By Emmanuel Onwusoro.
Professionally A Medical Doctor, but Ventured Into Politics To Contribute His Quota To The Good Of His State, Ekiti, And Nigeria At Large. A Chieftain Of The People’s Democratic Party,PDP, In Ekiti State. A Fmr. Chairman,House Committee On Information, Ekiti State House Of Assembly,EKHA,Between 2015 And 2019. Dr Samuel Omotoso In This Interview X-rays The Goings-On In His Party,PDP. The Last Gubernatorial Election And The 2023 General Elections.
How do you see the June 18 governorship election in Ekiti State?
Well, there is nothing much to say; the election has come and it has gone. And those who won are celebrating, those who lost are licking their wounds. But it’s unfortunate that PDP has to end up the way it ended and it was purely due to leadership failure on the part of former governor Ayodele Fayose and that’s why we are here.
Your party lost the governorship election in Ekiti but won in Osun State. What would you say contributed to the outcomes?
Yes, if you heard my last statement, I said we lost in Ekiti State due to leadership failure and they won in Osun State due to active leadership that understands what to do and what not to do. In politics, it’s all about winning and losing and it is in different phases. You first have to do the politicking; that is preceding the primary election, then you go to the primary election itself and after that, you prepare for the general elections. At each of these stages, there are lots of details, nitty-gritty and intricacies happening in all the stages and that might lead to quarrel, disapproval, disagreement, discontentment and when there is a good leadership; all these have to be handled properly, delicately, and we call it reconciliation and that was what they were able to do in Osun State. We didn’t do that in Ekiti State because Dr. Ayodele Fayose believed that he could do it alone. Politics is a game of numbers, if one of the numbers is an insane person as long as they can thumbprint and add it to your number, if you have extra, that means you have won but in this case, Dr. Ayodele Fayose didn’t care about all these. If you are angry, he will say you can go; if you are discontented, he will say he doesn’t care, and that was what he did for a long time during the planning stage for our election in Ekiti State. And because of that, everybody said to your tents oh! Israel and during the election, people did not participate and we lost. But in Osun State, you could see all the leadership of the party. They were all there. On good authority, I heard they spent about six hours trying to reconcile His Excellency, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the former governor of the state who was not in good terms with the governor-elect. They didn’t say he should go to hell. They went to his house, sat with him even when it was not easy; they were there. Even when it took so long, they didn’t go, they were not discouraged because they knew that no single man is a champion. You can’t single-handedly deliver as a politician. And at the end of the day around 1:00am, they finished the reconciliation; they were able to get him into the fold. And they all participated in the election, and the effect of that was what you saw in the victory.
Some have it that the choice of the governorship candidate largely contributed to the victory of your party in the Osun election and also contributed to your party’s failure in Ekiti. Do you subscribe to this?
Yes! I have always said it that politics is one, political parties are the others, but particularly, the candidate matters. Whosoever is the candidate of any political party is of serious importance. So, the candidate can either make or mar the success of any political party at the poll. We have seen it all over the place. If you choose an unpopular candidate, you are likely to lose because the candidate on his own must be able to gather enough votes by his name, by his pedigree, by his antecedent. But especially when you are struggling with an incumbent governor, if you want to defeat an incumbent governor, you can’t bring a neophyte, you must bring a candidate that has a name, that is an household name, that his own name can generate about 35 per cent of the votes on his own without campaigning to anyone.
All is currently not well with your party in Ekiti, especially with the recent emergence of two factional leaders, what do you say to this?
I always correct people; we don’t have two factional leaders in Ekiti State. We have only one leader, and the Chairman of the party is Deji Ogunsakin. And the reason is not far-fetched. There is a procedure for things to take their course, either in politics or in the corporate world. And that is why every political party, every organization has procedures, rules, constitutions. We had a vacancy in the party, we have filled it up, and the State Executive Council(SEC) of the party has appointed Deji Ogunsakin as the Chairman of the party. And it went through due process. There is a section in the PDP constitution, section 47(6) that states that where there is a vacancy in any office of the party, the zone where that vacancy exists, where the person that occupies it last comes from, shall nominate another person to complete the tenure of the person leaving. Hon.Bisi Kolawole left the party and resigned as the chairman on September 23rd, 2021 and he is from the Central Senatorial District. And the SEC asked for nomination from that place, and there were a lot of SEC people that were eligible to vote and nominate somebody, 16 of them. Twelve of them voted, signed and nominated Deji Ogunsakin which was approved by SEC. And that’s it, that’s why any other person claiming that he’s the chairman, that’s an exercise in futility. He’s somebody that’s acting ultra vires, he cannot actually stand because you can’t put something on nothing. Nothing can come from nothing. If they had not gone through the laid down process, then a chairman cannot emerge.
What can you say to the recent romance of your ex-principal, former governor Ayodele Fayose with the All Progressives Congress (APC) with regards to the 2023 election?
It’s unfortunate that you even have to describe him as my ex-principal. But actually, he is because when you give somebody everything, and they are full of ingratitude, then the next thing to do is to find a way out and move away. It is very clear to everybody in this country the way I served Ayodele Fayose meritoriously, diligently, with dedication, determination and devotion. Even sometimes to the detriment of my own life, risking those of my family as well, exposing myself politically, people telling me why are you so loyal to this man and it is not about Fayose alone, it’s about me, I am always loyal like that. Ask my friends in school, they will tell you that the only thing I value is loyalty and I will give it to everybody that I have anything to do with; that was why I gave it to Ayodele Fayose. Anywhere I find myself, I will be completely committed but it’s unfortunate that he does not value loyalty. As I said before, you cannot give what you don’t have. If somebody doesn’t have decency, he cannot give decency, so that was what led to our disagreement and I have moved on.
Let’s go back to the governorship election, it was obvious that Ayodele Fayose abandoned your party in the last election, any comment here?
Yes, it is not the first time that he will be abandoning the party. He’s not just doing it for the first time. He has been abandoning the party and he did it again in the last election and it is not new to all of us in Ekiti State. When greed and selfishness are the drive of anyone, the overall group interest will not matter to them. The problem with Mr Fayose is that the overall group interest is none of his business and if you don’t have the group’s interest at heart, that means you can’t be a good leader; that is why he has failed as a leader and he has failed woefully. He has sincerely neglected the party since the last election and he’s not bothered and he won’t be bothered going by his antecedent and when we are now struggling to pick up the party from the ruins that Mr Ayodele Fayose and Mrs Olujimi drove it into, they are still struggling to still be the same driver to drive the already damaged vehicle which was damaged by them in the first instance. That’s why we are saying no, no, and it’s a serious no. There is no way we will allow them to drive the party again. We have seen what their best can fetch us, 67000 votes. If we go into any election today again with Mr Ayodele Fayose and Senator Olujimi, we can’t get 67000 votes; we will get less, maybe like 18000 votes because after that loss, a lot of people that were still with them became seriously disenchanted and they have vowed never to participate in what they are the ones championing. Therefore, we have seen their best and they cannot continue like that. So, as it is, he abandoned the party as I said but we that have the interest of the party at heart, we are here now to revive the party, raise it up and by the special grace of God, the party will be resurrected.
