In this interview with ADELEKE ADESANYA, the Chairman of the Osun State chapter of the Social Democratic Party, Chief Ademola Ishola, says the Party will not give preferential treatment to a former deputy governor of the state, Senator Iyiola Omisore, ahead of the coming primaries that will produce the party’s candidate in the coming governorship election. According to him, Omisore’s personality should decide his fate with voters. Excerpts:
Ahead of the Osun State governorship election later this year, how prepared is the SDP?
SDP is not a new party in Nigeria. You know it is a party that M.K.O Abiola used to win massively in the country in 1993, although he was not given his mandate.
It is the party that some of the governors used. For instance, in Osun State, it was the party that brought in the late Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke as governor, way back in 1991. We are still very strong and we appear as the third force to the two giant parties in Nigeria, namely, the PDP and the APC.
This is because, people are completely disappointed by the two parties and they wish for a third party, which they have now got in the SDP, because of the record it had in the past. So due to that, everyday, people are joining the train of the SDP. People are joining the SDP because they know definitely that it is the party that can deliver us from the sinking ship that we are boarding, especially in Osun State. We are going to have our election by September 22 and we believe we are spread all over the whole local government areas, the wards and the units, and we are fully prepared.
We are expecting each of them to go for the primaries; anybody that the party chooses will be the candidate of the party. Whoever emerges at the primaries is welcome. But I want people to also know that Omisore is a veteran politician in Osun State
What do you think are the major failures of the current administration in Osun State that your party is out to fix?
Maybe you heard me in the past complain about the mess the APC government has put our people into, in Osun State. I have said it that, any government that has not been able to pay the salary of the workers is not worth it. If it were in America, they would have declared a state of emergency and a fresh election would have been conducted. I have said it that President Muhammadu Buhari should come and declare a state of emergency, so that we have a another fresh election, so that any party that the people want will take over the affairs of the state, but they did not do anything.
But one thing is that, a lot of things went wrong in the system of Osun, as the salary thing is just one among the various self-inflicted problems affecting the state.
If SDP wins the election, the number one thing we will fix is the salaries of the workers, which is very important to us. We will make sure we pay the salaries of the workers regularly. And we are looking at some things to do, because Osun State has sunk deeply into debts. Even in 30 years, we will not be out of paying debt, so we are looking at how we will be able to raise the money internally to support the allocation that will be released from the federation accounts. We have the opportunity, human and material resources to do all those things. On agriculture, we have scheduled a lot of ways and plans to generate very good income from it, but we will not be able to expose it now so that other parties will not hijack our plans.
In addition, we believe that the road that Aregbesola constructed in Osun is good; it’s part of development. But why can’t he think of industries, so that the young people will be able to work and benefit in terms of employment? As for the roads, between now and four, five years, they will be getting bad. So, let’s just assume that we have very good roads with people not having jobs to do; who will ply the road? So, we have a lot of things to do in Osun. You see our young people suffering and the old people are suffering too. Our markets are dull and everything is at a standstill. For now, there is no sign of progress in the state. We have a very good plan for our people in Osun and that is why we are looking for the best of the best candidates. Every one of them will go for the primary election, even if we have the same team. We will make it competitive and whoever emerges winner becomes our governorship candidate. In SDP, there is nothing like imposition whatsoever.
You can see that Buhari’s government has disappointed the whole country. His promise to end Boko Haram insurgency is far from being fulfilled. Instead, we have been having additional problems from kidnappers and armed robbers. Nobody is free, nobody is enjoying the country’s acclaimed freedom
Senator Iyiola Omisore recently defected to your party and people believe his personality will overwhelm the party leadership into giving him an automatic governorship ticket.
Omisore is just like any other aspirant. We will still welcome more people if they want to defect to our party, and we don’t have any aspirant in mind here, because we believe that all of them will go for the primaries. Omisore, as I said, is just like any other aspirant campaigning to be governor. We are expecting each of them to go for the primaries; anybody that the party chooses will be the candidate of the party. Whoever emerges at the primaries is welcome. But I want people to also know that Omisore is a veteran politician in Osun State. He has traversed every facet of politics in this state.
How about the issue of political image in respect of the fact that he had once been detained and tried over the murder of Chief Bola Ige, but was eventually set free?
Whether his image will be affected or not on any allegation is for the electorates to decide. People will talk about the image of the individual, you understand. I, personally, cannot say that this is the image of Omisore or other aspirants in the party for now. So it is the people, when they go to the field, that will define that; because, in our own election system, things are quite different. We are not using delegates; we are using something like Option A4. For now, we have so many aspirants in the party; so when they decide at the primary that this is our own choice, we don’t have any other choice than to accept whoever they vote to be their candidate.
Reports said Omisore is the party’s favourite candidate. How true is this?
I cannot say that this is the particular aspirant we have in mind. It is not part of our policy or Constitution as of now. We have done one or two things in which people just decided to vote for the person they wanted. That is the person they decided should be their candidate and so be it. We did it recently for the person that emerged as the candidate in Ekiti State.
At the national level, it appears the ruling APC has scored a big mark with the honour given to the late Chief MKO Abiola. MKO contested under your party during his era. What is your take on this?
When we are talking about the party, Abiola contested under the SDP umbrella and so, we are proud of the honour done him as it also, by implication, extends to us. But the ideal thing is that we should have been adequately represented on the occasion. We are not going to fight about it because we are taking the Federal Government away from the APC next year. When we get there, we will correct all the other anomalies and SDP will continue to respect the day, June 12, for Abiola and for the party.
Some Nigerians are desperate to see the country restructured and your party said it would do it when it takes over power. Don’t you think APC is about to restructure the country to score another mark?
No party can restructure this country, except the SDP. A National Conference was held, involving all stakeholders in the Nigerian project, in 2014. But Instead of Buhari to implement this, he just put it aside and pretends as if it does not exist. And that showed that APC does not have restructuring in their agenda. But people should not worry; we will do it when we get to power in 2019.
People have said that the country under APC is faced with numerous problems, starting from insecurity to economic crunch. What, in your view, is the way out?
When we are looking at the situation and our country as well, we will see that Buhari does not understand governance, and for this, the APC government has failed the country woefully. Look at the people being killed here and there, every day in the country. Is he sleeping? Hardship is everywhere. You can see that Buhari’s government has disappointed the whole country. His promise to end Boko Haram insurgency is far from being fulfilled. Instead, we have been having additional problems from kidnappers and armed robbers. Nobody is free; nobody is enjoying the country’s acclaimed freedom. Look at Chief Olu Falae, our national chairman, he was kidnapped some years ago and nothing was done about it; look at it. The Fulani are killing people. We are the ones that accepted these people and what we are getting in re-payment are deadly attacks and destruction of our farmlands. Everyone is now in bondage; not just one region alone, every other region. More states are complaining. This shows danger, and if it continues like that, we may not be able to cope. So let us pray that SDP emerges as the winner of the next presidential election.
