Power Game: APC, threat to democracy–Obanikoro



Since you served out your term as an ambassador, you have been maintaining a very low profile. Why?

When you are a grassroots person and all of a sudden you find yourself in diplomatic assignment for four years, there is no doubt that your life would be moderated in a way. I can say that my diplomatic exposure has to a reasonable extent moderated my carriage and disposition to things generally. If that is what you characterized as being mellowed, it is not far from the truth.

A new political evolution is evolving in Nigeria with the emergence of All progressives Congress (APC). How do you see this development in the light of the challenge they are likely to give the PDP in the coming election?

I will characterize this development as a desperate effort on the part of opportunists to hijack power for selfish and personal reasons. Yes, Gen Muhammadu Buhari is a man of integrity, he is a man known for selflessness. He doesn’t go for personal enrichment. But if you look at other people who are championing this amalgamation, their credentials do not support what they are propagating. Let me start from the Chairman of the committee that was set up to mid-wife the coming together of these political parties-Tom Ikime. He was our chairman when I was in the National Republican Convention (NRC). But when Abacha came on board, he was more or less the spokesperson of the military government. Even when Ken Saro Wiwa was killed, Ikimi did not see the need to quit Abacha government. This was a government that terrorized the whole Nigeria before it was terminated. How can such a person now come out to say that he is a democrat? Or is it Tinubu that is one of the beneficiaries of Babangida’s annulment of the June 12 presidential election? He also procured election results in Osun and Ekiti States. These are people who do not believe in the rule of law nor have the interest of the masses at heart. One of them has become an emperor in Lagos State. The other one practically took the whole of Nigeria for a ride when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Abacha government. One of the parties in the merger, the All Nigeria People Party (ANPP), created Boko Haram. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is headed by Tinubu who is by no mean a democrat and who has enriched himself beyond imagination of anybody. He has refused to allow internal democracy within ACN. We all know too the antecedent of Ikime during the era of military dictator-late Sani Abacha. It is only Buhari that stands out as a man of integrity. And if you ask me, I will say he is tired. I saw his debate during the last presidential election. You and I cannot stand up and say that was Buhari of old. So, as far as I am concerned, all this grandstanding will not get them anywhere because they have nothing new to offer.

What you have said about these actors is not peculiar to them. An average politician in Nigeria likes to perch where it is happening.

(Cuts in). I am not one of them. I agree with you, there are so many of them. We are equally experiencing the same thing in PDP. These are people we call merry-weather politicians. There are bunches of them all over the place. But what I am trying to say here is that PDP is a far better arrangement than this new APC. It is under the PDP that oppositions have won elections. In the recent local government election in Kaduna State, we lost even the vice president’s local government. Yet, we did not alter or change the result. PDP as a party has not gone out of its way to corrupt the judiciary like ACN has done. You can imagine what a set of people who have deliberately corrupted judiciary, the hope of the common man, can do when they get to power at the centre. It will become a cash-and-carry transaction government. The judiciary will die a sudden death. In my wildest imagination, I cannot imagine that people can go to the length they went in Salami saga. In fact, I see these people as a threat to democracy and the rule of law in this country. Look at Lagos State for instance, our Internally Generated Revenue has been pocketed. They are sand filling everywhere recklessly. In the past, when there was sand filling of any particular area, they used to advertise it for the good of the common man. What they are doing is creating a private scheme which they themselves alone and their cronies can benefit from. All the demolition they have done in Ebute Meta and Badiya is for their selfish end. They did it without any compensation to the affected people. For you to displace a settlement of over 100 years, you must provide an alternative. Badiya has been there since I was born. I met it there and I am over fifty years now. To me, that demolition is a serious matter but nobody is taking them up. That shows you the level to which the society has degenerated. People who are supposed to speak out have been compromised. And that is the more reason why these people cannot be trusted and must never be trusted by Nigerians. If you see the recklessness and arrogance with which they are going about governance in the Southwest, you will know that these are not people you can be trusted with power.

Is this not due to lack of vibrant opposition to the ruling party in the state?

You are right to some extent that we have not been able to put together a vibrant opposition to the government in Lagos State because of the crisis that has engulfed our party. That is an internal matter, but we are gradually coming together. Very soon, you will see a more vibrant, a more stable PDP that will be able to challenge ACN in the next election. We’ve been trying to provide a platform for the oppressed in the state.

Even at that, supporters of the ACN are so comfortable that they often beat their chest that they will govern the state for several years to come.

(Cuts in). They can say whatever they like. The last local government election has proven that they do not have the kind of hold they are claiming in Lagos State. Here in Obalende where I live, we beat them clean and square. But what did they do? They turned around and corrupted the electoral commission. Unfortunately, a former Chief Judge of Lagos State was used to do the dirty job. What I am saying is that what we thought was unimaginable even in the era of the military is what these people have done. Somebody just woke up one day and increased school fees in the Lagos State University (LASU) from N25, 000 to over N300,000. The welfare of workers in the state is being compromised. I am telling you, these are not God-fearing people. You can blame Obasanjo for monetization but you cannot accuse him of selling government’s property to himself. Under this regime, all the houses owned by Lagos State in Ikoyi and Ikeja were sold without any advert in the paper. These are some of the issues that we intend to highlight in the course of our electioneering.

