Alhaji Adebayo Shittu is a former Minister of Communication and a strong supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration. In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, he speaks on the crisis rocking the APC, the corruption fight and issue of zoning among others matters.
How is the APC currently?
We worked tirelessly to ensure that we build a party which is different from anything that Nigeria has ever known, particularly we wanted a truly progressive party which will do things differently from what those you call conservatives, reactionalists or corrupt politicians. Unfortunately because of poor leadership at the party – both the national level and my state ,Oyo State level – we have series of crisis which are continuing. It’s unfortunate and I feel very sorry and I feel ashamed that we have found it difficult to rarely provide requisite leadership which regards to management of our political party.
Are there corrupt politicians in APC too?
I mean, have there not been our party men who are now serving prison sentences. I think corruption runs across all political parties and l am saying this with all due respect to those who are not corrupt and if I say those who are not corrupt they are in all parties just like the opposite. All exist in all parties .The common denominator is that corrupt people are Nigerians and many people cannot be compartmentalised on the bases of party for them to be discussing corruption. It will be unfair and deceptive to assume that corruption in Nigerian politics does exist independent of political parties
Your zone is trying to bring a replacement for the Deputy National Chairman (South), which is zoned to Ekiti state but there is report that the zone has endorsed the former governor of your state, Senator Abiola Ajimobi. What effect will it have on the party?
Number one, l am not aware of any formula of saying state A deserves this post and state B deserves this. To me it is not about a state it is just about the quality of the person we are putting forward. Remember that in Yoruba land which is South West, we have men of integrity who are many in APC. So, if we will have party we must agree to get the best notwithstanding of the state such a person comes from. Having said that it also means that whoever takes that position must not be somebody who has done more damage to life of our political party and that brings me to the issue of possibility of Ajimobi.
It will make our party a laughing stock. This is somebody who stayed in power as governor for eight years during which he never allowed any Congress to be done on merit of free and fair Democratic selection process and never allowed congresses and primary election to hold in a free, fair Democratic space .So if you have the person coming for a party office, a party which is a progressive party, we must not just be mere claimant to progressivism or to be Democratic, we must really work our talks and practicalize our claims and be progressives. If we have somebody like Ajimobi like I said, who never allow free fair elections for party offices and for candidates to emerge and in eight years organise a funny local government election less than a year to his exit after eight years period.
And for somebody who brought our party to total shame in the sense that it was under him the party lost to the less fancied PDP in Oyo State. I mean for such a person coming in as Deputy National Chairman what impression do we give to the outside world. In any case all the past local government chairman; all the past commissioners, political office holders that he had deliberately and mischievously destroyed their political career, all the civil servant he offended through political shenanigans, all the lecturers and teachers of government institutions, the civil society that he offended are and in what way will his coming be able to assist the process of reconciliation in our party.
You said it doesn’t matter where the Deputy National Chairman comes from and you are also saying you do not believe that the Ekiti people should produce the next Deputy National Chairman?
Well, they are members of our party, therefore they are also entitled to it like any other states. What I am saying is that l don’t know of any zoning arrangement. I only know that the former Deputy National Chairman happens to come from Ekiti. I am not sure he got that position on the basis of any zoning. I want to believe that he got the position at that time on the basis of his own merits and in any case what I believe is important is the fact that for somebody who will represent us, not just Ekiti but the entire South West must have consensus among all branches
Are you saying if Oyo state had produced a Deputy National Chairman before they will not replace that?
Well, what I do believe is that I am not aware of anybody currently from Oyo state who occupies any position within the national leadership of the party aside from the state chairman of the party who by law is automatically a member of the national executive of the party.
You were minister in the first tenure of this administration but you are not there now. How will you look at the whole situation of governance in your party and the administration?
Well, Mr president is certainly doing well. I will continue to support him, I will continue to advocate on the way he handles issues. I don’t have any problems with him. The problem that we have is the management of APC as a national party.Mr president is doing well including security wise and the economy but people are saying that security is nose diving.
Anybody is entitled to his believe what they must appreciate is that we have done much better than the situation was before the president came on board Remember that before Mr president came on board the Boko Haram was completely in control of about 18 local government areas in the North East. Today we do not have the situation we had before Mr president came on board. In those local government areas, there was no sign of national governance – no local government chairmen, no policemen, no soldiers, all of them had been driven out in those places .The situation we have now is that Boko Haram, which I believe is receiving international funding in terms of logistics and order financial support from outside world has been reduced.
