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AD Unity Convention
fallout: Akinfenwa has lost out
A major challenge facing the Chief Bisi Akande-led new
National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) is how to
integrate the Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa camp into the party. But immediate
past governor of Oyo State, Alhaji Lam Adesina in this interview with newsmen at
Onikan Stadium, Lagos venue of the recent party convention dismisses the
Akinfenwa faction as insignificant. Deputy Political Editor, THOMAS IMONIKHE
covered the session. Excerpts:
WHY is it
difficult for you former governors of Ad to unite and resolve the party’s
protracted crisis?
Out of five of us who are ex-governors
only one person belongs to the Akinfenwa group while the remaining are with the
Akande camp. Is it not the majority that usually carry the day in a majority?
The Akinfenwa camp is an insignificant group. I can say that they don’t exist.
In December, last year my people in Oyo State made them exist. But now that
commonsense has dictated to us that we should have a new convention, that is why
we are all here today.
But Akinfenwa is a spoiler, he is behaving
like the woman who appeared before King Solomon in the Holy Bible. He had a case
before him, two women fighting over the maternity of a child. The King delivered
a judgement, saying alright let us cut a child into two, you take half, the
other take half, the owner said no, instead of doing that let the other woman
take the child away. He is behaving like the first woman because I don’t see any
reason why Akinfenwa at his age\, he is over 73 years now, should say you want
to divide the Alliance for Democracy (AD). I am not going to disclose names, I
know as a matter of fact some people who don’t want AD to do well. I told
Akinfenwa that last December in Abuja, we AD members in Oyo State supported you
and we are still going to support you if you come to this unity convention and I
will canvass for votes for you to win this election but because of these same
external forces, he refused to come.
Are you saying that there is an external
influence on Akinfenwa not to cooperate with your group for a peaceful
resolution of the crisis?
Yes. Akinfenwa and his Afenifere
Elders Group, they are being propelled by an outside political force, some of
them look at 2007 while others look at pecuniary reasons. That is why no matter
what you say, the Akure mafia or what you call them, they will never
agree. Already you will find that some of these people, these elders in
Afenifere have gone to another party before, the Progressive Action Congress
(PAC). One of them is Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu, a man I used to respect for his
tenacity of purpose. But he contested for Lagos State governorship under PAC,
and he was not doing that alone. Some elders of Afenifere excluding Pa
Abraham Adesanya were instrumental to the formation of PAC and PAC existed in
Ogun State as well. So these are the people who want to take us somewhere we
don’t want.
They are aware that we know this but they
are trying to play that game, but the game was up to them. So we told them, you
old men there is no more game here as far as we are concerned. That is just it.
Does it mean there is a coup by the
younger members of AD against the elders of Afenifere?
I am an elderly person.
You are just one person
Chief Bisi Akande is another elderly
person and we are so many here. But let it be a coup against the elders, is a
necessary coup.
It appears that some of these elders are
already struggling with old age, they don’t really know what they want again in
life. Ironically, however as old as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was, he was
still mentally alert until he died but some of these old people you are talking
about are senile, quote me.
Are you saying that there is no more
meeting point between the members of AD and elders of Afenifere?
We own Afenifere. Those people who
put themselves together in Akure on August 17, this year, they are not the
owners of Afenifere.
But Chief Reuben Fasoranti, who chaired
the Akure meeting where a decision by the organisation to support the Senator
Mojisola Akinfenwa group is the acting leader of Afenifere. Isn’t he?
What of myself? Is he older than me in
Afenifere? I am one of the founders of Afenifere and Chief
Fasoranti was not. So the fact that he is acting leader does not mean anything,
he is being misled by a group of people and very soon he will see the light
honestly, he is not a man that should be misled just like that. There are people
who have hidden agenda in Afenifere and those of us who have been there
know them. I have been in politics since my student days , that is in the 1960s.
