Business consultant and politician, Alhaji Jamiu Afolabi Ekungba, a member of the Board of Trustees of the All Progressives Congress, APC is a governorship aspirant on the platform of the party in Ondo State. In this interview with newsmen in Lagos he speaks on his aspiration among other issues. Excerpts:

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

Why do you want to govern Ondo State?

Ondo is the only South West state that is oil producing which means that apart from the normal characteristics of that geo-political zone, that state derives money from oil production.

The state also has mineral resources that are unique in the world today. Apart from oil, we also have bitumen and today, the asphalt with which we tar our roads are imported from Venezuela despite the fact that we have the capacity to produce asphalt in Agbabu in Ondo State.

What is the strength of the opposition in Ondo State? There is the impression that the APC is weak.

I would say that one thing an average politician does not know is that the man who is the governor of Ondo State is my friend. One of the lessons my father taught me is that if you make a mistake and you call somebody your friend, if that friend becomes devil, you can’t say he is no more your friend.

This man is what I would call active Maradona of our time politically. I think the practical example is that when he was seeking his second term in office, he called all the Ondo State people and said he wanted to create local governments. He diverted attention from discussing political and economic activities of the state and everybody wanted local governments.

So there was no way anybody could do constructive criticism of him any longer, he diverted attention.

Now, after the election, where are the local governments he promised, for which he spent billions of naira setting up committees to go round. Where are they? Now, in the last election, immediately we dealt him a blow at the Presidential Election, he came and told the Obas and the chiefs that he wanted to upgrade some of them.

Immediately he threw in that one, everybody forgot everything, even the APC that had won sizeable votes for the president and the National Assembly poll, Senate and so on, forgot everything.

We started talking about promotion of Obas, promotion of chiefs and re- classification and the man went to the drawing board of how to hit below the belt, which he did successfully. The APC, a party that scored 54.6 per cent in Presidential Election now had five House of Assembly seats out of 26.

Promotion of chiefs

Ekungba

Now another election is coming, he now says he wants to conduct local government election. For seven and a half years, he has always told us that he could not hold local government elections because there is a case in court. Has that case been decided? No.

Now he has fixed a date for local government election for 24th of April. Why? To divert the attention of the people from the rising profile of APC because, except the right people become governor, local government elections would continue to be manipulated.

The large number of aspirants in the party is raising concern that the party may have trouble choosing a candidate. Are you worried?

I said the issue of Ondo State must not be reserved for Ondo people alone because it is a micro part of this federation so if we allow the cancer to germinate from that place it can affect the whole federation.   A lot of us, the 24 in the race, if you ask them, they don’t even know the extent of the problem, so they just want to be there because everybody is contesting, let me contest, if by accident, I would be there.

So if that person is there by accident, he would for the next four years, ruin the lives of our people.   The fact that I have money to print posters, buy vehicles and make noise should not push somebody to aspire for a political position. The person that we need as governor now is the person that has demonstrable antecedents to be able to turn bad economy to good one. That is what we need.

As a political student, I believe that there is no way we should expect every human being to behave normally. So for me, I am looking at a situation that either we go through picking, selection or primary election, whatever method that is chosen, I believe some people will still leave the party, I believe some others will stay in the party and fight.

I believe some others will still work together to make the party win the election. But what the national leadership of the party must work towards is picking that person that has what I call an enduring structure that can win election any time, any day in Ondo State, whatever method we are going to use.

The controversy over zoning in Ondo APC ahead of the election

I have never heard the party saying they would not follow zoning, but the party does not impose zoning on anybody. It is not possible. It is not possible for APC to say it does not recognize zoning, because even in the presidential election, we did it. We would just have picked the president from Katsina and picked the vice president from Borno and disturbed the country’s political balance.

If the party adopts zoning finally, that would be good, it will reduce the number of aspirant, it will also address people wasting their resources so that there can be realignment and cooperation by groups. Whether zoning is adopted in Ondo State or not, it cannot affect somebody like me because from Ilaje to Oke-Agbe, my structure is there and working well.

Who is your godfather in politics? 

All my political fathers admire me and they love me. They love something in my consistency, loyalty and integrity. From Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu to the smallest man in the party, they always show their admiration at all times, all of them. So all of them are my idols, I see them as people that motivate me.