He may have retired from active politics but the
name of Barr.Eddy Osifo rings a bell in the politics of the old Bendel State which comprised of the current
Delta and Edo states. He was a close ally of the late
sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as one can see in his
membership of the Action Group of the First
Republic and later Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, of
the Second Republic. He was the godfather of the late Ambrose Ali whose governorship he facilitated in the then Bendel State under the UPN in 1979.
In this interview, he bares his mind on why
Gen.Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential
election. While commending President Goodluck
Jonathan for conceding defeat to Buhari, he stresses the need to allow the nation’s democracy to flourish
by allowing the wish of majority of Nigerians to
prevail, pointing out that the nation has remained
backward politically and economically due to the
failure of the ruling party to allow free, fair and
credible elections.
Contrary to the belief in some quarters that the late
Ambrose Alli was killed while incarcerated by
Buhari, as military head of state, Osifo says Ali died from kidney disease, dismissing the allegation that
Buhari unjustly jailed politicians after he took over
government after sacking President Shehu Shagari in 1983.
As Awolowo’s ally
I was among the nine who founded the UPN in 1978. Our leader was Chief Awolowo and other founding
members of the party include Ajasin, Bola Ige, Bisi
Onabanjo, Jakande. I founded the party in Bendel but at my age I said I could not be governor. Chief
Awolowo pleaded with me to be governor and that
was why I took Prof. Ali to him. I went to invite him
from the University of Benin, he was never in our
group but when he became governor he did things to make me feel he hated me.
And that was why I laughed when I watched the
daughter saying at a PDP rally that Buhari killed Ali,
that is not true. Ali had kidney problem from the first day I knew him.
He had stone in his kidney, and that was what gave
him problems until he died. Buhari did not kill him.
He was properly tried and jailed. He was jailed three
times, two of the three times were based on the
evidence given by Esan people, his own people. They gave evidence in two of the cases where Ali was jailed for 22 years. And when Ali left prison, they had vandalized his house; was it Buhari that also
destroyed his house? When I saw PDP people
carrying the daughter up and down to say Buhari
killed Ali, I called her and told her not to say that,
maybe she did not know the story. And inspite of
the way he treated me, I still went to Ibadan prison
three times to visit him, he warned me that if I ever
became governor, I should never deal with three
people, he mentioned their names. And after I made him governor, he went and gathered these people, I
spent only one year as Commissioner in his cabinet. I had to leave the cabinet when he started maltreating me. He was always coming to my house because I
was the party leader then. I entered politics when I
had my first meeting with Awolowo in Oke Ado,
Ibadan on September 27, 1977. I organized the party in then Bendel State with my money before I handed
over as Chairman to Prof. Ali because the Chairman
of the party must be the governor.
Then we had people like Alfred Rewane, L. Rewane,
Amadasun, Imafidon in the leadership of the party. I was the youngest but I was the organizer and leader
until I handed over to Ali. Awolowo will assess you
first and ensure that you are mature before giving
you support. It is not now they say youths must take
over from old men, nobody will give you chance
unless you are incorruptible, you are not greedy, you are a serious politician. Those days we were not doing this thing politicians do now; if party A offends you, you ask party B to give you money and you move to the party, it is wrong. I brought Omoaghe, the late Modino Emovon, Rowland Owie, Madam UPN into
politics. And I never took one kobo from them. I
sponsored Senator Owie to the House of Reps. I
nominated Ali for governor, nominated Akpore for
deputy governor.
But today if you don’t know how to tell lies, how to rig elections, PDP will not accept you as their leader.
Unfortunately they have taught Nigerians how to do
wrong things because that their bad character is
what our youths are imitating today. A government
must be able to impact ethical and moral standards
in the people, this government has failed to impact
moral and ethical standards in the people. Nigerians
have no morality, that is why we have many of our
people on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
The average foreigner, when he disobeys traffic light, he feels bad but here there is nothing like that. In
those days, once you joined the Action Group,
Awolowo will tell you: “This place is not for making
money, it is not for acquiring wealth; if you want to
acquire wealth, let us know so that we will not give
you political appointment”. When Awolowo said I
should be governor and I said I didn’t want to be but I will go and look for some body, he said I should get
an average man with an average income but not a
man that has not achieved anything in his life. That
was why I went for Prof.Ambrose Ali who was on
N3,500 salary.
Building Nigeria on ethical standard
So if they built Nigeria on ethical and moral
standards, Nigeria will not be like this. Nigeria is off it entirely and that is why people are angry. And when
you see somebody who will correct the bad system
like Buhari, they want to blackmail him, that he will
jail everybody. If the evil people must run away
because Buhari won the presidency, let them run so
that Nigeria will be a better place for all. When they
talk of Buhari’s age, you need an experienced, old
man to rule a country that has no ethical or moral
standards, a country that is defiant of laws and rules.
A young man cannot whip Nigerians into line. The
young man has noouse, bought a car, so he may be
tempted to engage in sharp practices to satisfy his
wants. Young men usually have large appetite for
women and money. We are getting it wrong, it is only countries that have morals that allow children to
rule. That time we couldn’t build houses in the GRA,
Awolowo would not take it, it was forbidden. That is why it was after Chief Enahoro left Awolowo that he
built that house at Adeyan, in GRA. His first house
was at Oregbeni Estate where he lived before he left
our party. He left us when I took over to lead the group.
