By Adekunle Adekoya

Barrister Mohammed Owolabi Salis, by now, is no longer a newcomer to Lagos politics, having battled to clinch the governorship ticket of his party, the PDP about three times in which the prize had eluded him. In the run-up to the 2015 elections, Salis, a US-based accountant and lawyer did not even contest the primary elections as he had done previously; he opted to “siddon look,” like late Chief Bola Ige did. In the conversation below, Salis, who was home a few weeks ago bared his mind on prevailing issues. Excerpts:

 About his party, the PDP

I think the party needs to restructure. It is time for true restructuring; They should change name and get natural and unblemished people to lead the party, like Professor Tunde Adeniran. They need to have people that have good names to lead the party.

The second one is maybe to metamorphose into another party. I know something is going to happen close to the next election; there will be realignment and people will show where they belong.

Be that as it may be, PDP is stronger than APC because APC is a fragile coalition, and the leaders are not helping matters. You will recall it is a coalition of about five groups — the ACN, the CPC, the newPDP, which I call PDP 2, the ANPP and of course, APGA.

The CPC got the Presidency; the ACN has the Vice-President. The newPDP wanted the Senate President but they were trying to marginalize them by giving the Senate President to ANPP. And when you look at the strength of the APC itself, you will see that the new PDP are top because most of the governorship candidates of the APC were in PDP as well as the senators and members of the House of Reps- they were in PDP; the people that wanted to fight Jonathan. So in terms of strength, the new PDP is number one in that coalition.

It was when they moved to marginalize them that the Saraki issue came up, which led to the newPDP strategizing to produce the Senate President and the Speaker. In ministerial appointments, the newPDP was marginalized. That crisis has gone so deep that I don’t think the newPDP group and the ACN group can work together. They are like an odd team; even ACN and CPC are at odds. In my own view, PDP can become stronger if they change name or have someone with a credible name to lead the party or they transform into another party.

On the anti-corruption war

It looks one-sided. I do not support corruption but if what they have discovered so far is real or what they are telling us is true, it is unfortunate. There are good people in PDP but those bad ones have to face the law. I will not support corruption. If funds meant for fighting Boko Haram with people dying was turned into personal use, that is bad. If I am Buhari, I will do more to put people in jail. My advice to Pa Buhari is to extend the investigation into APC. There are corrupt peoples in APC; if they do that, people will appreciate the credibility of the anti-corruption fight.

Situation in Lagos PDP

Owolabi Salis

When I came back, I made some consultations and realized they have three chairmen- the Bode George group; another group that Bukola Balogun and some independent that came out to become the chairman. Unless something happens in the future, this has been the same problem of the party in Lagos state. I don’t pray we take this to the last minute of the 2019 election but the PDP has problem and it is a problem that is not solvable.

 Why is the problem insoluble?

I know these personalities and they are very selfish. You are talking about people using their personal interests to affect the interest of a group. The way it is going to be solvable is to have a caretaker committee, someone that can make things happen.

Are you are saying these peoples can’t subdue their egos for the interest of the party?

There is no way. I know them; a lot of politicians are selfish and run the country in a selfish way. That is why you see a government official living in a big mansion and all the roads in the neighbourhood are bad and no one is talking about giving to the community. It is a major problem in Nigeria. There is this selfish individualism; there is this class consciousness, even among those of us that live in the western world. You see someone just arrived and because he got a good job, he will move out of the neighbourhood, that he doesn’t want to live among the Nigerian community any more. People always talk about class.

The government is not helping matters; they concentrate development in a particular area. Imagine, if the government takes good, big projects to Iyana Ipaja, Agege and the slums, it will help the people to have confidence.

On Equitocracy

It means equity based democracy. It is a type of democracy model defined to address the issue of ethnicity and religion in politics. We also seek to address the issue of corruption, unattainable promises, violence in politics, personality clashes and political domination. These are vices that are really militating against the development of politics in Nigeria.

Politics in Nigeria now, people go there to promote hate and the more you are able to promote and spread hate, the more political relevance you get. What we want is people distributing love, preaching one Nigeria, not that I am the leader of this ethnic group and start promoting ethnic issues to gain recognition. No, we should be talking about one Nigeria.

So, Equitocracy is designed to address all these problems. It is a diversity-based democracy model because our diversity in Nigeria is shaped by ethnicity and religion – people of different culture and of two major religions. In a bid to manage this diversity, Nigeria created regions, then states, with the aim of bringing peoples of common characteristics together as much as possible.

In the past, we had three major groups- Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo, whereas, there are many minority groups among them. A lot of these minorities are not taken serious, for instances, if someone from a minority group wants to be president, the majority groups will say he is not serious. And if he is going to win, it is going to be at the mercy of the majority, like in the case of Jonathan but that should not be. We should have a system where every Nigerian has equal and proportional access to become president of this country as long as they are qualified- meet the conditions set by the constitution. The present system that we have does not guarantee that but this system called equitocracy does.

For instance if in a country, you have group A and B, while group A has 80% of the population, group B has only 20%; in the present system of government that we have, Group A will always win because it is a majority system but equitocracry is different. For simplicity, if you have two candidates from Lagos, candidate A and B, they will be assess around the 36 states and whosoever emerge with the highest points is the winner, for instance, maybe Candidate A has 31 points and Candidate B has 5 points.

The same will be done for candidates from Rivers, Sokoto, Edo and others, so at the end, whosoever has the highest points will be the winner. This will ensure that they are assessed on national reach, not ethnicity, unlike now, that ethnic promoters have the upper hands. The chances of an Edo man, Benue, Taraba man leading the country will be there. Whosoever wins at the state level becomes the governor of that state, so all Nigerians are involved in selecting who the governor is because by the constitution, Nigerians can live in any part of the country. So, every governor will have to do things that please everybody in their jurisdiction and the best of the governor will become the governor-general (president). It is a system that creates opportunities for everybody.

On his political future

I am still a young man and I will try, maybe one or two more times, and maybe, God can say you are now Abraham Lincoln or Pa Buhari. Pa Buhari is a very good example for me because he kept trying and if you don’t try, you will never win. But I have strong plans for the peoples of Lagos State, especially grassroots governance where you get the people involved in what is happening in their environment

PDP as a platform

It depends if I will continue using PDP as a platform. PDP is a credible opposition in Lagos State but the leadership crisis is the major problem militating against it. Another problem is the PDP primary, you spend a lot of money for the primary and a lot of resources are wasted. It depends on the party and what we meet in the future. We don’t have to be under PDP but PDP is the best choice.