I WAS NEVER A MEMBER OF APC

Bamidele
Opeyemi who hails from  Irepodun Ifelodun local government, is the 
house representative member representing Ekiti Central Constituency II  in
the federal house of representatives on the platform of the now rested ACN
which along side ANPP and CPC metamorphosed into APC. He recently decamped to
Labour Party to pursue his dream of running for the governorship position after
APC leadership  showed him  A red card by openly endorsing the
incumbent Governor, Kayode Fayemi for another term. He blames the lack of
internal democracy in his party for his exit.

Let me begin by clarifying for the record that my former party was the Action
Congress of Nigeria-ACN and I never really registered as a member of the APC.
And as we speak today Monday 9th December 2013 no one as of yet in the South
West zone can claim to have registered as a member of the APC. I understand
that registration of members will commence soon. So the reason I have said all
of this is just for me to be able to make this point that I did not as a matter
of fact defect or cross carpet. I was a member of the ACN committed without any
doubt in soul, body and spirit to the party and by God’s grace I also made my
own little contribution to the party even right from its commencement as the
Alliance for Democracy-AD to its metamorphosis via AC to ACN. I also served not
just as a member but as the National Director of Publicity of the party for
almost three years. So, I have contributed my own little quota to the
development of the party. Also to the glory of God I also contributed my own
quota to the sustenance and development of the party in Ekiti State especially
during the seven and a half year period when the party was not the ruling party
in Ekiti and the party stood the risk of going into extinction because it was
abandoned by those who had been in government in Ekiti and those who were in
government at the time. I am talking of the period between May 29, 2003 up
until October 16 , 2010 when Dr. Kayode Fayemi assumed office as governor and
the party came back as a ruling party in the state. Thanks to our leaders in
ACN who in their wisdom felt the need to discontinue the party as it were in
anticipation of merging into a new party now known as the APC, ultimately
surrendered their certificate to INEC. I was elected into parliament under the
platform of the ACN and as of today there is no ACN. So all I have simply done
along with my associates is not to register as a member of the newly registered
APC. Rather we have chosen to proceed to join the Labour Party (LP).

It was essentially automatic for all members of  the ACN,
CPC and ANPP  to become members of  the newly formed APC.  How
is your story different from the rest because your earlier reponse doesn’t
exactly tell  the reasons you took the decision to exit
To begin with every politics is local. You have mentioned CPC and ANPP. Time
will tell as to the numbers of CPC and ANPP members in Ekiti that are actually
going to be joining the APC, even though at the national level that is the
theory and the consensus. I know that there are many of them heading to the
Labour Party like I am doing. The truth is that anyone who knows me well will
know that I am not given to frivolities and when it comes to loyalty, I can be
as loyal as loyalty gets. However my loyalty is always to a cause and I would
remain consistent in that regard. If I am loyal to a cause and in the course of
me being loyal to a cause, certain people discover me to be a reliable ally and
draw me close then that is another thing. This has been the underlying factor
in my relationship with several notable people in this country right from my
earliest days and foundation years as a student activist and leader in this
country. These are individuals who would not hang out with just anyone and
these people didn’t just pick me up from the streets to say ‘Opeyemi come and
be their junior friend’. It was my commitment and loyalty to that cause that
defined our relationship. It is in that light that I would talk of people like
Chief Gani Fawehinmi-of blessed memory, Alao Aka-Bashorun-of blessed memory,
Kanmbi Shola Osobu-of blessed memory, Mokugu Okoye and many more people like Dr
Edwin Madunagu, Dr Festus Iyayi-of blessed memory, Prof Olorode, many other
people. So the reason I mentioned so many of these names is to say that my
commitment, to certain ideals have always been a defining factor, same for
members of the younger generation with whom I had also organised at the level
of student movement. When I also went into conventional politics I can also
cite examples of people like Dr, Fredrick Fasheun, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
and Prof. Babalola Borishade and many more too many to mention. Again to make
the point it was not because I was found on the streets. For example Asiwaju
Bola Ahmed Tinubu discovered me as an aspirant for the House of Reps when he
was running for the Senate in 1991. Since then he decided to draw me close to
himself as a young man who was committed to certain ideals and loyal to a cause
which he found promising and I would forever celebrate him as a mentor and a
benefactor. As far as I am concerned if my commitment to a certain cause or set
of ideals is to be consistent, it then means that there must be a point that I
might have to disagree with certain individuals.

