Sina Kawonise, a professional in politics, is a former Commissioner for Information in Ogun State is a founding member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the former lecturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, and seasoned journalist, in this interview with KUNLE ODEREMI, sheds light on the task before the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), the Obasanjo factor; Ogun politics and the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration in the last three years. Excerpts:

THERE is still huge suspense weeks after the emergence of the CUPP. Is the idea of the opposition parties forging the alliance not coming too late, given the fact that the general election is just seven months away?

On the question of coming too late, if you look at what they are set to achieve, I don’t think it is too late. If you are talking of the type of merger that produced APC, it will certainly be too late. But CUPP is not a merger; it is an alliance of the existing political parties that have decided to work together for the purpose of the 2019 elections. I think it is a positive development for the Nigerian democracy, because what most observers have noted is that the Nigerian opposition has been a little bit weak in terms of providing credible  and robust opposition to the ruling party, and that is without prejudice to whatever the performance of the ruling party may be. The opposition has not been really very vibrant in terms of vigorously opposing the ruling party. Whatever negative perception that people have of APC, as a ruling party, mostly came from their own – what you call ‘own-goal’ – in terms of what they did to themselves; not the things that the opposition really brought against them; a self-inflicted problem that reduced APC in the esteem of Nigerians. So, for the 39 opposition parties to come around at this time is a very positive development for the country, because don’t forget that we have 68 parties, which I think is rather unwieldy in terms of the electoral process. So, if 39 of them are now saying they should come together, I think it is a positive development.

The PDP appears to be the real biggest partner in CUPP, whereas your party, SDP has a longer history of existence. What does it portend for your party in the whole arrangement, since the overall goal is to capture political power in 2019?

Actually, that is the more troubling part of the whole arrangement. PDP, as a party, is not really positive in the estimation of Nigerians, given their misrule for 16 years. It is this misrule that led to their being defeated at the polls in the last election. And PDP hasn’t done anything really significant to convince Nigerians that they have actually changed their way. The last national convention they had was also filled with fraud, with the same vote-buying, corruption, manipulation and imposition, and that is the PDP way. The PDP way is what the APC has learnt, and the APC is doing even worse than them. So, there is still really nothing to convince Nigerians that PDP has changed, and that is the more troubling aspect of this alliance. The hope that someone like me has is that maybe the alliance will be able to produce a credible candidate that conscientious Nigerians can support. Beyond all these oldies, all these familiar faces that have been part of the problem of Nigeria. Nigerians know all of them; I don’t want to start mentioning names, all these former these, former that, that are still angling to become the presidential candidate of the PDP are a problem. If you are forming an alliance to tackle the ruling party, we must be able to see that you want to present something that is new; something that is different from what we have seen in the past, because the popular perception is that APC is 70 per cent PDP; all the leading lights of the APC, 70 per cent of them were in the PDP. Now, the Reformed-APC, still coming out to join the alliance, they are PDP elements; don’t forget that they were members of the old nPDP. So really, Nigerians have not seen anything different except one of the parties in the alliance produces a presidential candidate that would be perceived by Nigerians as being a new face and representing a credible alternative. Or in the alternative, PDP produces the presidential candidate that is not among those that are just showing faces now, not among these so-called frontliners because I don’t see anyone to choose from them as a credible alternative to (President Muhammadu) Buhari. That is what the alliance needs to address. I’m not saying everyone in PDP is bad; the world is not like that; you have good people; you have bad people. The bad people may even be in the minority, but because of the resources they control, it would appear as if they are the predominant there. It may not be so, therefore, if PDP as, of course, the biggest party in the alliance, is the one to produce the candidate, they would have to look at the untainted candidate; a completely new face, not all of these former this, former that, who are saying they want to become the president of this country. I don’t see Nigerians buying into that kind of candidate, no matter the pains Nigerians are going through at the moment.

Then, what kind of arrangement and power sharing formula do you expect in CUPP preparatory to the election if it must achieve the primary objective of forming government next year? 

I had a lengthy discussion with the national chairman of the SDP, Chief Olu Falae, who happens to be the chairman of the alliance. This is how he explained it: whichever party that produces the presidential candidate, that candidate will run on the platform of that party. If, for instance, the candidate they are going to use emerges from PDP, that candidate will run on the PDP; if it is from SDP, he will run on the SDP. All other parties in the alliance will direct their people to vote for that candidate, as it happened in 1999. When I raised the issue with Chief Falae that, in 1999, you were a member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD); the AD/APP (All Peoples Party) agreed that you should be the presidential candidate with your running mate coming from APP, you ended running on the platform of APP. He said that arrangement was adopted for strategic reasons. I’m quoting him; he said that was for strategic reason because of the higher level of education in the Southern part of the country than in the North, in the sense that if being AD candidate, he had run on AD, it would have been more difficult to educate northern voters to say ‘yes, this man is running on AD, but he is the candidate of the alliance.’ So, the APP supporters, who controlled the northern base voting population at that time, would have had a bit of challenge in educating them because of the lower level of education in the North. So, it would be easier for the people in the South to say ‘yes, this is our candidate, but he is running on APP, so that the people of the South, especially in the South-West would still vote for APP.’ That was exactly what happened. But now, the situation would be different, in the sense that all the parties have support base across the nation, so, the issue of say because you have predominant support base in a particular section of the country may not really arise. Therefore, the candidate that emerges from a party will run on that party; that was the explanation that Chief Falae gave me.

