Chief Sola Ebiseni, a lawyer, rights activists, former Chairman, Ilaje/Ese Odo Local Government, three times Commissioner and delegate to the 2014 National Conference, in an exclusive interview with SunshineReporters at his Akure Law Chamber, has reiterated his desire to once again aim to be the Governor of Ondo State. The PDP Chieftain, among other things, stated that the incumbent administration in Ondo State led by Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu is an aberration imposed on the people of the state by his party’s miscalculations at the last gubernatorial poll.
Below is excerpts from the interview.
Q. It is believed you are one of the longest serving active politician and public servant in Ondo State history, how have you been able to stay this long with the numerous challenges and demands associated with public service?
Ebiseni: Well, I say it is the Grace of God, first for keeping me alive and in sound health. In my University days, both at Nsukka and later Ife, I had shown great interests in politics and leadership both at the campuses levels and the NANS. Upon graduation I did the youth service in Lagos with the Army at Bonny Camp. I also fraternised with great Nigerians notably late Alao Aka-Basorun, the enigmatic and most accomplished President of the Nigerian Bar Association whose Chambers at Ebute-Metta, ironically was the epicenter of anti-military rule, a veritable platform for selfless and people directed activism and an incubator for weaning future leaders. Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti, Dr. Frederick Faseun, founder of the OPC, Professor Akin Oyebode, Dr. Baba Omojola who later donated a big office for my take off as a lawyer, Femi Falana were some of those radical activists whose lives prepared me for life ahead.
Interjected: You didn’t mention Gani Fawehinmi…
Ebiseni: Of course, I met Gani Fawehinmi at a different level, he wasn’t one of the figures, even Beko, that were regular at Aka’s place. The point am making is that I was ideologically cooked for selfless public office service which orientation has been my guide and sustained me this far in addition to the overriding grace of God.
Q. There exist rumours you will be jostling for the Ondo State Governorship position in the next gubernatorial election, how true and why?
Ebiseni: At your level, with due respect, I expect you to be more current. I have once set my hands on the plough in that regards and there is no looking back because it is not for us but for the people, the chief harvesters of our efforts and of course, the creator who appoints this time. In a nutshell, the ONE is still ON and it’s not within the realm of rumours.
Q. But sir, you have not formally declared..
Ebiseni: It is a process and mark you, the election is not tomorrow morning. I believe in due process, the party has not blown the whistle, our leader and presidential candidate and the party are still generally engaged in retrieving, through the judicial process, our mandate freely given to Abubakar Atiku. The party is immediately preoccupied with and expectant of the Osun project. Bayelsa and Kogi elections come up in October, even Edo’s may slightly come before ours. Nonetheless, I am neither a new or reluctant aspirant, neither am I still only consulting but deliberately meeting and engaging critical stakeholders with the maturity that comes with experience.
Q. Your party, PDP, sprung up surprises to win the Presidential election in Ondo State. Days after, it lost the House of Assembly election, what happened?
Ebiseni: You have a way with words. The administration of APC in this state is an aberration which came by undue political assumptions by our party which tended to take the people’s support for granted. Otherwise, it is a victory for APC that would spring surprises not that of the entrenched PDP. What’s the big deal in the surprise win of the APC during the House of Assembly election, did we, in the Labour Party then, not swing similar surprises at the State Assembly elections after we lost the federal elections as the APC was recently trounced, did it make any difference in 2016. Look, Wande, the APC is spent in this state. The strategy for the final onslaught is being throughly diagnosed and being addressed.
Q. How, if I may ask.
Ebiseni: Of course, you may ask and I reserve the right not to answer which right is now being exercised.
Q. Lots of issues transpired during the last Ondo PDP Gubernatorial primary, what are your takes?
Ebiseni: So much water has since passed under the bridge. After the thesis and antithesis, the new synthesis is a united, solid, election- wining and electorate- preferred PDP. We do not brood over the past as individuals and party but marching on, guided by lessons we have learnt. When the hullabaloo was then on, the pacifying slogan was that there was nothing to share in zero but one of our leaders corrected us by saying we should do the right thing otherwise there’s experience to share in zero. If you remember, in spite of my own stance, I still issue statements mobilising people to vote for the PDP. In any human organisation, even at such macro level as the family, the process integration is constant, persistent and continuous.
Q. What is the place of zoning in selecting the candidate of your party?
Ebiseni: Zoning is an unruly horse mounted with diverse implications. Experience has thought me that those who shout zoning most and undo others thereby, are often blind and deaf to the equity of it when bitten by the bug of their own personal ambitions. Secondly, no one who is a contestant himself can be a fair advocate of zoning, for he and his supporters would always have justifications for their positions, that those who mount tribal, kingdom, Local Government or regional wings to power are often bedeviled by them getting to power and that’s why President Buhari, presumed ab initio as a northern irredentist, finds the problems of larger Nigeria intractable. Buhari is the only president, since return to democracy, whose popularity at elections has been restricted to his enclave.
Q. So sir, are you saying there should be no zoning?
Ebiseni: The fact that I don’t want to discuss it does not mean it does not exist. I was a victim of it in my quest for the Senatorial ticket of the party last time, also the party constitution recognises it for equity and that was why the Presidential aspirants of the PDP were all northerners. Only two groups of people may do zoning, the party leadership and the electorate ultimately. The electorate appears infallible and consistent in zoning the office of the Governor and it has nothing with party references. Already, public discourse is agog with. It is not for me, as a contestant, to say zoning or not, that is for the non-aligned leaders (if there are any left). I have come long enough to be to able to win election as governor of this state without appealing to tribal or kingdom sentiments.