At what point did you decide not to proceed with the new party;
was it after the endorsement of Kayode Fayemi by the ACN leader then Bola Ahmed
Tinubu?
It was at the point that it became obvious to me that the party was not going
to allow internal democracy within the context of allowing a free and fair
primary election which was all I asked for. And I don’t think I was asking for
too much. You know it was a struggle that had been on for over a year. It
started since October of 2012 and I made my position very clear and while the
national leadership of the party was still trying to resolve the issue the
governor quickly moved to dissolve all the ward and local government executives
of the party in the state. Then all the members of the ward and the local
government excos. And I said ‘wait a minute. We were in the trenches together.
We were elected as party officials at a validly constituted ward congress and
local government congress in each of our constituencies. And it did not only
take place in Ekiti it took place throughout the country under the supervision
of the national leadership of the party. And we were elected for four years. So
if our mandate has been renewed for four years, you cannot-two years down the
line, come and arbitrarily dissolve us’. He did not only dissolve them he also
handpicked his own cronies to take over as ward excos and local government
excos. People now said again, ‘wait a minute’; in every civilized democracy
around the world it is the party that will put people in government. It is not
the government that will come and start distributing party positions just
because the governor felt that the party structure as it were was loyal to me
and more supportive of the fact that there must be primaries. And even if there
were primaries anyway the people that will vote will be the members of the ward
exco and the local government exco. This wasn’t just an affront to me because
it wasn’t just a personal thing but the sense of indignation that I naturally
have towards such practices and behaviour also caused me to react in protest.
It is not just about me. I mean part of the implications of what he did was
that in the past one year if you call a ward meeting of the party in Ekiti,
there would be two meetings at every point that a ward meeting is called. There
would be a meeting by those handpicked as the governor’s excos, while there
would be another meeting with majority of the party members presided by those
who were elected by a every card carrying member of the party as ward exco or
local government but dissolved by the governor who were unfortunately no longer
recognized. So it was the governor himself that factionalized the party. Most
of the time when people started talking about Fayemi faction and Opeyemi
faction, it was the governor himself that balkanised the party. Where did the
national leadership come in? Of course we protested this issue and those who
were affected wrote petitions and the national leadership of the party said we
should maintain status quo ante that they would resolve the issue but in the
mean time the governor should re-instate all local government and ward excos
that had been dissolved arbitrarily because he had no right to do that in the
first place as the constitution of the party clearly states that it will take
another ward and local government congress throughout the country to actually
change ward exco. Now this went on for eleven months and the governor did not
do anything and three times we were told that he was invited to Lagos and was
told.
Then I called Asiwaju and he made it clear to me that the instruction that the
national leadership of the party gave was that they should go and re-instate
the ward exco and that in any case they were coming back to address the issue
of whether or not we would hold our primaries; and that was disobeyed
flagrantly.

If  Tinubu did not actually endorse the governor for a
second term don’t you think he would have come out to deny it?

As far as I am concerned party affairs are not managed on the pages of
newspapers. If Asiwaju was in a meeting that was held in an auditorium -Jibowu
Hall- with at least 200 party stalwarts in attendance and the press reported
something the next day and many of the people who were seated in the hall
themselves called Asiwaju to say ‘this is what we are saying about Governor
Fayemi. Go and read the papers today and see the way he and his aides twisted
the family discussion we had yesterday. This is rubbish’. Not less than half of
the people in that hall called Asiwaju that day. I spoke with many of the party
leaders. Governor Fayemi was smart enough because he encouraged his aides to do
that but he didn’t actually open his mouth to say yes Asiwaju endorsed him.

