000 primary schools in the state. The best college of medicine in Nigeria as of today, I built it in Oyo State. I did Adeoyo Yemetu Hospital and it was dilapidated then. I was not stupid when I was doing E Pade Gomina. It was for me to get unfiltered feedback from people. When they abused me, I corrected myself and when they praised me and asked for more, I knew I needed not to rest on my oars. A popular government will have conducted local government election in the state since its inauguration. By the grace of God, I am the next governor of Oyo State because the people of the state have seen the difference and they want me back. Those who are already trying to malign my person and are shouting at the rooftop should not dissipate energy unnecessarily. They should not die before their death. William Shakespeare says: Cowards die before their death but the valiant tastes of death but once.
Have you forgotten that if they do so, it is the state electoral commission that will conduct the polls and....If they do it and SIEC should do the bidding of the government, they will be in trouble. During my time as governor, I wanted to conduct council election and there were two councils-Irepo and Olorunsogo Local Government Areas-where the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was more popular than our party, the PDP. So, I approached the ACN leaders there and I told them to join the PDP on the condition that they would get the chairmanship of the councils and PDP candidates would be vice-chairmen and we shared the councillorship position. They agreed and the election went peacefully without any bloodshed. I would have done it without reaching any agreement with them but I had to stoop to conquer because I didn’t want any bloodshed.
What was your relationship like with workers in the state?I related with the civil servants very well as governor. Did you hear that I sacked any worker while I was in office? I ensured that the civil service commission did its job as far as recruitment, promotion and discipline of workers were concerned. Do you know how many workers have been sacked since I left office? I paid salaries on the 25th of every month and didn’t make any noise about it nor celebrate it as an achievement. It is a normal thing to pay workers their due salary as and when due because they work for it. I never paid salary arrears as governor because there was no reason for me to delay workers’ salary. I paid N18,000 minimum wage and you remember that when ACN was campaigning in 2011, they said N18, 000 was too small and that they would pay N22, 000. Now, what are they paying?
How much loan did you take as governor and how were you able to repay such that you said you left about N3.8 billion in government coffers during your exit?When the time comes, I will publish the statement of account of the state as of the time I was leaving office. I never owed any financial institution a dime and with this, I was able to leave a lasting legacy in good projects spread across the state within the limited resources that were available to us then. I did not borrow a kobo to run Oyo.
I succeeded as governor because I planned the government, I knew what I was going in to do and I had a blueprint which guided my government. I increased IGR and I was prudent. I did not go for white elephant projects. I projected four years for everything I wanted to do and I did everything. I made many people millionaires in Oyo State during my time as governor.
I ensured that contracts were given to qualified people from the state and the profit from such was used to develop local economy. The price of landed properties has skyrocketed at the New Garage Road that I opened and dualised. As I was prepared then, so I am now.