Olafemi: The Future is Bleak for Kogi APC
Chief Clarence Olafemi, a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress was Speaker, Kogi State House of Assembly and once acted as governor of the state. In this recent interview with journalists, he spoke on the political crisis rocking the state and other
Two days after returning back to the country recently, a meeting of APC stakeholders was held in your house, what the meeting was all about? Actually, while I was abroad, I received a lot of calls from political associates, complaining vehemently on the state of our party APC in Kogi State, particularly the recently conducted ad hoc delegate congress. The complaint was so tense that I had to beg them to calm down till I return from my journey. I was a member of the Board of Trustees of the party before we were dissolved, but that alone shows that I am an elder in the party that should be respected.
Again, I was a member of the presidential campaign organisation that worked assiduously for the emergence of our President, Muhammadu Buhari. But today issues of congress of the party were conducted without being informed. The usual and normal channel of communication to members of the party is through the structure of the party.
Whether the Congress is mid-term or ad hoc, we were supposed to be informed. Instead, we suddenly read on social media platforms that a delegate congress had taken place in Kogi and even in my own local government and names that were submitted are not known to me. The party stakeholders, who called me on phone, said they were not aware and they were furious the way and manner the national body of the party handled the congress in Kogi State as if it was an attempt to further tear the party apart.
I spoke with the national secretary of the party and from our discussion I think the national body of APC was totally wrong to have arranged the delegate congress. I don’t really know what they stand to gain by their action. If you take a look at the genesis of APC in Kogi State, I carried a lot of burden before the party was accepted by the people of the state. That time, I did not see anybody especially those who are now claiming that they own the party in the state.
It was only the late Prince Abubakar Audu, who came out boldly to uplift the party and eventually became the standard bearer of the party. But I went round the 21 local government areas, canvassing for support and registration of membership. I spent my resources to ensure that the party becomes the bride of the people. But today, some people, who came when the party had recorded success, now hijacked the party and want to push us out by all means. Today, I will not say that I regretted joining the party or spent my resources on the party, but I am not happy that I did all that I have done that time, because I believed that God wanted to use me for a purpose.
So when I returned safely, I quickly called for a meeting before some notable members of the party scattered, though several meetings were held while I was abroad especially in the eastern flank of the state. At the meeting, which was held in my house, the stakeholders presented three salient opinions. The first was that we should wait for the outcome of the reconciliation, may be the governor could change for the better, but some members still believed that they could not trust Governor Bello based on the way and manner he behaves to the genuine members of the party.
And the second opinion said we should embrace a new party and abandon APC for them just the way we did when PDP was misbehaving in the state, so that when they finally push us out of the party by force, we can fall back to the new party and ensure its success at any election in the state.
The third opinion was that since in the last governorship election PDP and APC were neck and neck and the difference was not up to 5 per cent, if we could take only 10 per cent from what constitutes APC and join PDP, we will have a smooth ride during election over APC. This is a fact, because election is an issue of numerical strength and since during election it is those who are in the state that will cast votes, we will be able to achieve our aim, bearing in mind that Kogi State has 21 local governments and once an opposition party can capture 10, the party will certainly be at the top.
Imagine, in my local government area, which is Mopa-Moro, the three people they brought as delegates, one of them is Director General on media to the governor; the second person is also the council administrator, while the third person I don’t even know him. Where were those people when I deployed my resources? I sold my properties to nurture APC in the local government, which became so strong that the party won all positions during the 2015 general election in the state. It was an insult of the highest order that delegate Congress was held and I was not contacted even when I single-handedly brought the party to the local government. But now they want to push me away.
I really don’t know what is wrong with the leadership in the state government and the National. I have occupied this number one position before and I have worked closely with former governors and what is happening now looks strange to me. It is a clear fact that as a governor, everybody cannot be your friend but that does not mean that the governor should start waging war against the owners of the party in the state. I expected him to use his position to make more friends than making enemies and those who are misleading him are not on the ground politically in their various localities.
In short, with the current crises in Kogi APC, the party’s future is between the deep blue sea and the devil, though I am not God but the party is heading toward total collapse if urgent steps are not taken by President Buhari, who is today the national leader of the party. It is a clear fact that the elders of the party whom the governor does not want to see are the people, who have been playing politics in the last twenty years in the state and they enjoyed goodwill from the people they have helped in one way or the other. These are people that are connected to the opinion moulders and in my view, the governor in the last almost two years has not got things right.
