By FOLUSO AJIBULU

Barrister Owolabi Salis, a chartered accountant and lawyer, was a two-time Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, gubernatorial  contender  in Lagos State.  But beyond his aspiration is his platform of choice to run for the office of governor which he says needs an active structure to win elections in the state. Excerpts of interview:

You seem undeterred even after being unable to actualize your dream of coming to power twice in Lagos State.

It  is all about service to my state; people have ideas. There are certain things you need to do to make the ideas become reality – money, override our bureaucracy. There are people who have ideas but not able to go through. Like you have an idea to set up a television state in order to create jobs but you are going to be faced with bureaucracy problems.

There are some people, when they attain political power, bureaucracy would hardly be a problem. When you have money, of course I do have some money to carry out my ideas, I have been to many trade shows on job creation, but when I now look at the bureaucracy involved, some people cannot withstand it,  they don’t have the patience.

It is unfortunate that it is (patience) my own weakness, but if you have political power, there is going to be a limit to which you can be subjected to the problems of bureaucracy. There are people who have political power but don’t have ideas on what to do. So you need power, bureaucracy and money to carry out your ideas. I have certain ideas that I want to carry out. These are – conflict resolution, democracy – building.

I wrote a book on diversity based democracy – building in 1991. It is about people bound together by various diversities so that if one attains political power, he becomes a suspect for other diversities; when election is being contested, people try to attach their diversity base.  So, what do we do to reduce conflict in order to have  a solid  and united Nigeria?

Equitocracy is the title of the book, equity-based-democracy for diversity-based-democracy. We have problems in this country and we can be  looking for solutions here and there, but when you don’t have  the political power or  political clout, your opinions are not respected.  If I had been a governor of a state, people would want to listen; that is my major aim – to sell this idea to the Nigerian public because I am so passionate about it.

Perhaps the idea is coming at a wrong time?

No, it is not  a matter of bad timing. The president is concerned about the present situation in the country which is why he is suggesting a six-year single term.  Even  that  is not the ideal solution.  You talked about rotational policy, if you say the president must come from the north and the best material for the same seat is from another zone, what happens?

But I have a solution, an idea – it is an equitable system that leads to proportional power to every part of the country  which  means power can fall on any part of the country based on performance. We want a president that can perform without marginalising any part of the zone. How are they going to do it? People can talk about substance but,  procedurally, how are they going to do it? That is a major problem.

I have a system where everybody will participate at the same time so that whoever is going to emerge, eventually, the  evaluation would be based  on national acceptance, and without marginalising any zone. Let me simplify it.  Nigeria’s diversities are shaped by two factors – religion and ethnicity. There has been an attempt to manage these diversities through creation of  states.

Another one  was the creation of zones. We have  six  zones;  so if we are looking at it from states  angle, for example,  let the people form their parties so that they can contest from the grassroots. As you go up, the party that wins will continue to participate in  subsequent contests. We can grade it. The party that wins in the first grade grassroots election qualifies to contest in the second grade grassroots election. If we want to have, for example, two parties at the federal level, we can say only the first two parties that perform well  would be allowed to participate at that  level. So all the parties, in this case, are grassroots based. This will reduce drastically the tension and, because everybody is participating, there will also be no rigging.

Do  you in  honestly believe you could have won the 2011 governorship election when you said you wanted to contest?

I strongly believe I could have won if I had the ticket of the party. To win the general elections, you need a party with a strong structure. In Lagos State today, there are two parties. Forget about the other associations  pretending  as political parties. It is either ACN or PDP. ACN has effective structure on ground. PDP has passive structure which needs to be converted to active structure. The PDP has more people than ACN but they are passive.

That opinion is subjective?
It is not. We are the ones on the field. Everybody knows it. The ACN knows that if we have a strong person that can convert the passive people into active, that’s the end. PDP is the only party that can wrestle power  from  ACN  in Lagos in terms of structure because the structure is wider but untapped. A lot of people are agitated because they are not happy with the party in power, even their members are not happy.

Are you fulfilled?
Not now. I am passionate about the idea I espoused earlier, I want to see it implemented. I am passionate about grassroots governance which will ultimately affect the lives of the less privileged. They are talking about job creation, that is simple, it can be achieved if we practise grassroots  governance. So I can’t say I am fulfilled in the sense that all those life endeavours that you want to carry out,  you have not been able to do and the best way to go about it is to acquire political power.

Why not run for a lesser office after two shots at  governorship?
That is the platform where I anchor all my programmes. I have programmes for the governor’s office. Some people have suggested that I should run for Lagos East  Senatorial District but I don’t have programmes for legislative matters. I could develop one  for that as well, but those programmes, diversity based democracy – building, enhancing the duties of these, are general things crucial to total governance in the country and it is only people with executive powers that can make this kind of changes. I am qualified to contest for that office. I am an ICAN member, a lawyer with wide experience and exposure.