GBOLAHAN BALOGUN
He needs no introduction. He has been seen, read and heard a lot about as a great historian, prolific author, and statesman. Alhaji Lasisi Ayinla Kolawole Jimoh is the courageous individual who gave the Kwara old Establishment the verbal butt-kicking until it was eventually dislodged by a people’s revolution, described as the O to Ge tsunami.
LAK, as he is fondly called, is always a newshound’s delight. We thought that with the rambunctious and unwieldy state of the O to Ge group in Kwara State, where he was once the point man, if perhaps, the integrity of the O to ge warriors, whose claims that they “fought and risked their lives to liberate Kwara”, had not been called to question.
We thought that he was the man to ask, even though we knew that it would not be easy. He is not given to frivolities and we must convince him that his voice is absolute in resolving people’s belief of O to ge.
During the run-up to the 2019 gubernatorial election when the state APC’s trouble reared its head, LAK, in company of some party elders traversed all political plains trying to get the matter resolved. The problem has shimmered to date and even got to a head, where a large chunk of O to ge wayfarers have relocated to different political climes. What is the implication?
There is a lot, we thought, to ask the octogenarian, who left public service as a permanent secretary in 1982 for active politics. Besides national politics, security and sundry issues, we were desirous to interrogate his old opinions, especially about the previous governments as he had given in a previous interview with our medium. He once told us, “Kwara was 40 years under the government of hegemony of exploitation, massive looting of public resources and administration; so insensitive to the plights of the people’’. What is his present rating of governance in the state— including the real chance of the party he laboured with others to install- remaining in power beyond Governor AA’s present tenure?
When the duo of Midlandpost’s Gbolahan Balogun and Abdulrazaq Adebayo of Dailypost left the presence of this amiable man, who is so close to his community’s heart, we felt elated that we indeed got a major scoop. Please don't forget to like our stories as you read
We remember you once talked to us of a reconciliation effort on the Kwara APC crisis with the combined efforts of Tinubu and Osinbajo. What is the situation on ground now?
Let me start by saying I don’t know about the combined efforts of Tinubu and Osinbajo. But I know that nearly everybody who matters in Kwara politics was in APC by the last general elections and we were very united and much focused on the ‘Otoge’ agenda. We pursued it to a logical conclusion. The local leaders like Alhaji Lai Mohammed who was the Minister and still a Minister now, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo, people like Bio Ibrahim from Baruten, people like Professor Oba Shuaib Abdulraheem, and many others. We were very united. That is why we were able to do what Napoleon could not do. What everybody tried to do in the past in Kwara but could not achieve; that is uprooting the dynasty that had entrenched itself in Kwara politics.
I think that was the handiwork of unity. And that was why we worked hard to see that we did not become disunited. Unfortunately, I don’t think we quite succeeded in achieving that, partly because of selfishness by some of our leaders. They were more interested in what they would achieve themselves rather than the corporate interest and corporate success.
Secondly, we did not achieve it because the national leadership of the party remained oblivious of the danger that was looming in kwara APC and instead of stepping in, to nip the crisis in the bud, they decided to take sides and that worsened the situation and led us to where we are today.
Today, it seems things have come to a head. Virtually all the people you talked about have moved out of the party. Are you in any way bothered about the 2023 gubernatorial election with the number of aggrieved members moving out?
Of course. The adage, united we stand, divided we fall, is very pertinent to the APC situation in Kwara today. You see, all the gubernatorial candidates of note today in the State, are APC offsprings- the governor, Mallam Abdulrahaman Abdulrasaq, is APC candidate, Professor Oba Shuib Abdulraheem, until a couple of weeks ago, not even months, was a member of APC. He was frustrated out of the Party and he is wearing the “Babanriga of NNPP’. He is basically APC. Hakeem Lawal, until a couple of weeks ago was a loyalist. The people who helped us to win in 2019, each of them has formidable followership. Hakeem Lawal today is the gubernatorial candidate of SDP. Yaman Abdullahi is the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP, until a couple of weeks ago, he was APC. Yakubu Garba Gobir is the gubernatorial candidate of YPP. Until a couple of months ago, he was APC. These are the people who teamed up to get us victory in the 2019 general elections. Today, they are against themselves. The net loser is APC because each of them will carry away his own supporters from APC. Nobody is bringing in anything into APC now. APC is shedding weight.
But there is the belief that Gov. Abdulrazaq will capitalise or rather ride on his performance to cruise to victory. Do you see it that way?