Looking at the crisis confronting the PDP at the national level, some people are of the opinion that the party is preparing its coffin waiting to be buried. Is there any hope in sight to the crisis?

Politics is about conflict resolution, politics is about interest. Yes, we have issues within the party, but we have the capacity to manage it. We have gone through worse situation in the past. Don’t forget, there was a time Obasanjo and vice president Atiku Abubakar were at loggerheads. People thought heaven was going to fall. Yet, heaven didn’t fall. What we have now is even a child’s play compare to that. At the appropriate time, we would sit down as a family and iron out our differences. We are a people with the fear of God in mind, we are a people with the rule of law in mind, we are a people who are committed to the development of this country. So, there is no way we will allow this crisis to fester to a point where these people we know don’t mean well for this country will hijack power from us. God forbid, they will terminate every development plan we have and governance will now be about me first like what we have in most of the states they govern. They have turned their governors to tin-god. They want everybody to worship them.

During electioneering, the governor himself invited the Okada people and made a lot of promises which he knew he was not going to keep. Just a year after, he placed a ban on them. That shows you how reckless and insensitive these people are. As a government, before you make such a pronouncement, you have to sit down and do a research of how many people are riding Okada as genuine means of likelihood and how many of them are using it for nefarious activities. You can then decide how to checkmate the activities of the men of underworld who are using it to create mayhem in the society.

Since Alhaji Lateef Jakande built Lagos State University, they have not improved on what they met on ground. Instead, they have been closing the institution and privatizing the land. In Ikorodu, part of the land has been privatized for individual development. What they have succeeded in doing through propaganda is fooling the people. But gradually, people are waking up from their slumber. Recently, they brought Bill Clinton to come and give credibility to the Eko Atlantic City project. It’s all baloney, it’s all nonsense. They know that the project on its own cannot stand. I can bet my life on it, that publicity stunt is to go and borrow money from overseas. They brought Clinton in because they needed somebody with credibility. When Tinubu was in government, Federal Government wanted to partner with Lagos State Government to find a lasting solution to the surge from the Atlantic Ocean, but for greed and selfish interest, they killed the initiative. They didn’t buy the idea because there was an agreement that both sides should put a percentage of the cost in an account. While Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo put his, they couldn’t put their own. Instead, they said they would bring a bank guarantee. At the end of the day, they said they would do it alone. They went and sank billion into it. I read in the papers recently where the governor is saying that there is a need to protect the water front. That is deception. It is like deceiving the people that you have killed an ailment only to turn round again and say you need more fund. Today, Lagos State is owing 25 percent of all the debt of the states of the federation. They are very good in propaganda, but some of us are well exposed enough to see their deception. In 1976, if not for President Carter, New York would have gone bankrupt. Today, almost all the states in America are insolvent as a result of borrowing. That is what the Lagos State government is taking a cue from and almost 50 percent of the money will end up in private pockets. They are not making a kind of investment that will make our state competitive in the future. They are only building roads in the cosmopolitan areas, but you go to the suburb where the real masses live and see how terrible the roads there are. Yet, they are busy doing federal roads at an unreasonable amount of money. They find it attractive to do federal roads because they and their cronies will have a lot to gain.

Today, they are not giving priority to waste disposal. In this age and time, people still dump faeces in Iddo. Yet, somebody will say Lagos is working. But now, people are saying Lagos is sinking. There are so many questions begging for answers and until we begin to demand from our public officers specific answers to some of these questions, all these problems will continue to live with us.

If you are feeling so strongly about the government in Lagos State, do you think your party has the capacity to confront the ruling ACN in the state to bring about the desired change?

The test of strength of both parties in the state was the last local government election in which we rattled them. They were able to prove to Lagosians that they are not democrats; they are just actors in power. I can tell you; in 2015, this APC or ACN will fall. I know there leaders and their tricks. Once bitten, twice shy. The last attempt I made, I saw all their tricks. In the next election, they wouldn’t be that lucky. Enough is enough. Are you aware that somebody is washing each BRT buses for N2,000 per night after the day’s work. This is the same person who is doing consultancy service for the state government on revenue collection. It is this same person who forcefully took our land and turned it into supermarket. Do you know anywhere in the world where the seat of government is located near a shopping mall? As we inch closer to the 2015 elections, some of these issues will come to the limelight.

let the rofo rofo begin.....

2015 go badt gan ni.....

What is the way to resolving PDP crisis at the centre?

Politics is about conflict resolution, politics is about interest. Those who are clamouring for certain things now are doing so for certain reasons. At the appropriate time, we will sit down and resolve these crises. We have the capacity to resolve it, I can assure you that.

Boko Haram is threatening to bomb Lagos State. As a Lagosian, how do you feel coming under this threat?