For the record, having spoken to Tinubu did he deny endorsing
Fayemi?
Let me make it very clear. I spoke with Asiwaju and  didn’t have to deny
anything. He simply told me what he said. Chief Bisi Akande simply told me what
he said. The point at which I actually began to have issues wasn’t about when
they came to Ekiti. It was when both Governor Fayemi and Otunba Niyi Adebayo
kept addressing rallies. The governor addressed five different rallies within
five weeks at the stadium. After that he embarked on a tour, purportedly a
budget tour which he says is a November ritual for him. Now Governor Fashola
presented his own budget over a month ago in Lagos State. Some other states
have presented their budget. A governor that has been in office for three years
will want us to believe that he needed to take one month off and do a tour
everyday to be able to know what to put in the budget. You can tell that to the
marines. Obviously it was a campaign rally and this was coming at a time after
I had gone to do a major declaration and to launch our own political platform
the Ektit  Bibere Coalition. The governor through his aides now exhibited
what I would call leadership complex by not even pretending to be democratic
enough to allow us hold our program. From 5am in the morning they had put
hoodlums on the streets to block all the roads leading to Ado Ekiti to prevent
us from going in to hold this program. Eventually they used the police. It
became apparent to the national hierarchy of police that what the Ekiti State
Police Command did was a lot of embarrassment to the Nigerian Police Force. The
way the Ekiti people reacted to this including the members of the Nigerian
public and the international community was part of what motivated the governor
to take a month off going round Ekiti to defend himself. But as far as I am
concerned he has not achieved anything in that regard.

Don’t You that the purported endorsement of Governor Fayemi by
Tinubu actually tallies with the trend and culture of the ACN which many people
have been critical of and in fact may even be true based on that and his lack
of denial?

Well. I would put it this way. The leadership of the party did not pretend that
they were not going to allow primaries to hold and I am saying this to set the
record straight. Asiwaju never told me he endorsed anybody. There is a
different between saying that I have endorsed and there would be no primaries.
If you say that there would be no primaries I take that more seriously because
it means that even if you have not endorsed it means that you will eventually
endorse. What I quarrelled with was the lie that Fayemi had been endorsed for a
second term by the national leadership of the party not only Asiwaju. I knew it
was a lie. Otunba Niyi Adebayo who is like the state leader of the party in
Ekiti or one of the state leaders anyway because we also have Evangelist
Bamidele Olumilu who also is a former governor and one of the most senior
member of the party and without doubt should actually be referred to as the
leader of the party in Ekiti State. But Otunba Niyi Adebayo had invited people
to his house on Sunday December 30th 2012 for what he described as end of the
year party. People came and while the party was rounding off and he was seeing
the governor to his car there were journalists waiting at the door and of
course they interviewed both the governor and  Adebayo. Otunba said to
everyone that today the governor has been endorsed for a second term. So 
Adebayo didn’t pretend about where he stood. To me what he said could not be
taken that the national leadership of the party had spoken. More so when
practically everyone at that gathering expressed surprise at what he said
because he invited us to his house to come and eat and drink for an end of year
party. It wasn’t a congress or anything so how could he end up telling the
journalist and everyone there that the governor had been endorsed. So it was
obvious to everybody there that Otunba Niyi Adebayo was on his own, even though
they were not going to say anything because most of them there were all
government appointees. That was what intensified this crisis. I had to react
the next day to say what Otunba said was a mere expression of his opinion to
which he was entitled. Of course the governor followed up with purported and
organized endorsements by government appointees in each of the local
governments. What this mean is that he will get the commissioner who is from a
particular local government along with the chairman of the caretaker committee
who he appointed to also announce that he had been endorsed by that local
government. In doing this they kept infuriating the Ekiti people, because we
are talking about December 2012, which was two years two months into this
administration. And this so called campaign for re-election started from the
day we held the one year anniversary of the governor in office.