But why have you been quiet politically?
Some of us are worried about this country in the
sense that one regime has been in power since
independence. The NPN is like the PDP of today and, for several years, the NPN was in power until the
military came in to chase them away. But each time
they wanted to hand over due to their alliance with
the military, the military will hand over to them. So it is one regime that has been in power since
Independence in 1960. The BBC describes this regime
as a ruling clique in Nigeria that works with the army.
Any time the army wants to hand over power to
civilians, they will ask which group you belong, if you say you belong to Awolowo group, they will say that is not the one we want to hand over to. They said they could only hand over to the Shagari group. That clique stalled the development of Nigeria. This 2015 election seems to be the only opportunity to block
the avenues of rigging. They tried to scuttle the use of the card reader which will make the election credible.
Groups were hired to discredit the card reader.
President Jonathan was dealing with different bad
groups and bad people due to his ambition.
All those on trial for one matter or the other are the
people around him and that is why people like me
did not vote for him. And what is why he lost the
election. But I am glad that he congratulated Buhari;
he will enjoy the respect that concession of defeat
earned him globally. The three things wrong with
Nigeria are corruption and patronage, economy and security. The President said our economy is good but how can economy move without power? He even
tried to redefine corruption but he forgot that
corruption is corruption.
The President said he built railway; what he built was locomotive railway, not the type of railway we need in Nigeria in the 21st century. We want modern railway propelled by power, that is the one they are building in Japan and other places. Jonathan does not know
what is wrong with Nigeria and we could not elect
somebody who does not understand the problem
with Nigeria. He has influenced the police so much so that the police are being destroyed. The same way he is trying to turn our soldiers to politicians.
Why Buhari won
The major reason for our backwardness is the
nation’s inability to change government and that is
why you see most Nigerians happy with this latest
development. Jonathan dug his grave in the North,
he tried to persuade the West before the elections
but it did not work. Those supporting him in the West like Falae, Ayo Adebanjo are my friends, but have
gone off the track because of the hatred they have for Tinubu. But you cannot cut your nose to spite your
face. Bola Ige did it when we refused him nomination
in AD, he started following Obasanjo, he did not
know Obasanjo will use military tactics on him.
Buhari detained me for two months after the coup in 1984 but I was not annoyed because it was a sacrifice
I made with those who were corrupt. I was released from jail, they gave me back my international
passport and apologized to me. They found N95 in
my account. So when they say Buhari will jail
everybody, it is a lie,
How do you compare this election with others held in the country?
Since independence, this is the first election in which
all Nigerians participated. The last keenly contested
election in this country was the pre-independence
election of 1959 which pitted Alhaji Tafawa Balewa
against Chief Obafemi Awolowo during which
Awolowo engaged in sky writing. He used helicopter
which went far into the sky and was writing ‘vote
Awo’, he was in the sea, he was in the air he was on
land. In that election, three parties contested: the
Action Group, the NCNC and NPC. At the end of the
election, no one party was a clear winner. That forced the NPC and the NCNC to go into a coalition
government and forced the Action Group into
opposition.
This was the situation before 1966 coup which was
caused by the rigging of the federal election in 1965
in Western Region.
The rigging was greeted by riots in the Western
Region which ushered in the military regime of
Nzeogwu. This is the fairest election that was
contested since independence. Rigging was not
possible just like the pre-independence election of
1959. This is the first time the West will be working
with the North in an election. That is the difference.
The West has always been in opposition while the
East was always working with the North.
But are surprised that the South-East did not support Buhari, a northerner, unlike their usual practice?
The South-East will learn their lessons. Next time,
they will vote more on principle than sentiment and
emotion. The South-East has always made this
mistake because their first leader, Dr Nnamdi
Azikiwe, led them to believe that the West was not
reliable and that the North was reliable based on his experience in the 1952 parliamentary election in the
Western Region which he claimed he had won
because his NCNC claimed to have won it through the West African Pilot and the AG also claimed they have won the same election through Daily Service. But on
getting to the Western House of Assembly where the Action Group caused a division by arguing that the two parties should sit separately, it was discovered
that the Action Group won the election by a narrow
majority. Dr Azikiwe had to walk out of the Western
House of Assembly and became eternally bitter
against Awolowo and the Western Region. So his
alliance with the North was borne out of this
experience. Azikiwe was prevented from becoming
the Premier of Western Nigeria by reason of
ethnicity, he also used ethnic majority to push away
Eyo Eta as Premier of Eastern Nigeria. That caused
the Eastern Nigeria crisis of 1953.
What is happening now is a mixed grill. You find that in the South-South, Jonathan got very large votes while all over the North, Buhari won majority. Again performance came in and that was why most of us supported Buhari. Some of us don’t believe in
ethnicity, we believe in performance. People voted
for Buhari due to his principles.
This time, the Yoruba agreed that Jonathan’s
government has failed and needed to be changed
and that is why they supported the North to oust him.
The South-East will regret not backing the North
when they should and it is very unfortunate.

Gaddamn long.!

too short to read