Many Nigerians are increasingly becoming skeptical about promises usually made by politicians when elections are around the corner. What is the special thing, the unique thing CUPP is bringing to the table that is different from what Nigerians have been offered since 1999, first by PDP and currently, APC?

What the alliance is bringing to the table that is different. It is restructuring, pure and simple! Buhari and the APC government have shown that they are not committed to restructuring. Buhari said he had put the report of the National Conference of 2014 on the shelf to be gathering dust. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) they signed is that all of us that signed it are committed to the fundamental restructuring of Nigeria. So, that is what they are bringing to the table that is different from that of APC.

The major concern of the ordinary man today is how to survive under a suffocating economic climate, so the issue of restructuring might sound academic, if not esoteric to him. To what extent do you believe the restructuring agenda will jell among the majority of voters, to make them realise that they are bound to benefit more under a restructured Nigeria, as they are bogged down by the challenges of food, shelter and weak purchasing power?

But even if we are looking at it from the issue of food and shelter, the APC has failed. When you look at the unemployment figure, even from the government-owned body, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), we know that in the last three years of this government about five million Nigerians have lost their jobs, apart from the ones that were already unemployed. And the government with all its efforts: N-Power has provided temporary jobs for just about 300,000 people, when a teeming number of Nigerians had lost their jobs. Inflation is at an all-time high; even the latest statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that poverty is spreading, yet we said we are out of recession. We have a population growth rate of 2.5 per cent per annum, which is very conservative. The economy, even if it is expanding marginally, cannot cope with the high rate of population growth. That again is a matter of poverty. So, if in terms of dividends of democracy; in terms of bread and butter for our people, APC has failed in a very obvious manner. There is no question about that. Infrastructure, they have added only very little. The only project they have commissioned is the Kaduna-Abuja railway; the project that was about 95 per cent completed before Dr Goodluck Jonathan left office as president. Even the Abuja light rail project was almost 75 per cent completed before Jonathan left. So, they do not have anything that they can show and say, ‘this is what we have done.’ Whatever gain they are claiming to have made in terms of agriculture is being eroded by herdsmen killings all over the place. The World Food Organisation has even warned of imminent famine in Nigeria because of so many farmers in Benue and Taraba states which constitute the food basket of the country have not been able to go their farms because of killings all over the country. So, there is really nothing that you can say that the APC has achieved and that is even on the matter of bread and butter.

Let us go back to the issue of restructuring; that can people really appreciate it? You would be surprised by the level of awareness that our people have concerning what we are losing because of the lopsidedness of this federation. For instance, the state police they are talking about now, it has been part of the restructuring agenda for a long time. Maybe, the National Assembly and the state Houses of assembly will approve it because they must be involved in the amendment of the Constitution, and Buhari may still not sign it. So, the issue of restructuring is ingrained in our people; in their sub-consciousness, that restructuring is in fact the way to go if we are really going to have a credible and enduring development in Nigeria. if you talk about restructuring in the South-East, South-South, the Middle Belt, people know what it entails and the inherent benefits. If you talk about resource control, people know, and no group of people talks about restructuring more than the people of the Middle Belt, who are suffering from the lopsidedness of the federation. So, it is a veritable election matter.

You want to be the next governor of Ogun State, but the opinion in certain quarters is that you would have been on a good stead if you have not settled for a very weak structure, when SDP is compared to the structures of PDP or APC in Ogun State. What justification do you have for choosing SDP?

