Odia Ofeimun
Private Secretary to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and literary icon, Odia Ofeimun, in a recent interview with Punchng speaks on the recently concluded Ekiti State governorship election and other national issues
Recently, the defunct political party of the late Yoruba sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Unity Party of Nigeria, was revived…
(Cuts in) Who revived it?
Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, the founder of the Odua Peoples Congress.
I did not know that.
As an Awoist do you think the resurrection of the party signifies new hope for the common man?
I always let people know that I am not an Awoist but I identify very well with the teachings of Obafemi Awolowo and the difference between being an Awoist and a respecter of Awolowo’s thoughts is that if you are an Awoist, you don’t always have to care about his thinking but the platform is good as a means of climbing hills.
Fasehun reviving the UPN is being an Awoist. Awo is like a ladder with which you can climb and that is what Awoism signals for many people.
Do you think the resurrection of the party signals hope for the common man and Nigerian politics?
That’s like using Awo as a ladder to climb and I don’t play at that level. I play at the level of genuine and serious thinking.
How would you evaluate the election in Ekiti State?
Kayode Fayemi has said the Ekiti people have spoken and I agree with him. When the people have spoken, it is wrong to go on saying they were ignorant and that their love of stomach infrastructure is stupid. People have every right to defend their stomach infrastructure if they consider it important in their lives in a particular time. It is because we have no respect for our people that we question that inclination in the people. If they say at this time in our lives, what we want to defend is our stomach infrastructure, it is your duty and my duty to ask the question how best can we defend stomach infrastructure? I can tell you there is an answer to it which almost everybody in power does not appear to think about. I will not answer that question here.
Do you support the recommendation of the National Conference which stipulates that President Goodluck Jonathan should not have more than 18 ministers in order to reduce the cost of governance?
Actually, it is not the number of ministers that you have but it is about what the ministers do. The fact that governors across Nigeria like riding private jets and are not putting enough money into genuine road constructions and other forms of communication is part of the crisis. A governor who flies a private jet may, in fact, be in a hurry to get the job done but when you consider that there are cheaper ways to do it, you begin to ask yourself why take that expensive route to development? To make governance cheap is one of the goals that political parties should pursue in this country. And it is not too difficult to make it happen; it is just that the elitism built into Nigerian politics by those who insist that politics must have a certain level of acquirement and the ones who are deceiving the rest of us. I am using the word acquirement deliberately. They want a certain level of property acquisition to precede entrance to power but they don’t want that property acquisition to be collectively owned. Why is it that no political party in Nigeria depends on subscription from members? And, therefore, enter election on the basis of that subscription?
Do you think the Federal Government has done enough in fighting terrorism?
The only way I can answer that question correctly is to simply ask what happened to the governor who allowed students that the West African Examination Council said were unsafe to go and sit in a school and pretend to do an exam? Who is that governor and what has happened to him since he committed that crime? It is a crime and there is no need beating about the bush, that man committed a crime that we have not punished him for. So, don’t ask me the question.