By Wole Mosadomi

Doctor Oluwole Oludaisi Aina is the Chairman of the Governing Board of the National Roots Crops Research Institute, Umudike, Abia State.

He is contesting election to represent Osun Central Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In this interview, Aina speaks on his aspiration.

Excerpts:

What attracted you into politics.

Every human being is a politician. Even in your home, you are a politician. I love my community and I believe that if you are not in the scheme of things, you cannot help your people. One of the things that made me pitch my tent with the PDP was because I saw growth and a good promise for this nation in the party.

I joined this party in 1988 and I have been working inside it to help my people. After I retired from my business in 2010, I took a decision that what I wanted to do was to serve God and humanity but I discovered that if I sit down at home, the opportunity I have as a single person would not help. I had to be in active politics and that is why I came out; my people also prevailed on me.

Olu Aina

Infact, between September and October last year, there was tremendous pressure mounted on me by the leaders of my party and my community to come out and vie in the senatorial race. After I consulted with people and my family and after fervent prayers, I saw that God was releasing me to go into it and here I am. I was victorious in the primaries even without any political structure.

What is amazing is that you were born in Minna and later you went to Kaduna and of late Abuja.

But you were able to come to your home state to defeat those who had been on the ground for years. What was the magic?

The magic is simply: I did not keep away from my people. My father lived in Minna from 1958 until he died in 2005. He was running from home from witches and wizards. He had an imaginary belief that people were pursuing him all over but when I grew up and gave my life to Christ, I realized that there is nothing anybody can do to me if God does not allow it. So, I started coming home because I must have a root. My children must know where I come from,  I didn’t want to give them history. I began to come home and I found out that what my father was running for was not in existence. So I have been coming home since 1995 and I have not had any incidence of witch or wizard. This has given me the opportunity to identify with my people. In my community today, I am the chairman of Iresi Zenith which is the highest policy making organ of my town under the auspices of Iresi Progressive Union. I have been the Chairman for the past eight years. I have resigned from that position twice because my tenure expired and, despite the fact that I resisted tenure elongation, my people refused. So with these windows of opportunities I have, I have identified with my people. We set up the Iresi College of Technology. I used my connections in Abuja to get the accreditation of the school and we have done a lot of other things for the community and, today, we have a replica,  that is a sub-station of the institute where I am the Governing Board Chairman established in Iresi, Osun State. The foundation stone was laid on the 6th of December last year by President Goodluck Jonathan. With all these, I come home regularly to identify with my people in order to get in touch with them.

It is said that as loved as you are, you unfortunately belong to a wrong party – PDP, since the people of the state are predominantly APC. What steps are you taking to win the election.

Being in power does not make them to be the right party. If you bring the register of the members of the APC, I will tell you that 70-80% of them were the people who came from PDP simply because they did not get space in PDP. They eventually jumped to APC. They have either contested one position and lost at the primaries and they ran to APC. So, saying PDP is a wrong party is a misconception of people who lack knowledge. PDP is the best party in the nation because it has done so well for the people but an average Nigerian is ungrateful because we don’t see good things in our leaders and it is high time we stopped rejecting our leaders. I am in the right party and there is no mistake about this.

Defection from one party to another especially at any point of provocation is becoming rampant. What do you say about this?

The problem we have in this nation is that some politicians  don’t have  political ideology. Defecting from one political party to the other to me is a politically irresponsibility. When you contest a position, it is only one seat. Even if one hundred people contest, only one person will win that position. Others should  be able to work together to achieve victory for our party but, today, you see a lot of people running from one party to another once they lose the primary. I see it as political prostitution and political irresponsibility. It shows that such people don’t  know anything apart from themselves because of their selfishness. We, especially leaders, should grow beyond this and remain within our parties to build it together even if we lose election. That is where I am different.

Are you saying that even if you lose election at whatever level, you cannot defect.

Where am I going? I am not a political prostitute and I am not an irresponsible person. So if I lose, I will still remain in PDP to win various seats at the state and national levels.

As you are vying to go to the Senate, what are your plans for your people if you eventually win?

My mission is to represent my people very well. I am going to be an effective legislator. Secondly, I am going to wage war against poverty and hunger and that has started.

Between August and September last year, I distributed a total of 30,000 cassava stems to farmers in Osun Central and those cassava will be ready for harvest in May – June  this year (2015). So food will be abundant. I am going to do more to encourage our farmers to benefit from all the policies of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.

You are so optimistic of victory at the polls. Are you not afraid of rigging?

Rigging? It will be very difficult for any party to rig the coming elections at whatever level. But if anybody or party rigs, they will be exposed; so I am not afraid of rigging.