Let me tell you that APC is dead in Ogun State because of the monumental failure of the present state administration. Just on Friday, some videos went viral on the social media. There was massive flooding in the state capital, Abeokuta, where the governor had concentrated even the road expansion project he has done because he did the expansion without touching the inner roads of the community. Abeokuta, where he has executed 80 per cent of his road projects, became flooded.  There is no way APC would provide a candidate that would win, either in Ogun East or Ogun West, not to even talk of Ogun Central. So, APC is totally weak and weakened by the monumental failure of Governor Amosun. Let’s come to PDP. Apart from the odium that people have for the party, in Ogun State, it is especially very bad. The PDP is divided into at least five factions in the state, as we speak. One faction belongs to (Senator Buruji) Kashamu. And when you look at it from the legal point of view, it is recognised by INEC, and by the court, as we speak.  Another faction of PDP in the state belongs to Ladi Adebutu who also wants to be governor. Accord Party in Ogun State led by Doyin Okupe, there is no Accord Party in Ogun State; it is still part of the PDP that is inside the Accord Party that is calling itself Accord Party. The ADC, where Gboyega Nasir Isiaka (GNI) who has contested twice to be governor, wants to contest now, is still part of that PDP. It is a splinter group from the PDP.  Whether you are talking of GNI, the Tunde Alabi group, they are all part of the old PDP in Ogun State. There is also another faction led by Dimeji Bankole (ADP). It is still part of that PDP because all these people are not bringing new people into their different structures; it is still the same old PDP that has failed to win elections since 2007. When they were together they didn’t win. Is it now that they are divided into five or more factions that they are going to win? Forget all the noise that you keep hearing. The man on the street in Ogun State does not want to hear either PDP or APC because they have failed in the state, and that is why we are expressing reservations that if it is still same old people, we will not even be able to campaign for the CUPP alliance in Ogun State. Tell me, what are we going to use to campaign for PDP if it is the party that is producing the same old faces or one of the old faces? We would find it difficult to campaign for even the alliance that my party belongs to. The good thing about it is that all these things they are talking are basically about the national level.

What exactly do you mean?

What I mean is that the alliance they are talking about is basically to produce a presidential candidate. The national chairman told me that states that can come together will do so, I’m quoting him. Let me make it abundantly clear that people don’t want to hear about PDP and APC in Ogun State; we are on ground; we are are the ones doing the walk; we are meeting people, holding consultations. People that we have not even reached call us that they are tired of APC and PDP and their splinter groups.

Don’t you think that the influence of Obasanjo could overshadow your ambition, and that he could hijack and influence the process, given his antecedents in the PDP as the de facto leader while in the party?

Number one, with due respect to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, that he exercises influence nationally is not in doubt. He has considerable influence nationally and internationally. But in terms of Ogun politics, Obasanjo has vowed not to get his hands dirty with local politics. And I think the 2011 experience taught Baba some lessons. Remember he brought out Gen. (Tunji) Olurin. He came out to campaign and he also asked his private sector ‘boys’ to support in terms of funding. But Olurin nevertheless failed. OBJ, our own Baba, is not only a national figure, he’s the father of all in Ogun State, and I know that he would not want to reduce himself by getting too much involved in Ogun politics.  But, the fact remains that Baba hasn’t developed any potent structure in Ogun State that can win election.

But Obasanjo has footsoldiers that walk the talk to deliver the good?

Those foot soldiers are different from what we call structures; to have structures statewide: at the level of local government; at the level of polling units, Obasanjo has not developed that. I’m saying I have been a major player in Ogun politics from 2010. I have been involved in two major elections. So, I know exactly what I am talking about. He has played a crucial role in the formation of the alliance. But beyond that he and part of the restructuring argument is that Obasanjo was part of the problem because while he was there, he refused to do the needful in terms of restructuring. Don’t forget what he did to Lagos State like seizing the local government federal allocations to Lagos State.  Obasanjo re-consolidated the lopsidedness of the nation and made even the Federal Government more powerful under him than he inherited. So, that is the perception in the South-West in particular.

On the issue of hijacking the machinery of the process, he is not in a position to do that. When you say alliance, Chief Falae is the chairman of the alliance. He would not allow that to happen. How is he going to hijack it? If he produces the presidential candidate of the party he supports, he would now impose it on other parties? No, it would have to be by persuasion; by consensus. I will give you an example, Afenifere that I belong to was desirous of getting all other candidates in the governorship election in Ekiti State to come together and form an alliance opposed to APC in that state. They set up a committee; they tried; spoke to all the candidates, but it didn’t work. So the fact that they are mentioning the current alliance doesn’t mean that at the end of the day, it is going to work because let me also tell you a technical point. Each party in the alliance is going to produce its own presidential candidate first and foremost, who will pass through the normal process, including party primaries. That was what Chief Olu Falae explained to me and I support that it makes sense. For instance if Professor Jerry Gana wants to be president; John Dara too, and more will still come. So, each of them will go through SDP primary to produce one candidate. PDP will do its own; ADC will do its own. All the minor parties in the alliance will do their own and we will now have 39 presidential candidates. Who are we now going to choose? We should know the nature of human beings; so it requires a lot of prayers because when somebody emerges as a candidate, ambition takes over. So, whether it is going to work or not it is still something; a lot of payers; give and take; a lot of horse-trading that will still take place. In that kind of contest, nobody can say this individual will come and hijack the process. How will Obasanjo hijack the process? The very nature and character of that process would not lend itself to be hijacked by anybody, no matter how seemingly powerful.

Sunday Tribune