Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-West have accused Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of a surreptitious move to replace the party’s National Chairman, Uche Secondus, with you. How will you react to that claim?
It is the most senseless statement that could be ever credited to this
party. The governor of Oyo, His Excellency, Governor Seyi Makinde called
a meeting of elders and stakeholders where he was pleading for unity in
the party and the complete lopsidedness in distribution of party
positions. South- West has six states, sub-divided into three zones.
Lagos/Ogun is one zone; Oyo/Osun is second zone and Ekiti/Ondo is the
third zone.
There are three positions who are members of the National Working
Committee (NWC). In a saner manner, each zone is supposed to take one
each. During the period of Ayo Fayose as Ekiti state governor, he
distributed these three positions in a manner that two positions went to
one zone, and then another zone had nothing. In particular, Oyo had
zero. Osun had a Deputy Publicity Secretary who is a member of National
Executive Committee (NEC). They also have the Zonal Secretary in Osun
but Oyo had nothing. The number one zone which is Lagos and Ogun had
Deputy National Chairman (South) which is from Ogun state. Lagos also
had nothing. If these state chairmen understood the dynamics of
politics, they won’t make the baseless allegations they made because the
issues are very clear. We are concerned because we don’t want people
outside to see the inadequacies of the managers of the party because
issues like these are also important to the electorates. The culture of
PDP is Justice, Unity and Progress which also means fair is fair.
What we are concerned about is how to reset the wrong done by the former
Ekiti governor and balance the system. For these people to now release a
statement that Governor Makinde is plotting to replace Secondus with me
is the peak of indolence and lack of knowledge of the depth and culture
of the party. Nothing like that was discussed at the meeting. Is it
possible for only Makinde to remove Secondus and make me the National
Chairman? It is so idiotic and some of them have come here to say they
were wrong. They said they never knew that that was what inside the
statement but they were only given to append their signatures. I have
written Guardian newspaper to retract that publication or get themselves
in trouble. Even the chairmen who issued that statement should be
subjected to serious punishment because what they said was never
discussed at the meeting.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers made a statement last week that if care
is not taken, the crisis in PDP will be far worse than that of APC. That
is what elders like us are trying to avoid. The governor of Oyo who is
doing everything humanly possible to reposition the party for greatness
should be supported. By making that unfounded allegation, they are
undermining him and me. It is a very unpatriotic comment. We know the
person behind the plot .He was the one that called for the meeting where
they issued that false statement. We are all concerned about resolving
the lopsidedness in the party because if It continues this way, it won’t
augur well for peace.
Many Nigerians believe that latest developments in the ruling APC is
targeted at weakening Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s political base ahead of the
2023 presidential election. What is your perspective on this?
From the very beginning, I used to tell them that the party APC is a
congregation of strange bedfellows. When you have a big party like that
and someone wants to hijack it, there will be problem. First of all, it
is a misnomer in a presidential system for a man who is not elected into
any position to come out and say he is the National leader of the
party.
How is that possible? There is only one National leader of the party and
that is the President. How can a ragamuffin from somewhere just wake up
and say he is the National leader and not the President? What does that
mean? We saw the way Chief John Odigie- Oyegun was removed as national
chairman. To me, what is happening to Tinubu is a judgment of God. You
think you can appropriate the whole country’s resources like he did in
Lagos state to your own family? It cannot work! I believe nemesis is
catching up with Tinubu. We warned him but he refused to listen. The
Yorubas have a saying that a child who fails to listen to corrections at
home will be corrected outside. Tinubu thinks he is wiser than everyone
but the breeze has blown and exposed the behind of the hen. In
Yorubaland, a single person cannot be all-in-all. Tinubu thinks he can
grab everything with his teeth but they have removed all his teeth.
Some of his loyalists are mounting pressure on him to pull out of the APC alliance? Do you see him doing this?
That is his decision. I can’t decide for him. He just issued a statement
saying he has not told anyone that he wants to become President in 2023
and his focus now is how to alleviate the sufferings of the people. But
you can see what he is doing in Lagos. What about Alpha Beta? Who is
still collecting the money for Alpha Beta? Yet he said he wants to
alleviate the sufferings of the people? Let him bring out all our money
in Alpha Beta since year 2000 till date. The managing director of Alpha
Beta who ran away said they owed him N40b. That money alone would have
taken care of millions of poor people in Lagos today. Enough of this
brigandage and classic example of greed.
I have always said Tinubu will vomit everything he has stolen and the
day of reckoning is here. Only Almighty God can reign yesterday, today
and forever. No one else can attain that height. For me, when you start
seeing the signal, if he is a very clever person, he will recall himself
and have a deep introspection. If he thinks he can run Nigeria the way
he did to Lagos, he is making a mistake. The local government
secretariat of Ikoyi/ Obalende was formerly on Glover Road in Ikoyi but
he converted the place to his own and moved the local government to
Obalende beside the cemetery. He made the daughter the Iyaloja of Lagos.
How can Iyaloja of Lagos be from Iragbiji?. She, on her part went and
locked up Computer Village, insisting that she must be paid certain
amount of money. The son is the one getting all public advertisement
contracts for Lagos at the moment. You need to see the son’s convoy, you
will think it’s the President that is moving. For how long will this
continue? We came into this world naked and we will leave naked. Nobody
will leave with anything no matter how much wealth you have amassed for
yourself while in existence.