Well, you see, performance is one thing, and a party is another. And performance again could be subjective. What you think is a big performance, may not be a good performance for another person. Let me not say performance is subjective; let me say performance is relative. You see, let me cite an instance. If you say that a particular governor has done a lot of road construction, and maybe has neglected the education sector, agricultural sector and what have you, and whereas another governor in another state, has done a lot of roads too and at the same time has achieved a lot in the agricultural sector and the educational sector, so when you now say our own governor has done a lot in terms of road construction, okay, what about in relative to another governor? How do you rate him with the other governor that has done more than he has done? So, there is a limit to which you can talk of achievements or performance. Achievements or performances are not in a vacuum. That’s one.
Two. You see, there is party loyalty; party commitment, as different from personality commitment. Some people are absolutely loyal to the party and they will look at the governor as the candidate of the party. They will tell you, look, the candidate we produced the last time has been a failure, so this time, we will present another person, even within the party, and the party can present another person to replace a governor. Let me give you a typical example. Governor Ambode of Lagos state performed very well. Everybody in Nigeria knows that Ambode performed, but he was not in tandem with the party and so the party said you are not the only person that can perform. We have other people who can perform even better than you do. And so, they said, if it is because of your performance that you want to destroy us, the party which is the base, then we will not present you anymore. And they did not present him, because, representing him would have amounted to the party committing suicide, you know. This is somebody who did not recognize you, even in his first tenure, and you now want him to have a second term. He may even destroy you completely if he gets it. That was part of the reason I believe, they did not re-present Ambode despite his performance. That is a lesson to all. You have to carry people along with your performance. Performance per se does not vote, it is people that will vote, performance per se does not campaign, it is people that will campaign.
If you do a road in Unity Road area of Ilorin that does not mean that the person in Pakata is moved by what you have done at Unity Road that you did not do in their own area. People in say, Ganmo area may not be carried away by the fact that Taiwo road is maintained, you know, or there is a flyover somewhere in the Tanke area, that does not mean anything to somebody maybe in Iloffa or Arandun. People will campaign. So, if you now say, ‘Yes, the governor has done a lot. Go to Ilorin and see”. Another person would ask “what has he done in Iloffa, your own home if you want to vote for him?” So, you have to carry people along with ‘performance’. It is people that will now sell you.
Sir, by and by, how will you rate the chances of Kwara APC in 2023 elections with seven months to go?
Well, there are too many ways of rating and I told you that already. The rating may depend on a number of factors. One. How united is your party? That is a very important question. United we stand, divided we fall. Have you taken care of that aspect? That is number one.
Two. How happy are the people? The essence of government is to take care of the well being and welfare of the people. Are the people’s welfare being adequately taken care of? Welfare again is relative. What is welfare to one group of people may not necessarily be welfare to another group of people. So you have to balance all these welfares. What the farmer needs may not be what the health workers need, or what the people in the education sector need. So you have to, bit by bit, carry everybody along; take care of everybody’s interests, well-being and welfare. That is when you can now say what the chances of winning are. Earlier on, I told you that APC is fragmented. All the gubernatorial candidates of substance in the 2023 elections in the state are offshoots of APC. That is the greatest problem APC is facing. And they must find a way of achieving unity. It is a precondition for victory.
Can this then be achieved in seven months’ time?
Nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible. You see, the Yoruba would say “Enu ti a fi n so pe ade gun, la fii n so pe ade o gun” It does not take anything to say “Oh, the governor has changed” “ Oh the party leaders have changed, now they have carried everybody along” It does not take long to achieve that. It all depends on sincerity of purpose. If there is the sincerity of purpose, definitely it can be achieved. But if there is no sincerity of purpose, reconciliation is very difficult, especially now that there is not much to satisfy the various ambitions of the leaders. There were people who wanted to be governor, but now, that avenue is closed because the INEC timetable has already overtaken that. There were people who wanted to be senators, who wanted to be in the House of Representatives, the House of Assembly that did not have the chance on the platform of the APC. They had to move out to seek fulfilment of their ambitions on other political party platforms. It is known all over the world that when there is a contest, only one person would win. What you now need to do, is a kind of horse-trading. Nobody should go away empty-handed. If you want to say please drop this, you should be able to say in its place, take this. But to say “drop what you have and go”, nobody likes that kind of thing.
Going by the current happenings in APC and Kwara politics generally, will Kwara Central remain the main decider of electoral victories again in 2023 as it used to be, now with four candidates?
Yes, we have four Kwara central gubernatorial candidates contesting in 2023- Governor AA, Professor Oba Shuaib Abdulraheem, Hakeem Lawal, and Yakubu Gobir. We have four out of the five major contenders. Even if we have ten from Kwara Central, and the loyalty is to a particular party…You know I told you earlier on that there are two factors- the party and the personality. If the generality of the people is loyal to a party, they will not mind how many people are contesting on the platform of other parties, they will vote for the party they want to vote for. So, the number of aspirants from the Kwara central may not necessarily be a disadvantageous factor to the APC.
