*Faults 6 yrs single term

BY GBENGA Olarinoye

MR Ajibola Famurewa is the embodiment of loyalty, both  to his political leaders and his political party. Now a first term member of the House of Representatives, he demonstrates an unflinching loyalty to the late Bola Ige even in the grave and to his political party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN in his unwavering adherence to the policies and programmes of the party. Remarkably, he chastises the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for demanding the same style of loyalty from its members chastising the party for what he denounces as a culture of imposition of candidates and views on its members.  Famurewa who represents Ijesha South federal constituency in the House of Representatives spoke to Vanguard’s Gbenga Olarinoye.
Excerpts:

As an associate of the late Chief Bola Ige what do you make of the allegations by Major Al-Mustapha that the late Ige and some other Yoruba leaders were compromised to keep mum on the death of Chief MKO Abiola?I don’t want to believe that any discerning mind will believe what Al-Mustapha said. It was an attempt at rubbishing the good name of our late leader, Chief Bola Ige.

For those who are familiar with the late erudite politician and nationalist, they will all believe that Mustapha was saying rubbish. It is on record that late Chief Ige was the only one who did not participate in politics after the June 12 issue. He told us that all he stood for by that time was the actualization of the June 12 election and nothing else. Ige was the only person that refused to recognize the Abacha transition programme, and he did not even recognize Abacha as the Head of State.

I knew very clearly when some people invited him to join forces with Abacha, but he stood his ground firmly and told them that there was no other name he knew in the presidential race other than Chief MKO Abiola. He told them he stood on June 12 and its actualization. For anybody to now come around after almost 10 years of Ige’s death to say all sorts of rubbish because the man was is no more alive to defend himself is funny and I don’t think people should believe such person.

Personally, if I’m to examine Mustapha I would say that he should go for psychiatric test because he has been in prison custody for over 10 years now and so he might have developed psychiatric problem, hence the need for him to be well examined by medical personnel. Honestly the man needs to be examined. I don’t believe showing any video or whatever Mustapha showed to the court was enough to convince people because we all knew what happened then. We all knew that some prominent Yoruba leaders were invited to Aso Rock by that time and Late Chief Ige, as deputy leader of Afenifere, the pan Yoruba socio-cultural organization was one of them.

As a very close associate of late Chief Bola Ige, how would you describe him?

Chief Bola Ige was a democrat; he was a man who believed so much in democratic principles. He was a man that would say a thing and still stand on that thing and would not change even if the whole world did not believe in what he stood for. He was a very a very blunt person that would never deceive any one that came his way. He would always tell you the blunt truth either you like it or not, may be that is an aspect many people don’t like in him because he would tell you what you may not want to hear, he would not call white black. He was a man who loved his nation so much and died for it. He believed in the Nigeria project and many of us are reaping from his labour today.

Why did members of your party (ACN) prefer Hon Aminu Tambuwal to a fellow lawmaker from the South west, as your support culminated into his victory during the speakership election?

Let me give you an insight into what led to the emergence of Hon Aminu Tambuwal as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I want you to know that this was the first time a Speaker would emerge in that house without spending a kobo to bribe any member. I can say it authoritatively that nobody collected anything from Tambuwal before voting for him. We just felt that as members of the house we should be able to elect our leaders within ourselves without anybody dictating to us or any party choosing our leader for us. Hon Tambuwal was thus elected without any external interference.

The three of them that showed interest were assessed by our members. They were three initially, one was sponsored by the presidency, one came from Obasanjo axis and the third one came out on his own. We therefore assessed them one after the other. We looked at their capacity, their human relation, and their leadership quality and we found out that Tambuwal was eminently qualified. We discovered that Tambuwal was the only one who believed in the South West and has respect for the South West geo-political zone of the country.

During Tambuwal’s interaction with those of us from the South West and some leaders of our party, the ACN, we discovered that Tambuwal believes in what we believe in, especially true federalism. So, we didn’t want to put sentiment into it and thereby threw our weight behind him.

We actually elected a leader among ourselves who we could say this is our leader and not a leader that was chosen for us. Nobody imposed Tambuwal on us.

Then how do you react to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s demand that Tambuwal should resign in deference to zoning in the PDP?

That was not the first time the PDP would make such empty threat. Before the election they warned him not to contest for the election, eventually he contested and won. We voted for him to be there and they don’t have the constitutional right to remove him. It was not the PDP that put him there but the entire members of the House of Representatives.

We are the only people that can say Tambuwal should leave. If by tomorrow Tambuwal does anything against what we believe in or against what we agreed on then we will send him away.

Are you saying the party is not supreme or you have no respect for the supremacy of the party even as a member of the ACN?

That is in the ACN, and not in the PDP.  We all know that there is no discipline in PDP, and so how can the party claim to be supreme when its members are not disciplined? If the ACN were to be the party ruling in Nigeria today, we would have done the sharing perfectly.

There is nothing bad in ACN producing the Speaker of the House of Representatives. If the PDP really believes in sharing of political offices amongst all the geo-political zones, we would have expected them to give the position of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to the South West and leave us alone with whoever emerges from the zone. Not that they would zone it to the South-West and still ensure that a particular candidate emerges. We actually disagreed on imposition. PDP doesn’t believe in the principle of zoning as it claims, it only believes in imposition.

What is your view on the proposal for a six year single term for the President and Governors?
Personally, I want to disagree with the proposal. As a faithful party man I stand by whatever my party stands for on this issue. If we are saying President and Governors should spend six year single term, what of if they now perform excellently and their people want them back, are we saying they will not be allowed to serve their people again. After all, this is a call to service.

If I have my way, I would have even removed the tenure limitation from the constitution and allow the leaders to continue in office in as much as their people still want them there.