In partisan politics, only a few of them can claim to be my senior. So I know
them inside out. They want to play a dangerous game and that is the game they
have been playing even when Chief Awolowo was alive. You will recall that this
same Afenifere pitched tent against us, the AD governors, they were
calling us names and when the PDP rigged the elections last year, they were
saying that it was because we didn’t do well in our states. They did the same
thing to the late Chief Bola Ige (SAN) when he was governor of old Oyo State,
they did the same thing to Alhaji Lateef Jakande when he was governor of Lagos
State, they did the same thing to the late Chief Bisi Onabanjo when he was
governor of Ogun State.
In fact, one of them testified against
Onabanjo in the military Tribune and that was why Onabanjo was convicted and
sent to prison.
Is your presence here the spirit of Awoism?
For us, it is in the spirit of Awoism but
to them we don’t know what they will say. I say that because I have been
contesting elections and winning but these people you are talking about, many of
them have not been contesting elections at all not to talk of winning. So you
cannot say these people are Awoists. Awolowo contested and won elections. Chief
Ige contested and won elections, Pa Michael Ajasin also contested and won. Chief
Olusegun Osoba has been contesting and winning but these people who put
themselves together and say that they are leaders of Afenifere, have not
contested any election.
Chief Adesanya contested and won a
senatorial seat in Ogun State, isn’t?
I say leave Pa Adesanya out, he is the
only one we respect, he is our only father.
When you know this all along why did you
campaign with the slogan: Afenifere is AD and AD is Afenifere during the last
general elections. Why did AD allow itself to be used by Afenifere?
Get this right. Afenifere was
founded before the AD. Afenifere was founded right in the house of late
Chief Ige in 1992. Thereafter we took Afenifere to Owo, Ondo State, to Pa
Ajasin for him to take over, that is the genesis. Before Pa Ajasin left the
stage we elected Senator Abraham Adesanya to be his deputy, so when Pa Ajasin
passed an we elected Pa Adesanya to succeed him. We combined forces in
Afenifere and the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) to fight the
military led by the late Gen. Sani Abacha. On the strength of Afenifere,
we founded the AD in Yoruba land. That was how Afenifere became part and
parcel of AD. We are one and the same thing in Yoruba land, that is why we are
saving we are Afenifere. But a stage was reached when Afenifere
wanted to overstep its bounds by saying this is what the AD in Nigeria should
be. We told them Afenifere members then no, you can’t do that.
You can only impose Afenifere on
the AD in Yoruba land, no more, no less because a number of political
associations formed the AD. One of them was Afenifere, another was the
Eastern Mandate Union (EMU) of Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, another one was the Kano
Progressives of Alhaji Abdulkadir Dayabo, about seven groups in all formed the
AD. So Afenifere cannot claim to be the sole proprietor of AD.
What is the way forward for the party?
With this unity convention, there is no
longer any division in AD, Akinfenwa is my friend, he as lost control completely
in Yoruba land. Even if he comes to this stadium (Onikan) today, Wednesday,
September 29, nobody will vote for him. You know we Yoruba are a very serious
minded people and we don’t want traitors. We have found in Akinfenwa some
treacherous tendencies and therefore we Yoruba should not work with him, he has
lost control.
Can you highlight some of these
treacherous tendencies?
He has links with our political opponents.
Nigeria is 44-year-old as an independent
nation. How will you assess the journey so far?
What are we celebrating? We are
celebrating hunger in the land, we are celebrating poverty in the land, we are
celebrating squalor in the land. Are we celebrating the huge foreign debts of
Nigeria? We are celebrating the hike in petrol prices? Are we celebrating the 80
per cent unemployment in Nigeria? Are we celebrating the dearth of public
utilities? What are we celebrating?
What is the way forward for us as a
nation?
There will never be 2007 unless there is a
Sovereign National Conference (SNC).
Who is going to convene it?
President Olusegun Obasanjo let him do
that, if he does that his name will never be forgotten in the annals of
Nigeria’s history.
But opponents of SNC contend that the
conference could lead to break up of the country. How would you react to that?
Who is saying that? Nigeria did not split
during the colonial days even when delegates from a certain part of the country
walked out of the constitutional conference saying they don’t want to belong to
Nigeria again. They were brought back and we became one again. We fought a civil
war and after the war we become one indivisible entity. How can Nigeria break
up?
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