But then, if all these people moving out are of the same root- they have the same root, the APC- that is what I told you earlier on, that all of them including the one that is not from Kwara Central, has his root in APC. So, it is the APC that is being depleted by these people moving out of the APC into other parties.
The reality is that it is a big minus to the APC and that minus is what we are saying they should try to remove.
Coming to your question, on whether Kwara central would still be the deciding factor in the election, I have answered that question. If Kwara Central as a whole gives its support predominantly to a party, a particular party, then that electoral weight will go to that party and will still stand. If Kwara Central says no, forget about a party, we will go for personalities- I keep emphasizing that there is a difference between the parties and personalities. But if they now want to vote for personalities and they fragment themselves, some will vote for Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, some will vote for Prof. Abdulraheem, some will vote for Gobir and so on, then that dominance electoral weight of Kwara Central will be depleted. The way things are now, the reality on the ground, is that the generality of Kwara Central still has a liking for APC.
The PDP base in Kwara Central is still as it was in 2019. Their base remains solid, nobody has pulled out of PDP to another party, so mathematically, we will say they are 100 per cent- that is PDP. Nobody has moved out of PDP, everybody is moving out of APC, so you now go back to the arithmetic of the 2019 elections. That is what you have to go and look at, okay? If -all things being equal- they remain as they were in 2019, if one of the two major parties remains solid, and the other one is being depleted, by what percentage can the leading one be depleted to become the minority? You have to do that arithmetic. What does the other party that remained solid need to become the majority?
There is what we call political mathematics or calculus. It has to happen. If you have to be realistic, you need to go to the drawing board and do this arithmetic. Don’t be carried away by noise making.
You see in politics, there are two campaigns or propaganda strategies. Two methods. One is the demonstrative strategy- the demonstrative propaganda. The other one is the penetrative strategy. The demonstrative one is the noise where you buy a big crowd. You can buy a crowd. The crowd can be carried away by the dancing, that they saw on the field and people will troop out to come and watch the dancers, not to give support to the party. That is demonstrative. But the fact is that you have to do it. It is psychological propaganda. Here, you’ll see people saying: “Yes, we are supporting you, we are with you. One million of us are with you”- maybe they are not more than a hundred- you could hear them saying “we have a very large followership of over one million of us who have declared for this party”- they may not be up to a thousand.
Then, there is the penetrative approach. This is the person-to-person campaign; house-to-house campaign- noiseless without fanfare. It’s the termite approach. The termite would eat the whole house from within and you don’t see it outside until the house collapses all of a sudden. But the ants on the other hand, will invade the sugar and you will see the ants carrying the sugar and you say these ants would soon finish the sugar, so it depends on what approach. The termite approach is there in politics, people working underground; house to house, person to person, without going to the radio, you know. The way things are now, I think, my advice is that people should be calculative. T the parties should be calculative, the candidates should be calculative and in the end, they should let Kwara’s interest override their own personal interest.
You can stoop to conquer. Pride goes before a fall. You have nothing to lose if you stoop to conquer. Call everybody. “What is your problem? “Okay, in what way have I offended you? “Okay, please forgive me” “Yes, let us work together” See what Tinubu did immediately, after the APC National Convention. He went round everybody. See what Atiku did. He went round everybody, except Wike that is still at loggerhead. But that is even a different thing.
Do you see this happening in Kwara APC?
Of course yes, I have told you that everyone that has moved out is from the APC. You need to bring back people. If you have to sink your pride and stoop to conquer, why don’t you, in the overall interest of the party and the state? Then, the people on the other side too. If because of the party you say okay, I had made up my mind not to work with the governor, but in the interest of the party, I will sink my pride. Or say “Oh, the governor has injured my feeling- as some people did after the primary election- people like Senator Suleiman Ajadi- see what they were saying about the governor. Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe, see what they were saying. Such people may not want to come back, because of what they have said. But in the interest of the party, whatever you have said is politics. If you are approached, please come back. Let the people too, learn to say “we are sorry, we will take care of everything” They should be ready to come back, ditto with all other people. As I have said, don’t say anybody should go away empty-handed. You have to have something to offer. “Ok please come. You did not get this, we will get you that- whether before or after the election there should be some kind of horse-trading.
Do you see this happening under the present dispensation?
I have told you that nothing is impossible. It’s a matter of just creating an enabling environment. All these people that are moving out of APC, if the right type of approach comes from the national body, they will answer the call. It is not impossible to reconcile. But again, as I said, it depends on the sincerity of purpose. If you want to play on peoples’ intelligence, no, but if there is sincere- demonstrated sincerity of purpose, we can reconcile. Who says we cannot reconcile? You see, they say, to err is human, to forgive is divine. Yes, anybody can make mistake. Just admit and say “I am sorry. We have made mistakes. We have hurt your feelings”- whether from the people leaving or from the people driving people away. So, there must be a meeting point- you shift ground from here to there. Only an umpire can do that and, the umpire in this situation now is the National Leader of the party.