That is a threat coming from APC. I told you the genesis of Boko Haram. It was a creation of ANPP in Borno State to suppress and oppress people for electoral reasons. Now, it has become a cancer. It has eaten Borno, Yobe and even almost all major parts of the north. It is about spreading to the South. We must not allow these people that created Boko Haram to govern Nigeria. The President is doing the right thing by trying to engage them. But as he has said, you can’t embrace an object that you cannot see. When there was a problem in the Niger Delta, we knew the people behind it and the actors were invited to a round-table discussion. Obasanjo started the discussion and Yar’Adua concluded it. I think our brothers in the north must be sincere to themselves. As we speak today, it is only the northerners who have been engaging them. When the issue of Niger Delta was on, they themselves invited Prof Wole Soyinka to negotiate on their behalf. Why is it that it is only Northerners who know who these people are? Those who thought they could use it to blackmail government have seen the futility of what they are doing. I want to implore Boko Haram people to sheath their swords. Enough is enough. The empowerment they are seeking cannot come in the face of instability. The entire place is already devastated. No investor, both local and foreign, will go there. I also want to implore our people to be vigilant in our neighbourhood. What happened in Ijora is a good example of being vigilant in your neighborhood. If it were in the north, nobody would talk. I want to also appeal to Boko Haram group that they should not bring it to Lagos. We don’t want war in Nigeria. If a bomb explodes somewhere, people have the tendency to retaliate and often times, the innocent suffer. Before you know it, it will spread to the whole of Nigeria. We don’t want war. There is no war fought anywhere that has ended at battle front. After the war, you will still come to the round table. I think enough is enough. Nigeria must have peace to make progress. If you know the number of Nigerian students in Ghana and the cost to the parents and the economy as well as the struggle they have to go through, you will feel sorry for this country. The persecution they go through is not worth it.

Most times, threat like this is often targeted at the influential in the society. Do you feel safe with the threat of this insurgence coming to Lagos?

To be honest with you, I feel very safe and I believe too that Nigeria is a safe country to live in. This is a temporary phase, it will soon go away. But the truth of the matter is that they do not discriminate on the basis of social status. They have gone to school to bomb school children and kill teachers. Rich men don’t go to Motor Parks. Yet, they have bombed Motor Parks and killed so many people. They have gone to market place where ordinary people do transaction and bombed the place. They have attacked the military, they have attacked the police. So, it is not a status thing. It is something that cuts across all social strata. We need to address this problem. And I think leadership in the north should be the primary pressure group. You don’t just heap the problem on the national government. All tiers of government must play their role.

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/politics/power-game-apc-threat-to-democracy-obanikoro/

^^

How's a sane person expected to read the disorganised and discombobulated shyte above

I expect lagos wannabe like tifnubu and fashola to keep quiet when a REAL lagos boy like Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro s talking...he really opened their yarnsh

mike404: I expect lagos wannabe like tifnubu and fashola to keep quiet when a REAL lagos boy like Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro s talking...he really opened their yarnsh

Obanikoro just expressed his bitterness over PDP's death and burial..dazz all

Our Yansh: ^^

How's a sane person expected to read the disorganised and discombobulated shyte above

A real lagosian has spoken, so look for the next available transformer and kill ya self @ YOUR YANSH :p

mike404:
A real lagosian has spoken, so look for the next available transformer and kill ya self @ YOUR YANSH :p

You are just as dumb as Obanikoro

Subscribing.....

seanet01: You are just as dumb as Obanikoro

Take heart brother

This is a great eye opener to everyone esp Lagosians. Obanikoro has indeed openned the eyes of all to see the intrigues and manipulations by few individuals going on in Lagos State.

mike404: I expect lagos wannabe like tifnubu and fashola to keep quiet when a REAL lagos boy like Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro s talking...he really opened their yarnsh

Is that thesame OBANIKORO who burnt down CITY HALL.

And who told you that Fashola is not a Lagos boy.

^^^^ Troll alert. Ignore that clown.

And u know a real Lagosian - u stranger of small consequence? You people are scared stiff. Imagine the vomit coming out of Obanikoro being your gospel.

mike404: I expect lagos wannabe like tifnubu and fashola to keep quiet when a REAL lagos boy like Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro s talking...he really opened their yarnsh

Mr obanikoro Art thou ingesting intelligence from the thresholds of Tutelage? That is to say: Are u a learner?

mike404:
A real lagosian has spoken, so look for the next available transformer and kill ya self @ YOUR YANSH :p

^


Nice read. Ambassador Obanikoro making nothing but sense

School fees from 25,000 to 300,000?

Very true! Tinubu nd Lai Mohamed need a dose of their own medicine.

...

Pdp connot perform anyway near Acn, Obanikoro, we lagosians know ur days too well, you are more of a criminal than tinubu.

mike404: "............That shows you the level to which the society has degenerated. People who are supposed to speak out have been compromised. And that is the more reason why these people cannot be trusted and must never be trusted............"

which means u also hv been compromised.....if not, y can't u speak out

OBANIKORO thousands of u and ur gang of killers can never deefeat acn in lagos state:..the guy meant to say'' ACN IS A THREAT TO PDP'!!