If  you were in Governor Fayemi’s shoes would you not have
been interested in a second  term from the go?
I would have been realistically interested and what that means is that I would
not just assume in theory that it is an automatic thing. I would think of two
things. One, for me to get a second term it should be performance driven. So I
would want a situation where my achievements would speak for me in the true
sense of it not by way of propaganda. Secondly I would also be realistically
interested to the extent that I would think that it is not a right to be
bestowed on me without any challenger. In that wise I would know that being
interested that there is the other possibility of other people being interested
and if I have done well enough as a governor being in office for four years and
if I have related well enough with the hierarchy of the party and members I
should have no reason to fear that I would come out tops in the event of any primaries.

Realistically do you think if  you were to run in a primary
election against the incumbent do  you think  you could defeat him?

My answer is yes.

What gives you that confidence?

Well to begin with I was a party man. What I mean by this? I ran for a
senatorial position in 2010 for the primaries of the party. To the glory of God
and appreciation of people of Ekiti State I won the primaries. These primaries
were held less than three months after governor Fayemi came into office. He was
sworn in on October 16 2010 and our primaries were held on January 10 2011. It
was beyond disputation and at the end of the day what did I get? They gave that
ticket to Babafemi Ojodu. Everyone in the party spoke with me to compromise on
what was rightfully mine and that we cannot afford to rock this boat. I made it
very clear to them that it was not the right thing to do and they should not
assume that I will always be the good boy of the party. I knew that if they had
done the same thing to Ojodu he would not even stay in the party for one second
longer he would have gone. But he came and picked up the membership of the
party to run for senate and collected the ticket.

But  you  later benefitted  from what  you
now complain about…….

They now offered me the ticket for House of Representatives candidacy of the
party which I rejected from the beginning not because I was looking down on any
democratic institution but because I never ran for House of Reps.  I ran
for the Senate and I won. For the ticket that was been offered to me there were
four other people that contested the primaries for that ticket and those people
see me as a leader and everyone in the party tried to put pressure and appeal
to me. The governor at the time even said that each of the four of them would
be given appointments and they were going to ensure that they recouped whatever
they spent on their campaign. The truth of the matter is that till today none
of those four people were given anything and the four of them are with me in
this whole crisis. It put me in a serious dilemma. On one side here was the
party saying that if I refuse that obviously Ojodu will lose as senatorial
candidate of the party because people were angry and they needed me to appeal
to everybody. The question for me was to what extent did I want to go and it
was also partly out of commitment to Fayemi. I said to myself then that this is
someone I see as a friend and a brother and to what extent would I say I would
allow this boat to be rocked and his first election in charge of the state he
would lose by not being able to deliver the senatorial seat to the party.

In
accepting this, I made it clear to everybody that they were putting me in a
moral crisis which I still suffer from as I sit here with you. That I ended up
in the House of Representatives where I did not contest for any primary
election. In any case I also saw myself as a campaign manager and the records
are there. The two months I spent wasn’t campaigning for House of Reps election
for myself I didn’t need it. I was there begging the people not to vote against
Ojodu. I was more of Ojodu’s campaign manager. Ask anyone including your
correspondent in Ekiti at the time. He would tell you that I put Babafemi Ojodu
in my jeep opened the sun roof and the two of us were there with the broom in
our hands and we went through the senatorial district. The same Ojodu will
grant interviews today and has never conceded that he got such help from me and
that he won the primaries which I find even more annoying.

If
anyone is in doubt whether or not I was acceptable to the people of Ekiti, let
him go into the INEC records they will find out that I did not lose elections
in any of the polling units. So it wasn’t just about wining it was that to the
glory of God people demonstrated their appreciation and their love for me.
Where Ojodu was losing and Fayose was wining, I won convincingly including in
Femi Ojodu’s ward, where Ojodu himself lost in four polling units. I had 47,
000 votes in only two local governments. The senatorial election of Babafemi
Ojodu was in five local governments and he had 52, 000 votes and I had 47, 000
from only 2 local governments and these are facts. The reason I am saying all
this is that if anybody thinks that I am losing my head today or that I am mad
people can see from my point of view for once and see that there is logic in
the so called madness and I have reason to say that I am tired of this. And
rather than stay in the same boat with Fayemi and Ojodu in the APC and end up
fighting and quarreling all through which is not in my character, I feel it is
better for me to be elsewhere. So it is not about the national leadership of
the party. Yes APC might be a progressive party but the truth about it is that
the leadership of the party in Ekiti state has been hijacked by pseudo
democrats and reactionary elements and I cannot stay in the same boat with them
so it is better for me to move on. I decided to move to the Labour Party.