What would be your reaction to the Muslim-Muslim presidential candidacy of the APC given the so much noise it has generated across spectrums?
To me, the ordinary Nigerian, the average Nigerian does not care about the religion of any political leader. It is the leaders who want positions that are blowing up these things.
Go to Ipata market, or any market out there and talk about religion, it does not mean anything to that market woman. Go to Jumat mosque where artisans stay every morning and talk about religion to them. They will not talk about religion. They will tell you: that things are too costly; expensive; that the cost of living is too high. “We want a leader that will solve these problems. See how much they are selling a cup of garri, a kilogram of rice and so on. We are hungry" That is what they will say. Nobody will ask you whether you are talking about Christianity or Islam. But the leaders, for their own selfish interests, they want a Muslim or Christian president, why? What has that got to do with the cost of food in the market? What has that got to do with the rate of unemployment, what has religion got to do with that?
What we seem to see are the so-called religionists. Is it the politicians that are using this against each other now?
That is politics. It is the parties. They are whipping up sentiments; emotions. Now, talking of Muslim-Muslim ticket. We have had a situation in Nigeria where the first Mayor of Enugu Municipal Council was a Fulani man, Umar Altine. Enugu people voted for him to be mayor. They knew he was a Muslim. They know that he was a Fulani man. Margret Ekpo was an Efik woman. She represented Aba in the heart of Ibo land in the Eastern House of Assembly for years. They did not ask about her tribe. The people of Lagos voted Zik into the Western Region House of Assembly in the 50s. He was an Ibo man. They voted for him. They did not care about whether he was Ibo or he was that. You see, our leaders have brought all these sentiments for their own selfish interests. What Nigeria needs is not whether he is a Christian or Muslim, it is who is going to ameliorate the hardships of the people. That is what the ordinary Nigerian is concerned about. The elite may be talking about whatever they want for their own interests. If they are going to appoint a Christian vice president, is he going to be the job seeker that they will go and appoint or the market woman? The elite who want to be the vice president and the president are the people who are whipping up this sentiment. Let me ask you, what can the Christians point at as the advantages they got as a result of Osinbajo being Vice-President for the past seven years now? What particular advantage have the Christians in Nigeria gained from that? What particular thing will they lose if the Vice-President were not or is not a Christian? What did the Muslims lose when Jonathan was the President? What in particular has the Muslims gained because Buhari has been the president? What are they telling me? If you tell me what the Christians gained because Jonathan was president, tell me what the Muslims have gained because Buhari is president; tell me what the Christians lost because the Vice President to Jonathan, Sambo was a Muslim; what did the Christians lose? What did the Muslims gain by that? As far as I am concerned these things are irrelevant and as far as the ordinary Nigerian is concerned.
There are fears over insecurity, in fact, that 2023 elections may not hold.
You are talking of elections and that the insecurity will not allow elections to hold in 2023. Will insecurity allow us to live? Why are you talking of elections? We have to be alive before we go for elections, are you sure we can be alive till then? Nobody is safe now in Nigeria. Nobody can say okay, from here to your office, you will be safe. They can attack you anywhere, anytime.
Are there solutions to what we are passing through, then?
Solution? Anyway, I will be historical. They say a stitch in time saves nine. If you leave undone what you should do when it should be done, it becomes more difficult to do it; it will cost more afterwards. This crisis should have been nipped in the bud long before now. Positive steps should have been taken. The insecurity crisis did not start now. It started in fact, from the time of Jonathan, if we are talking of this Boko Haram thing. It should have been nipped in the bud. There had been insecurity challenges before Jonathan too. It almost started during the time of Obasanjo, through Yar Adua. The then government of the day took drastic steps to nip them in the bud. Sometimes you take painful actions to deal with certain drastic situations. When the Boko Haram insurgency started, the action that was expected to deal with the situation was not taken so, they kept growing. Now they are all over. Kidnapping is everywhere in Nigeria today. It is happening here in Kwara. It is happening in so many places even in Ilorin here now. Over the news this morning I heard that the wife of one of the musicians in Ilorin was kidnapped in her house at 2:00 am at Okolowo here in Ilorin! It was on the radio news report. You know kidnapping used to be on the road, now they have taken kidnapping to our homestead and you are talking of election. Are you sure you will be alive by that time? So, the question they should be asking is: will we be alive by 2023 to go for elections with the way things are now? The question should not be, will the elections hold? No. Are we ourselves going to be alive? That is the question we should be asking, not will elections hold. If you are not alive, will you vote?
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