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After all I did for ACN, see how they are treating me, cries Senator Bode Ola [/size]
A strange name, Senator Kolawole Olagunju, was found in the list released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for election into the Senate for Ekiti Central Senatorial District in the April general election. What is your reaction?
First of all, Senator Kayode Olagunju is not from Ekiti Central Senatorial District and he didn’t contest the election with us. So, he is not going. I think they want to use that as a dummy name pending the time the controversies in Ekiti Central will be resolved. I think you know very well that we didn’t conduct elections in Ekiti Central, at least for the Senate. Section 84 of our party’s constitution says that primaries should be conducted and the winner of that election should be nominated to contest the general election.
In our own case here in Ekiti Central, for one reason or the other, they did not allow the election to hold. We tried our best to appeal to the authorities to allow election to hold to no avail, even a rerun.
But I think a leader somewhere has a preferred candidate and he wants the candidate to come in here. Of course we all know that if we had conducted the election, I would have won the election. But because a leader somewhere has a preferred candidate, they decided that election should not hold. That is just the secret of the whole thing.
Your party seems to accept imposition. But does the constitution of the party accept what is going on?
I’m at a loss. We preach one man one vote and we preach that somebody who wins election should be given the opportunity to contest, but we are doing a different thing from what we preach. ACN is a progressive party, but I think our leaders are just trying to destroy it here in Ekiti State, and that is the most unfortunate thing. It is unexpected. I’ve just spent one and a half year in the Senate, I have done my best for the party; I’ve given my best to the party, and I have stayed by the party. I have supported the party in all ramifications and I am surprised now the way they are treating me. I feel this is happening because there is a leader somewhere who is interested in a particular candidate and he wants to give the position to that candidate. That is why we have this problem now in Ekiti.
Do you see yourself taking a legal action against your party?
I may or may not.
What is your suggestion on how to bring this to an end? Or what is the way forward?
What will save the party is that they should put the right candidate, and that is myself. That is what the people are saying. They are doing all these to frustrate me, but the people in the state are watching them. The people are complaining that what they are doing is not fair; people know that they have maltreated me and to save the party, they should nominate me so that I can go to the election and win the general election for them. I am a winner and anytime any day election is conducted in Ekiti Central, I will win. But now, because of all these things, I regret to announce this, ACN is likely to lose.
Judging by what is happening now in the party, if eventually you are not picked, what do you think this will portend for the party in the state?
It is capital failure. The people are watching them. The people are all saying that these people are heartless, that what they are doing is ungodly. I’ve not done anything to them and I have done my best for the people. Go and take a look at the programmes I have executed for the people these past one and a half year that I have been there. But they just thought that now that we have gotten the governorship, and we are in control, they could just put somebody that they prefer, not somebody that the people want. I think it is unfair.
You were said to have been invited to a meeting with other aspirants when the crisis started and that you left the meeting in annoyance. There are rumours that since then, some people have been threatening your life. How true are these and what actions have you taken?
Everyday I receive threat messages that my life is no longer safe in Ekiti and things like that. I don’t know the reason for that, but I know that no evil can befall me and I put my trust in God and there is no problem. As regards that, I lodged a formal complaint with the Police and I still went to the Commissioner of Police in the state to make a complaint.
On the meeting issue, I was not invited to any meeting really, I just went to the Governor’s office to go and clear some things with His Excellency. But I noticed that His Excellency was not really sincere, he has somebody in mind. He prefers a particular candidate and that is it.
Which Excellency is that?
Excuse me… We have only one Excellency here in Ekiti and that is that.
So, what do you advise?
The party leadership should meet. They have met actually and they have recommended that the person that is doing it should be allowed to continue. More so, he has not committed any offence and he has done his best for the party and that he should be made to continue and that person is Senator Olabode Ola. Now if the party does something that is against that, well we have ourselves to blame, because definitely everybody is looking at us and Ekiti people are not happy about this development. They know that what they are planning now is ungodly, undemocratic and is very bad.
It is rumoured that what counted against you is that you were found to be hobnobbing with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Senate. Can you clarify this?
It is unfortunate if anybody can reason like that. When things were hard, I did not join another party, it is now when the party is in government. It is quite unfortunate if anybody could reason along that line and that is unreasonable and uncalled for. I was the acting chairman of the Senate Committee on Works and I will be highly disappointed in the leadership of the ACN if they could bring that up at all. Does it mean that they don’t want anything good for the members of the party at all?
The chairman of the committee was removed by the law court and I, being the vice chairman, automatically became the acting chairman. I also did my best during that period. Now they have put another person there who is a member of the PDP. In the Senate, you are either a chairman or a vice chairman. New members of the Senate are usually vice chairmen and since the man I was deputising for was removed, I filled the position and the things I did for Ekiti State that time would soon begin to manifest, because the budgetary provisions are still being examined. If that came up at all in the issue of Ekiti Central primaries, they just want to give the dog a bad name so that they can hang it. I have never done anything anti-party.
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