Those who said I’m involved in N1.3b scam are ignorant, desperate, confused - Adedoja
By Deputy Editor, DEBO ABDULAI


AdedojaFew hours after he was endorsed as the gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress, Professor Taoheed Adedoja spoke with Deputy Editor, DEBO ABDULAI on how he finally became the choice of the party, his reaction to the N1.3 billion textbook scam he was allegedly involved in and sundry issues. Excerpts.

Sir congratulation. How do you feel now that you finally won the governorship ticket for the Action Congress and how did you achieve the final endorsement?
Well, since I started this project, I had alreally tagged it God’s project and God’s project will not fail. It’s a continuation of God’s project and I want to thank God for making me emerge as governorship candidate for Action Congress in Oyo State. Remember that if you have a party like Action Congress with a visionary programme for the people of this state, definitely, you are going to have a lot of challenges. I am happy to say that at the end of the day, I emerged the candidate and I want to seize this opportunity to thank the other aspirants for rallying around the party to ensure the emergence of one of us as the candidate.

I want to thank them and I also want to commend them highly for their maturity, for their patience and understanding and dedication to the will of the wishes of the people and the people of the party, particularly party people, party elders, party executive. I want to thank them and I tell you that the Action Congress in Oyo State is different from even, Action Congress in other states of the federation. It is the state where you have five aspirants and where one of them eventually emerged as candidate where the other four remain as strong members of the party. In fact, that symbolises, already, a winning team.

Remember, we have our symbol as a broom. A single piece of the broom is not removed from the broom and we are going to use this broom to sweep away the government that is in power today in Oyo state by May 29 of this year, I am going to be sworn in as the governor of the state by the grace of God because it is God’s project.


How certain are you that the other aspirants will be willing to work for your success at the polls?
I think, without saying it, I am sure the aspirants are already working for the party and working for the party also means working for the success of the party. The candidate is an element of the success of the party. I tell you we have already resolved issues. Life is about continuation of whatever programme you have. The other aspirants are men of quality, men of vision, men of good-will and we are going to collectively use their resources, human and material to ensure that we give the Oyo State people, dividend of democracy.


Why did you leave PDP, the real reason now?
I changed party because that was what people wanted me to do. I didn’t just take that decision singly. It was the wishes of the people that I no longer belong to PDP and that I should join party of progressives. Remember that PDP was a party of virtually all stake holders, from the point of your ideology, from the point of your programme even from the point of vision, we were one of the few progressive elements in PDP. Because of yearnings of the people to belong to the progressive proper, that informed my leaving the PDP for Action Congress.


How confident are you that you are going to defeat the PDP in the coming election?
The confidence is informed by three major factors. It is the wish of the people of Oyo State now, to have a government of peace, a government that will provide the actual dividend of democracy, a government that will bring back the glory of Oyo State from the time of Obafemi Awolowo. We want to bring back the glory of free quality education, free and qualitative health care services, proven infrastructural development for Oyo State and important as it is, creating wealth for the people of the state and related to this is providing jobs for the mass unemployed that we have in the state. That is what people want us to do. The people believe in me that I can do it and that is why they have asked me to champion the cause of the people as the governorship candidate in the state.


In 2003, people say you were a product of the Molete school of politics, now you are facing the grand master of politics himself, Baba Adedibu. Do you know how to beat him?
Well, there is one thing that is very clear about my candidature, Baba Adedibu is supporting the other candidates with his experience, with his machinery, with all that you can think it would take to win election but, Baba Adedibu has given me something that is different from others. Even when I was a student of Molete and you know what that is, when I told him I was leaving to contest this election, he said God will be with you.


If God is with you and gun is with others, money is with others and all the machineries you can think of are with others, tell me, we already know the result. And the result is that whoever God is with will never fail and I will never fail in this election. Baba Adedibu is already part of my success in terms of praying for me, I don’t need any other thing. He may give other things to the others but he has already given me that of God and I think that has made it already.


Just yesterday (Wednesday), the Oyo state government accused you of being involved in a N1.3 billion textbook scam and they said that you should address this issue can you address the issue now?
The issue of the textbook: two things will have to be cleared. As the chairman of the Universal Basic Education Board, there were two line projects, we have projects of the state, that is Oyo State directly. There was no project, as a Universal Basic Education Board Chairman, that could be done without the approval of the board if it was within the limit of the board. And if it is over the limit of the board, approval is done by the appropriate body like the executive council of the Tenders Board and the project is in respect with the Universal Basic Education programme which has something to do with providing materials, providing facilities and the training of teachers, this is a federal government intervention programme, and I tell you, throughout my stay at the board, I followed the due process. By due process, we mean that any job that has to do with Universal Basic Education will have to be advertised, it will go through the Tenders Board before the final approval and I tell you confidently that there is nothing that we did in Oyo state that Abuja did not have knowledge of, including approval. So many of these things they are saying, they are very ignorant of and it is unfortunate, ignorance sometimes can cause confusion. Fortunately for us, the EFCC that they are referring to is even more knowledgeable about the procedure of federal projects than even many states that talk about this. The chairman of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, is a very intelligent person, he knows who he wants to catch, not Professor Adedoja. Ribadu too knows that Professor Adedoja is above board, I tell you confidently. Before I left the Board, Oyo State House of Assembly commended us because they went through our books. Senate committee on education did the same thing, House of Representative committee on education did the same thing. Oyo State was one of the states in Nigeria that were given commendation on three areas, probity, accountability, transparency and timely implementation of UBE projects and I tell you, I am very confident that it is nothing but campaign of calumny. The advertisement that were sponsored were sponsored about five hours after I picked the ticket, why not before I picked the ticket! They are not well verved. Remember also, that those that are clamouring about the UBE project struggled to get the Action Congress ticket till around 11.30p.m on Tuesday, but because they failed in the bid, they started to think. What can we do next other than to start the campaign of calumny.


You mean Governor Ladoja struggled for the ticket?
Definitely, everybody knows that Ladoja struggled for Action Congress ticket. I don’t know of other tickets he struggled for, I only know of Action Congress. He really tried, spent sleepless nights personally and through other people but God said I was the one. But remember also that when I was contesting with Governor Ladoja in 2002 and I didn’t blackmail anybody but you can not blackmail what life is and I think I’ve forgiven him because come May 29, with smiles, Governor Rashidi Ladoja will handover to me Professor Adedoja.


Sir, you have consistently mentioned God and the people as the determinant factors to your success as governor of Oyo State, now people do say that one of the mistakes the incumbent governor made is that he failed to give recognition and that he failed to carry along, the elite, now are there people or element that you would wish to carry along to avoid this kind of mistake?
Well, you have to understand that for you to have a successful government, one you have a mind of forgiveness, you have to carry people along. You can imagine that Governor Ladoja is already making offensive statements but I’ve already forgiven him. Governance is about bringing people together, Governance is not about you creating room for chaos, you should be able to bring people together and I think that is going to be the hallmark of our administration which is going to be inclusive and not exclusive.

We are going to have an inclusive government where everybody, all professional, artisans, farmers, market people will have a place in governance come May 29, 2007