Niyi Akintola, SAN is a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress and leading Nigerian lawyer. In this interview with AKINWALE ABOLUWADE, he ascribes the crises rocking the major political parties in the country to pervasive injustice in the system. A former Deputy Speaker in the Oyo State House of Assembly, Akintola said that against the initial practice where political parties were supreme in politics, they have been hijacked by moneybags, thereby breeding strife and division. He canvasses the restoration of party supremacy in the polity to ensure unhindered delivery of democratic dividends.
The two major political parties in the country are embroiled in crises. What could be responsible?
It is very unfortunate that injustice, the bane of human race, has crept into our political system. And, if there is no justice, there can never be peace. The pastors will get to the church on Sunday and say let us pray for peace. The imams will get to the mosque and say let us pray for peace. They would not say let us pray for justice. If there is no justice, there can be no peace. No amount of grandstanding, until you allow justice to reign, there would be no peace. You cannot allow a set of people to build the party over the years doing everything and you sideline them on the altar of dollars.
In the second Republic, when Akinloye comes in as the chairman of the National Party of Nigeria, President Shagari would get up. It was the party that elected those who would run the affairs of government. After being elected, the president would give the party the opportunity of choosing his ministers. Of course, he would have an input, but he would not be allowed to allocate positions to his cronies. In 1999, former Governor Lam Adesina didn’t sit down at his Felele house to appoint commissioners. The party sat down and first agreed, how many commissioners do we have. We now zoned them. No imposition. At that time, the parties were in charge, not individuals. But they came up with the idea of let’s have technocrats in government and I asked, show me a major political party where you don’t have people from every field of human endeavour within the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party?
When you put people who have no electoral value in authority, they would not know how and when to dispense patronages and that is where the issue of justice comes in. If I had worked so hard to ensure your emergence; only for you to use me and dump me and you think you can have peace, no you can’t. So this is the actual background for the crises being witnessed in the parties currently.
What is your view on the latest intervention by the governors in the APC to salvage the ship of the party from sinking?
I think that the governors are on the right track. I am on the same page with them. They will not sit down and fold their arms; the governors are doing what is expected of them. Most of the people criticising Buni’s leadership have not even read the judgment. They have their own selfish interests to serve. I am not saying all but many of them. Those who lost out in the power game now resort to blackmail, media hypes and what have you. I saw one of them reading what the statement does not contain on the television. Some of them call themselves lawyers but never practiced in their lives. Check the law report and you would not find their names there. So, we don’t take them serious. The governors are on the right path.
In what ways are the leading lawyers in the party intervening to ensure that normalcy returns to the party?
The leading lawyers can only act when they are consulted. It is unprofessional to take up a matter for which you have not been briefed, that is one. Secondly, most of the lawyers, all of us, have interests. We have our tendencies; it depends on which camp or which group you belong. Most of the ideas given are geared towards a particular interest and when you tell them this is the position of the law, they would talk about political solution. Most of the crises we are having in most of the states are engineered by our members mostly from outside the particular state. You begin to ask what is the interest of this fellow? You will now discover that it is probably because he does not want a particular candidate to emerge so that he would not block him. You will find somebody from Akwa Ibom initiating crisis in Delta state or somebody from Ogun instigating crisis elsewhere. What is his interest?
“If I had worked so hard to ensure your emergence; only for you to use me and dump me and you think you can have peace, no you can’t. So this is the actual background for the crises being witnessed in the parties currently
“
You are aspiring to be governor in Oyo State; if voted in, are you saying that you won’t be the ‘leader’ as being done today to achieve your interest?
Look at my antecedent and background. I am a progressive. The party decides; not that the party would have some say but the party would have the say if I become governor in Oyo State. The party would decide. Of course, I have my vision which I would put before the party. So the programme that we would put in place would be the party’s programme not my personal programme. Every member of the party would see the government as our government not my government. Every member of the party should be able to defend the party’s programme, the party policy and position on issues. What do you have now? You have people criticizing the policies of their own government because they were not part of it; they were not carried along. Being a minister does not make you superior to your party chairman.
But the opposite is the case today, which should not be. I was a Deputy Speaker in 1992. I was made to step down as a Speaker even after being elected. The party said, look the governor is from your zone. The Chief Judge is from your zone. You cannot be the Speaker because that would be against our party policy. For your information, the party nominated my Personal Assistant and driver for me. The party leader just brought her. I dare not say no. The party would nominate for you.
When I was given a car loan of N100,000, I had to bring the money to the party secretariat.
I put the money on the table and I was given N40,000 out of it. N60,000 went to the party, I am saying this publicly. And, when we were kicked out by the military after 18months, we were taken to the Eleyele Police Station to come and pay the money or hand over the car. And the party had collected N60,000. At that time, it was the party that would finance your election. What we have now in political parties is cash and carry.
By the time they get to government, some people would sit down somewhere and bring those that they call technocrats who have no idea about governance and who have no connection with grassroots and who contributed nothing to the emergence of the government. He would forget about the party; he has never been a member of the party anyway. He did not know about the party philosophy, how would he know how to empower party members? You expect party members to start clapping for you? No. They would plan your downfall from the start.
Look at our governors from the South-West in the past. They were a product of the patronage of the party. Many of them were beneficiaries of the scholarship awards for the party which party members gave to their fathers. If the government awarded 100 scholarships, 10 percent of it would go to party members who would give it to their children. Their fathers had no money and no mansion but they worked tirelessly for the party. But today, it is about money. Until we go back to the path of our fathers, there would be no peace in the system.
You cannot help somebody to emerge as a governor or as the president and he abandons you expecting to have peace. Those who worked should be the ones to benefit. In the past, if you were suspended by your ward, you would lose your position as minister or commissioner.
In 1992, if you were suspended by your ward nobody would tell you to resign before you do so as a minister or commissioner. In other word, your ward chairman is your boss as a minister or commissioner but the reverse is the case now. There are ministers and commissioners who don’t know their ward chairmen not to talk of their party chairmen in the local governments. In fact, it was more honourable to be a party chieftain than to be a commissioner. Then, the dog was wagging the tail, now the tail is wagging the dog. These days people pay money to become commissioners; they don’t work for the party. You as a party man would just be wondering where did this one come from? I once asked a governor, where did you get this one from? Party leadership should be separate from those in
government.
Those in government must see themselves as representatives of the party in government and must follow the party principles and policies and must not change the party politics. Party members are made up knowledgeable and cerebral people. Some governors would get there and now appoint mediocre and feeding bottle commissioners who would kneel down before talking to them. We have heard of commissioners that kneel down for the wife of the governor. We have to go back to the path of our fathers.