Q. In contemporary Ondo State political culture, a new damning trend has reared a ugly head, money politics which is called locally “see and buy”. As a critical stakeholder in Ondo politics coupled with your wealth of experience, can you tell us the damaging effects of this and how it can be curtailed?
Ebiseni: It is a national phenomenon which is not peculiar to Ondo State which perhaps is even little compared with other states It is rooted in poverty which seems to alienate the people from the political process with no hope in the government it may eventually convocate. It is a philosophy of the bird flying with what is presently in its stomach. The damaging effect is that political offices go to the highest bidder, particularly from sources devoid of integrity. I guess it will sort itself out in the political evolutionary processes but as an aspirants, we will have to face it as a reality and prepare for it. We’ll give it what it takes.
Q. A new republic was birthed this month, what are your expectations and hopes, considering there exist a strong case tabled by your party?
Ebiseni: There’s no new republic anywhere but a new term or tenure of office in the same Republic. Every new election does not usher in a new Republic. As a party, as you observed, we are focussed on proving our case to retrieve the mandate of the people freely given to our party and candidate.
The greatest problem confronting the polity is insecurity but unfortunately, the mindset of the President as Commander-in-chief is the albatross the nation has to deal with. For instance, being the patron of Miyetti Allah, an organisation which cause he led to Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo State in 2003, President Buhari today cannot decisively and objectively deal with the deadly menace of militant herdsmen. He continues to reduce the killings and wanton massacre by herdsmen as herdsmen/ farmers clash, but clamped down militarily on armless IPOB activists and designated them terrorists as against international classification of Nigerian herdsmen as the world’s 4th deadliest terrorist organisation.Compare him with Yaradua who granted amnesty to the Niger Delta militants and Obasanjo’s decisive action on OPC notwithstanding ethnic affinity. Nigeria is the only federation in the world but with unitary police system. Governors are mere talkative Chief Security Officers. Recently, they were ambivalent at the suggestion of State Police not because they don’t know its imperative but because the body language of the president is not in favour thereof. Yet the national consensus through the 2014 National Conference, the APC committee led by Governor el-Rufai, the new report of the National Human Rights Commission, the National Assembly is that policing be placed on the concurrent legislative list to allow State and Federal jurisdictions as we have in education and health.
Q. What of the financial implications for states which even find it difficult to pay salaries.
Ebiseni: Who is helping Borno finance over 50,000 members of Civilian JTF and local hunters under arms against Boko Haram. Do you notice that the insurgents fear the ragtag CJTF than even the military where the federal police is completely nowhere to be found. You expect a Yoruba or Ibibio policeman who does not understand Hausa or Kanuri to be relevant in this type of war. Has it ever occurred to you that all those vehicles and even guns and ammunition used by the police are provided by state governments? If policing is on the concurrent list, states that do not want it or has no capacity will rely solely on federal Police. That was the recommendation at CONFAB 2014 of which I was a member.
Q. What’s your assessment of the current administration in Ondo State?
Ebiseni: Oba mewa, Giwa mewa.
Q. The incumbent administration in Ondo State a few weeks ago posted they have increased the Internally Generated Revenue by over 150%, as a member of the last executive council, what would you attribute this development to and how can it be improved?
Ebiseni: To the best of my knowledge, no industries are built since this administration came on board, the per capita income of the populace has grossly reduced under excessive taxation and unconscionable commercialization of education. In contrast, our administration built markets and provided conducive environment for trade and commerce, health care delivery was virtually free allowing for free funds for small scale business investments, fees in our higher institutions were the lowest in the federation, charging the same N30 thousand Naira at Akungba as with Ife or Unilag. I had children in all the three of them. No school fees in our secondary schools apart from the fact that government was paying for NECO. If monetizing these welfarist services thereby raking money for their government to the detriment of the people or taking back from contractors taxes already built therein is what they call increase in IGR, good luck to them.
Q. What is the state of PDP in Ondo State?
Ebiseni: Res ipsa locutor.
Q. What does that mean?
Ebiseni: The fact speaks for itself as we say in the legal profession or what the Yoruba says e wo enu ile, ki e wo enu oko. We are a wining party, the dominant voice of Ondo State now in the National Assembly.
Q. Sir, what is your take on the debate between a core politician and a technocrat as governor of the state.
Ebiseni: Some of us are both. As a lawyer who has also served as Local Government Chairman, Director on the Board of Oluwa Glass Company Ltd, three times Commissioner, Chairman of the State Law Commission, Delegate at the 2014 National Conference, I have acquired experience commensurate with that of a Permanent Secretary in the Public Service and thus a super technocrat and also a politician of no mean standing. We are neither strangers to the intricacies and nuances of the public service which is indispensable to good governance nor are we political novices who will need to be introduced to political actors and critical stakeholders. In the course of service, I also know the people of the state of the ethno diversity of the various Local governments and thus in a better position to allocate resources and interests judiciously.
Q. Your message to Ondo State people.
Ebiseni: I have been on this course and privileged in the diverse experiences given me in the service of the State. I crave the ultimate capacity in the State to serve them well. I am ready to be sent. God bless the Sunshine State.