There are those who say that you have committed political
suicide by moving away from the APC and into. What is your reaction to this?

To begin with I want to say that people are entitled to their opinions. There
are as many opinions as there are people. It will delimit my own democratic
potentials if I say I take personal offence. What I just think is tragic about
the whole thing is the context in which many of these people are writing and
expressing their opinions. I have read a good number of them and it is obvious
to me that most of them don’t even understand our issues in Ekiti State. Some
of the people who have written on the issue as columnists are known media
consultants to Governor Fayemi. Also the truth about it is Otunba Niyi Adebayo
knows better than he has said. Otunba cannot say I am desperate because he
knows that I am not desperate. If he says I am desperate then good luck to him.
Otunba Niyi Adebayo has his own reason for fighting me politically and it is
nothing personal. There is no personal acrimony between Otunba Adeniyi and I.
He is also a very ambitious person and I give it to him. How you would know
that I am not desperate or speaking out of the blues about his political
ambition and rope anything around him is that I would declare to you today that
Otunba Adeniyi has the ambition to be Vice President of Nigeria. He believes
whatever arrangement may come out this may favour him to that extent. He was
going around Ekiti state in 2010-2011 campaigning against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed
Tinubu and telling everybody Asiwaju was interested in being vice presidential
candidate to General Buhari and he felt that they were not going to allow a
Muslim-Muslim ticket and he felt being the Christian and a former governor that
he was the most suitable person for that position. I was one of the people
trying as much as possible to reverse the damaging campaign that he was running
against Asiwaju and the leadership of the party. So Otunba particularly sees me
as a threat because we are from the same town. So he feels if I get elected as
governor in 2014 that would be detrimental to his own ambition. So a lot the
things that Otunba is doing is not out of love for Fayemi or APC but out his
political calculations to achieve his own ends which is understandable and I
would not quarrel with him for that. I also must make it very clear that I
found Otunba’s statement that I made the greatest mistake of political career
by defecting to Labour Party as an unfair statement and it was made in bad
faith. Again for all those who are writing and trying to give me names. Some of
them have said that I am an Akintola. Some of them have said that I am trying
to be an Omoboriowo but the same writers Sam Omatseye, Dapo Thomas are the same
people who are celebrating the admission of the likes of Ibrahim Tofa into APC.

Are you still on speaking terms with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

I know you want a yes or no answer. But my own answer is that I always draw a
demarcation between personal relationship and my political affiliations. There
are two different things and there is no reason why one should affect the
other.

In reacting to the issue of support, governor Fayemi mentioned
the need of psychiatric evaluation for making such claims. how would you react
to that?

Let me put it this way.  I don’t know if that statement is deserving of a
reaction from me. But if I have to say something, I would just say that came to
me as a surprise because when I first saw the promo in the media on Friday
saying that there was an explosive interview coming out and they put the
headline of what governor Fayemi was supposed to have said about me. I kept
telling my friends that I didn’t believe governor Fayemi would say that and
maybe it was just a caption that editor chose and my friends said why would any
editor choose such a caption? So we waited to see the article on Saturday. I
got a copy and read through the body of the article to see the context in which
he made that remark and I found out that yes he actually said it. To my mind
that shows who Governor Fayemi really is. Even as an individual he would not
mind using any language, I expect as a sitting governor he would not use such
street language. Secondly the issue for me is that do I want to react or
respond in the same manner? For three reasons I would not. One is that he is a
governor and to the extent that I respect the position that he occupies I would
not use any word to denigrate his office or his person. The second reason I
would not also respond in his parlance is the fact that I also believe in
relationships and I don’t lose my head when it comes to keeping relationships.