Obaseki: The People Are Happy But Leaders Are Not – Idahosa

Hon Charles Idahosa was 64 years old on Thursday (September 21, 2017).

Popularly known as Charley Tempo, he is a former Uhunwode Local Government Council Chairman and a commissioner for Information and Orientation in Edo State. Charles Idahosa is a prominent leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the state. He spoke with journalists in Benin City on a number of issues about life and polity.

Happy reading:

At 64, how has it been?
It has been great. I thank God for His mercy. For one to get to 64 in a third world country like this is a big achievement when you consider the average life span. In Nigeria, I think for me, 50, 51, 52, 48, 49, so we thank God. He has been very nice, there has been a long political journey and i am grateful to God to have been able to reach 64 and I am looking forward to 65 and God willing, 70.

There has been agitations for restructuring and IPOB and others are threatening the existence of the nation, what is your take on this?

The truth of the matter is that Nigeria is a country of the absurd. The kind of things that happen in this country especially with you media people, blowing it up and making it very important and making sensationalism out of it. It beats me hollow because there is nothing that is happening in this country that the ordinary eyes cannot see. When I granted an interview to some newspaper houses, I said very soon, corruption will start fighting back. And what you are seeing now is corruption fighting back. All these agitations here and there, they are being sponsored and stage managed to distract the APC federal government led by President Mohammadu Buhari of getting to where he wants to get Nigeria to. The campaign programme of APC and President Mohammadu Buhari was to clear the mess of this country. And of course, the money stolen during the PDP time was so much. The money in the hands of individuals is so much and you do not expect them to just fold their hands at the rate President Mohammadu Buhari is going, looking at his antecedents, looking at his records, he wants to set up special court to be trying corruption, the Senate is battling Magu.
So, they go with all kinds of devices. So what you are seeing, IPOB, secession, where were they since?
So, what you are seeing right now, is corruption fighting back, nothing more, nothing less. It”s just that we are a country of very many unserious people. This thing could have been tackled in a way that nobody would even know that such a thing happened. We made Nnamdi Kanu important. A 36 years old boy who never saw the Civil War! I saw war. I know what war is and I am sure none of you here saw war. When you see war, mother will deny her child, father will be running to different direction while the children will be running to different direction. You people do not know what is called war. So, when children like Kanu and his cohorts started talking rubbish because people are pumping money to them, even people that are supposed to be enlightened. I was reading the papers, the hue and the noise that was surrounding what Allasan said. Madam Taraba said her mind. What was the meaning of that? Why should that one attract any attention? That the woman said Atiku is my man and i will not support Buhari. Is that news? The Vice President, Osinbajo, is he Buhari’s man? Is he not from Tinubu? Is there any minister in the federal cabinet apart from one or two that Buhari picked by himself. How many governors of a state can pick their commissioners? Leaders would bring their representation and the loyalty still goes to that godfather. So, when that woman opened her mouth and said what she said everybody said she should be sacked. A country where you say the truth and you become an enemy is not a country. What madam Taraba said is not different from what Buhari’s wife said about the next election. She said I will not go out to campaign for my husband because my husband does not know up to about 40 percent of the ministers and the people in the presidency today. My husband started taking people who were sitting in their sitting rooms and making them ministers where people who worked are left out. Did you people not read it? That was the wife of the president. A country where people concentrate on the irrelevance, we have a long way to go. There is no crisis in this country. It is still at its bottom. Buhari missed it immediately he won and the whole world was giving him the accolades and he visited London. You people do not remember. You pressmen are the ones that will make us fight and throw stones at each other that you will publicize. Buhari said in London, when I get back to Nigeria, I am going to release the list of those who looted Nigeria and the amount they stole. Can you remember? The cabals inside that Aso Rock because there are thieves in the cabals there. There are looters inside the same government who are in APC who probably were in other political parties at the other time. For such strange reason, he has not been able to explain. He (Buhari) gave them room. If he had made that statement that time and said Mr. A ate N10 billion from such place and we have the evidence, this problem would not have been here. So, if any of us in this country is expecting all these big shots in the previous administration that stole so much will fold their hands and allow themselves to be taken to prison, then, you must be wasting your time.