Your trip to Abuja afterwards, was it reconciliatory?
Truly, I travelled to Abuja, but not for reconciliation. I went to see Hon. Abiodun Faleke, who is also a factor in Kogi politics. So, when I heard that he called a meeting almost the same period with the one we held in Lokoja, I decided to meet him and his complains was similar to mine. He expressed worries over the behaviour of the national body of the party. It is annoying and painful to say that 95 per cent of people in the government of Kogi State today, who were given jeeps and other expensive cars are the same people that fought us during the election.
It is wrong for anybody either at the presidency or national secretariat of the party to have erroneous belief that those of us complaining about the governor’s behaviour are just giving him headache. That is where the pain, the agony comes in. We unanimously believed and accepted that God put Nebuchadnezzar, but did not ask him to behave the way and manner he did.
The governor is acting Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible. He was brought by God but he went against the wish of God and he got punished by God. It is a fact that we are heading to the river of Babylon and we will sing the real song because we are in captivity in Kogi State and no amount of struggles or talks can make the governor see what we are trying to avoid in the interest of the party.
For four years, I did not enter the Government House during Captain Idris Wada’s era. I am not poor and I don’t beg for contract, but politics is all about recognition and interest even if I don’t get anything in return. I have to say categorically that I am not a push-over in Kogi politics and Senator Dino Melaiye attested to that fact when he attended my mother’s burial sometime ago in Mopa. I don’t give up when it comes to issue of politics.
What is the situation with the APC, both at the state and national level now?
Presently, there are eight APC states completely enmeshed in crises. Kano State that gave the party over two million votes during the presidential election is also in crises. Bauchi, Kaduna and Benue States respectively are in serious crises while Kogi State is leading. It is high time the President took a look at the situation of the party.
It is piteous that the national body of APC that is supposed to intimate the president with the true picture of the crises in the party at states level were even the people causing it, because of lack of sincerity. I am appealing to the president to create time to look into the issue of APC, because 2019 is around the corner. Since party members are complaining he should set aside time to look into their complaints.
Is the issue of marginalisation still on the card?
The national chairman of APC, Chief Oyegun is my friend and cannot claim that he is not aware that I have been complaining of being marginalised as I have laid my complaint to him on several occasions but my complains ended there, because I don’t have link with the so-called cabals at the national level. I am an advocate of peace and my complaint of marginalisation was misunderstood by Governor Yahaya Bello.
My candid complaint was in line with federal appointments, which were made and Kogi western senatorial district was not carried along, but instead of the governor to call me so that I could tell him the details of my complaint, he mistook it as an attack on his government. If my complaints are not genuine, why was it that two weeks after my complaint, the federal government hurriedly balanced the marginalisation with four appointments? What I said was that since we have three senatorial districts, whatever comes should be shared among the districts instead of neglecting one district.
There is an ongoing agitation for a restructuring of Nigeria. Do you share this view?
I have deliberately refused to comment on the issue, but one thing is key here and what I thought we should do at this point in time, is to ask ourselves the type of restructuring we needed. I believed that the type of restructuring we need now is the rearrangement of our political structure in such a way that it will be manageable, because the political expenses on our economy is too high.
We have to also ask ourselves whether we need 109 senators and 360 House of Representative members sitting full time and at the same time having large numbers of aides gulping reasonable percentage of our income, which can be channelled to providing infrastructure that are lacking across the country.
Why can’t we formulate our own form of democracy that will take a bit of the presidential and a bit of parliamentary form of democracy, where members of the legislative arms will also hold ministerial position, thereby reducing the cost of running the government? The restructuring I am looking at is the type that will end the agitation for state creation through the introduction of regional government by having six regions which of course we have already defined by our action, such as North-east, North-west, North-central, South-west, South-south, and South-east.
This will enable the region to set up their security apparatus, but the regions will contribute to the central command and the local government authorities will also contribute to regional police force. This system will be manageable and also very effective. We can also restructure some offices. For instance, the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice can be broken into two. Let one be professional and the other administrative. This is my concept of restructuring.