Former Governor of Ekiti State, Segun Oni, who is also a governorship aspirant in the 2022 guber election in the state, has said in spite of the crisis currently rocking his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it can still dislodge the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the government house. He spoke with Gboyega Alaka about his aspiration and sundry other political issues.
WHAT are your chances in the guber election this year in Ekiti State?
I don’t like talking about myself. My chances are with the people because the inspiration for me to come out to contest is based on what people have been saying and what they said they would do. Based on that, I leave my chances in the hands of the people.
What is your relationship with the former governor, Ayo Fayose and Senator Abiodun Olujimi?
Well, I think my relationship with both of them is okay. I don’t have any personal issue against either of them. However, it is normal that in a situation like this, every individual is entitled to his or her preferences. So, if either of them has any other preference other than Segun Oni, then I will have to take it against him or her. But, our relationship, I will say, is normal.
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The PDP needs unity among its members to win the election; do you see that unity in the party?
When you go to a battle like this, you don’t talk about unity because this is politics; it is about preferences, individual choices and so on. People will do what they want to do if it is so important for them to do it. But, what is most important, if I am to advise any political party or group, is your choice of who becomes your flag bearer. Once you have a flag bearer that commands respect and a majority following, you have done it. If you are looking for a situation where you will get absolute unity and zero dissension, it will never happen. Even where there are no issues, some people will go behind to take inducement from the opponents, except there is no other political party opposing you on the field.
You’ve been governor before. What are you going to do differently if the people give you their mandate this time around?
I want to say that if my past regime was described by people as filled with errors, then we should be looking forward to doing things differently. From the feedback I am getting from people, they didn’t consider us as error-filled, though we were not perfect. So, just as we will be thinking of what to change, we will also be thinking of what to continue. So, it is a combination of that; not just about what we are going to do differently. What are we going to do exactly the same way? What are we going to improve upon and what are we going to do differently? Yes, there are things to do in each of those categories but we are here and when the time comes, they will see us.
Let’s look at the issue of security in the country sir; how do you see the security situation in the country today? Are you satisfied with it?
Security is zero. Eight years ago, a part of Nigeria failed and was under the control of Boko Haram Terrorists. Some of us were so furious and sad because we believed it should not be. Unfortunately now, virtually the whole of Nigeria has failed. We were the people who went round the country campaigning for Buhari, beating our chest and saying that the Boko Haram rubbish cannot happen if he were there. This is because at that time, we were still remembering that we knew a General, who as the GOC, 3rd Division of the Nigeria army, pursued the Chadian rebels who crossed the border into Nigeria. The troops under his command pursued the rebels beyond the borders and still continued to pursue them to the extent that we heard it took the intervention of the United Nations Secretary General talking with President Shehu Shagari to call back his commander. We believe that that is the way it should be; that is the Nigerian spirit. That is the proud Nigerian spirit that we believe we all still have; not the Nigerian spirit where Boko Haram was hoisting flags everywhere. And we thought that the man we were bringing onboard had the record and was a soldier all his life and that he was going to ruthlessly deal with the situation.
Talking about testing it at the booth, if the PDP gives you the ticket, how do you intend to confront the ruling party?
Those who run the government of the day will always control security but they do it for all of us to prevent anarchy in the land. So, we are not begrudging them for that. But, people will always be people and the rational instinct to defend what you consider your interest is in everybody. And if anybody believes that once you have a policeman hold a gun and shoot into the air at the polling unit where the interest that the policeman is defending is far outnumbered by the people watching, maybe six to one or more, then the policeman will be taking too much risk. Because he may fire some shots, all it takes is for one pellet or stone to land on his head and before he turns to find out where it is coming from he may begin to receive a barrage, and how many people will he shoot? If there is an unpopular position, it is not in the interest of security personnel to take it because if you take sides with an unpopular situation where the unpopular situation is by far outnumbered, you are risking your life. And people will defend what is vital to them. People are hungry and angry and they will vent their anger as a result of hunger on whoever that wants to act as oppressor. So, I hope the delicate situation will be clearly understood by whoever is trying to send such a misfit. If I were in a position to advise, I would say let this election go the way it should go; leave people with their problems. Don’t let them vent their unnecessary anger on messengers that are not the real cause of their ill luck. We are not afraid. This will probably test another hypothesis that people have an elastic limit. In the life of the Israelites in Egypt, they had been going through the horrors of oppressions until the people agreed with their leader that they wouldn’t take that any more. Initially, they told Moses that they preferred to die in Egypt and that they didn’t even need him, but when they could no longer fathom it, of course, they stood up. There will always be an end, and it can be triggered. Let us hope that some people, by what they come to do, when trying to defend an unpopular candidate, will not throw petrol into the fire that is trying to rage, which we are hoping that God will not allow to rage in Nigeria. You think if anybody had tried to rig elections in Anambra, the people would have folded their arms and said rig on because you have the police? By now, we would have been seeing something else. It is when you are not yet at the elastic limit that you will say let us not go head to head against such an institution. Every institution will be put to the test. The people will be ready. Somebody who can hardly feed himself; you have devalued his life because when you devalue the currency to a quarter of what it was, and devalue his financial life to a quarter of what it was; you have even devalued his own real life by much more than that. You are now saying he should be clapping for you, you will hear the clap.
Are you impressed with the state of the nation? If you are not, what do you think is the way forward?
Well, I will say that I am not impressed. The naira is exchanging for nearly N600 to a dollar now and less than eight years ago, it was about a quarter of that. So, if our currency has been devalued to a quarter of what it was eight years ago, it means our lives have been devalued. We must not deceive ourselves. This is about us; it is about our persons and future. They have devalued us. Can I be happ y with that? Can I say that the government has done well? No, the government has not done well at all.
The ruling APC is planning to continue in power after 2023. What are your thoughts on that?
Nigerians should tell them. They haven’t said it yet but they will say it with their votes. If anybody believes that a government that has devalued us to a quarter of what we were before it came into power is doing well, it is left to that person. That person may be happy being a quarter of what he or she used to be, but some of us are not happy with it and we will continue to say it. There are no two ways of looking at it. We will go and test it at the booth.
Do you think Governor Fayemi is leaving good legacies behind?
Every man has his derivative understanding of what is going on and what he wants to do to affect it. What I think I might do to affect a situation may be different from what Gov Fayemi thinks. If he takes over from me and he is not doing what I was doing, it means that as far as he is concerned that is not the most important thing to affect the direction of things. But, if he now has an opportunity of going back, I am sure some of what he felt different then, might now be different from the way he is carrying on with things because he probably has had people talk to say, look, this thing that you did not do was not right. I am not taking it as an offence that anybody is not seeing things the way I saw them or carrying on the way I wanted. I gave school children eggs and chocolate tea but some people didn’t see it as a right thing. They even went to the extent of saying that we made incisions on the eggs and plates but I believe that with the benefit of hindsight, some of them would have seen that they were wrong. It is not me that will judge them; it is the society that they were supposed to serve and posterity. Posterity would have said a few things that they will now think about and believe that they were probably wrong. So, if there is anything I did and somebody continues with it, fine. If they ask for my advice in the process of the continuation, I will give it because I want it to succeed. I don’t see any reason I should worry myself because I was doing a project and somebody didn’t see it as a right thing.