Sir, where do you stand sir on the calls by many stakeholders for the restructuring of the country aside the issue of agitation and IPOB?

What is restructuring? What is devolution of power and what is confederation? What led to the civil war? What is on Aburi we stand? Is that not what we are still fighting today? When Nigeria was at the top of the crisis and Nigeria was going to scatter into pieces, they went to Aburi in Ghana. General Gowon presided and they did not want any civilian. Gowon, Ojukwu and few other people. I think the only civilian that went there was then Prince Akenzua who later became the Oba of Benin, the father of the present Oba as federal permanent secretary. They did not allow the civil servants to enter. All that Gowon understood, many of you have not asked yourselves after that disastrous outing, the civil war. Because he (Gowon)did not understand the meaning of the English language, confederation. All he knew was that Nigeria will not divide. Ojukwu said we want confederation, a weak centre and a powerful region. And by the time the meeting ended, Gowon signed. That was the Aburi Accord, that Nigeria will now go back to confederation because Aguiyi Ironsi at the inception of the military system of government, which centralize all the powers in the centre, the Northerners who were far behind in the areas of development kicked against it. All the formation that the Ibos are shouting for now, head of army, head of central bank, president and senate were occupied by the Ibos. And after they toppled Aguiyi Ironsi, things changed.
Let’s go back before then, there was regionalism. Each state was moving at its own pace. If you as a Nigerian remembered that the first television Nigeria station was in Ibadan under western region government of Obafemi Awolowo, you will weep. If you now look at South Africa, you look at Tunisia, Morocco and if also remember that Maleysia and Indonesia, which are the world exporters, the biggest producer of palm oil today came to NIFOR in Nigeria to pick the seedlings and took training and now we are going back to them to come and help us do palm oil. You see that there are a lot of things we do that we do not even remember where we are going because we have not taken cognizance of our past because if you do not understand your past, you cannot predict your future. Back to your question, what is restructuring? Politics is a game of numbers, politics is sharing the dividends of democracy. The constitution has taken care of restructuring because every state has a minister in the country. Each local government must have a commissioner in the state. So, there is proper representation at all levels. If you people need restructuring, because I heard people say appointment in this and that, how do you expect APC to give equal appointments in Boards and others to the South-East that voted 90 percent PDP? Those who voted for Buhari were APC, so he will not compensate them and you expected him to compensate those who did not vote for him? Is that one done anywhere in democracy?
My late friend Gaddafi (Samson Ekhabafe) who was then the Attorney General in the state once explained to us in 2003 I remember, we were in exco meeting and Lucky Igbinedion was presiding and the security man came to us to say there was heavy protest at the gate. So, he asked the deputy governor, Ogiadomhe to go and find out and when he came back, he said some group of people from Akoko-Edo were protesting that their king has been deposed and detained for the past one month. And Lucky (Igbinedion) did not even know. So, we turned to Gaddafi what happened? He said I did it. And Lucky asked him why did you dethrone a traditional ruler without even telling me? He said “I did not know that i have to tell you.” And Lucky said you cannot do that. What did he do? Gaddafi answered “When we got to his domain, he was completely against us during election. So what does that mean? Oh democracy, winning, there will be laughing, eating and jubilation in the house of the winner and there will be gnashing of teeth in the home of the looser.” I will never forget that statement from Gaddafi. So, we all laughed and the governor said you cannot do that. Tell them to take it easy and that we will look into that. So we then recommended that he should be re-enthroned. In a nutshell, I think people are not following what the constitution says, there is no state today, the South-East, they have five ministers, each one representing each of the states whether they voted APC or not. So when we now do what we did, you do not expect us to have an equal share maybe that is what they are calling restructuring. And the funny thing is that what we should be talking about is the devolution of power. Let the states have more powers and let us have a weak centre. Let the centre handle economy, external affairs and defence. Electricity, water, transportation should be left to the states and the minerals in your areas, you should be able to explore and pay taxes to the centre. That was what we were doing when we had the cocoa and rubber boom and that was how the West was able to build the first high rise Olympic stadium in Africa, first region television, started free education before the east and the north followed. This English of restructuring, I am not into it. Let the states be more powerful and that is why I still come back to what I have been saying that in this country, we are just deceiving ourselves. You talked about federal police, if we create state police, the governors will use it. What other examples do you need to know about the effectiveness of a state police? When Anini took over the whole of Edo and Delta, then Bendel, nobody told the federal government that it needed state police. Because what they did at that time was state police command. They deplored all the Edo people back to the state. DIG Parry Osayande, CP Erabor and Oyakhire, they brought them back to Benin to arrest Anini because if you go and bring a man from Katsina, how will he know the terrain in Ehor. So, we need local police. In America, in Europe, you have village police. Police are under local government chairman that you call mayor. You go and put one Inspector General of Police in Abuja, do not federal government use the police? You heard Wike (Rivers Governor) last week that the police are the ones behind all the armed robberies in the state in order to create the state of uncertainty in his area. That was what Wike said. I listened to him. So, this country, we really need to look at the reality on ground. As far as I am concerned, if I must answer the initial question you asked me, what we are seeing now is being sponsored by politicians who are scared of going to prison who cannot be ridiculed because they know that Buhari is very determined. Buhari will pursue this corruption because that is what he said he was coming to do. So, they are distracting him so that people will not notice the good work the APC government is doing and if you allow them to succeed then this country is finished.