You will agree with me that only yesterday in Kaduna more than two hundred and fifty criminals, bandits and extremists, who had been ravaging in Kaduna State were killed. It means that certainly those who had been disturbing the country cannot have any negative impact on the security of the country again. We must be charitable enough to appreciate wonderful and selfless work the military and police are doing in some part of Nigeria where we have been having insurgence of criminality and terrorism.
You are from south-west and l wouldn’t know if your people would agree with you on what the President is doing on security for them to have formed Amotekun?
Look Amotekun is just a recreation of similar things that are already existing in other parts of Nigeria. In the North-east for instance we have the civilian JTF, In Kano, Katina and all other places we have Hisbah and so on. So, what Amotekun is coming to do is to compliment what the federal government is doing and l don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I support fully what Amotekun are intending to do.
You know very well that the Nigeria Police Force for instance which is to handle internal security are less than 400,000 to the population of 200 million. It is easy to say let government recruit more people and train them but government needs much more money which has to compete with so many other things that government has to spend money on. So, there is no conflict between what the federal government is doing through the Armed Forces and the police and what the Amotekun intends to do. They are complimentary of each other.
But the Attorney General and Minister of Justice did not see this the way you are seeing it?
I think the situation has changed. There has been a meeting between the South West governors and the Attorney General with the Vice president and they have agreed on a consensus of what is to be done. The concerns of the federal Attorney General was that no such vehicle should exist without a law backing it and the governors have agreed that they would go back to the drawing board to ensure that they enact appropriate laws to support Amotekun. For now the federal government is not opposed to it but is merely calling attention to the need for an enabling law so that they should spell out the relationship of Amotekun, for instance with the Police. It is not conceivable that any state government would have its own Prison or cells and so on and so forth. So, if Amotekun for instance through its activities arrest a suspect, they must handover such a person to the police. They compliment each other very well.
What you are saying is that other geopolitical zones can go ahead and set up their own security outfits?
As far as l am concerned, l don’t see any conflict once there are sufficient enabling laws to harmonise the activities of all of these governmental and non-governmental security agencies.
One of the things that is occupying your party, APC now is where the presidency would be domiciled on 2023. Some are saying it should come to the South, while some believe it should be retained in the North. What is your take on this?
Honestly, l will speak not as a politician but as a statesman. The whole argument about regionalization or ethnicization of the position of Mr. President to me is a very peuril arguments. I have always asked people when they talk about ethnicity in regards to the presidency, l said did we vote for President Muhammadu Buhari because he comes from Daura or because he comes from the North? No. We knew his quality, his merit and the exigency of what the political situation was in the country. So, as far as l am concerned the next President may be a Yoruba man or he may be whatever, so long as he is the best for the job at hand in taking Nigeria to the next level.
I will say that you have not answered this question. Where do you think the next President should come from?
It is not about where, l am saying it is about the merit of an individual; the competence of that individual, the capabilities of that individual. I mean, l hate a situation where you say this is a Yoruba President because he is not going to be the President of Yoruba people. I hate a situation where they will say this is an Hausa President. Buhari is a Presidrnt not because he comes from Daura, he was elected not because he comes from the North. He was elected because at the time he was nominated by our party, he was the best for the job.
Will an APC Presidential candidate from the South be able to stand a PDP Presidential candidate from the North in 2023?
Let me tell you, we had in this same country few years ago during the late Moshood Abiola Presidential candidacy. He was from the South, a Muslim and interestingly his runningmate was also a Muslim from the North and we had a Northern Presidential candidate whose Vice Presidential candidate was from the South, he was more balanced if you like but Abiola still won. Why, because of his antecedent. So, if you have a candidate from the South who satisfies all the expectations of the Nigerian people he could defeat anybody from any other place. So, as far as l am concerned it is not about where you come from. If you are even my kinsman and you are completely useless to my life, why must l prefer you to perhaps somebody from Igbo land who is believed would be more capable and more acceptable by majority of Nigerians and who is believe to have capacity to take Nigeria to the next level.
Now who do you have in mind?
It is not about who l have in mind it is about who has the capacity and ability to transform Nigeria.