We have less than 16 months to go for the next presidential election.
No doubt, you are one of the prominent APC leaders that enthroned Governor Obaseki and by November, he would have clocked one year in office. At 64, looking at what he has done, do you think that he has performed creditably?

Well, for the period he has been there, I think he is okay, the people are happy but the party leaders might not be happy but the people are happy. That is my assessment of the situation. Like I told you people, in one of my last interviews, you see, when you are dealing with a governor, I have served under so many governors. I was a council chairman under two military governors. I served Ambrose Alli and the rest of them. People come with their different styles. You will be deceiving yourself if you think when Obaseki was coming that he did not have his own agenda that if he wins this is what he will do. So, I am sure, that is the area he is concentrating on. As far as I am concerned, I see the people, I interact a lot. The people are very happy especially the area of the cracking down of thugs. You can now pass freely around and nobody is harassing you but the leaders, the politicians including myself, we are not happy because what we are used to have changed so drastically. We wanted a situation that it will be gradual which was exactly what I told him. That does not mean he is not doing what is right. I had an opportunity to tell him that all these things you are doing, you have to take it bit by bit. So, to answer your question, he is doing well, he is trying to open the state up but above all, there is sanity which we are all happy about but we too want sanity in our stomach too as there is sanity everywhere. So he is doing very well. He has not disappointed us at all.

In addition to that, now that the leadership of the party are not happy and the local government election is just by the corner, will the opposition party not capitalize on that to defeat the ruling party in the state?

One thing you people do not understand with the politicians is that, we are all quarrelling, we are not happy, that does not mean that when election comes, we will vote PDP. When election comes, we will first of all win first before we begin our quarrel again. We will say this governor is not listening to us. He supposed to be carrying us along. This disagreement and division do not effect election matters. First, let’s win first. Will not say because we are not happy PDP will win. No, we will come together to win and quarrel later. The state is doing very well and we are really happy. I was very happy few days ago, I saw the governor on television and some of the officials at the Ehor Fruit Juice which was built and abandoned and sold. It did not produce fruit juice and the Vice President came to open it. I was very happy when I see that it is now working. So, he is doing okay and the people are happy with him. If you sample the opinion of our ordinary people, they feel comfortable and they are happy with him. Like I said, as he is going on, he will be adjusting and I think that his first priority as far as I am concerned I might be wrong but I think I am right, is to do things that will affect the people first and make sure the state is back to its feet again. There is no way people will not resist change. If you ask our people why they are not happy, they will tell you we cannot go to government house. These are what our leaders were used to but now, we cannot go in. There is really no serious quarrel. We are happy. He is carrying out the mandate

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