By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor

In this interview, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, former Managing Director, News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, gives insight into the next most important assignment for President Goodluck Jonathan as he prepares to steer the ship of state for another four years.  His conclusion, Jonathan should begin a process of mentoring a new set of leaders that can continue from wherever he stops. Excerpts.

You served as the Director of Publicity for the Obasanjo/Atiku Campaign, how would you rate the publicity that went into the presidential campaign of last month?

First, I propose that President Jonathan is a marketable product and this helped the cause of the publicity of his presidential campaign. On top of this is the big magnitude and volume of efforts that went into the publicity campaign-seemingly from various sources. In all, the president had a good outing.

While you were at NAN, what innovations did you engender?

What today is known as the Galaxy backbone originated from us. It was a baby of NAN. We made the proposal for the satellite orb of NAN to be upgraded from simplex to duplex to serve the purpose of providing a national internet backbone for the country. The proposal then evolved to encompass similar programmes of other government ministries and parastatals including the elaborate programme of the Jigawa State government.

At a lesser degree, we introduced what is called the travelator services. It was basically an information streaming system that posts and scrolls summarised information on projected plasma screens. It is the kind of information alert system that you find in the arrival and departure halls of airports. We adapted it for this purpose and news break feeds.

President Jonathan would constitute a new cabinet.  What are those things he should be looking at in making his choice?

Well, this is what you call a cliché, a routine question that is posed ceaselessly in this season. And it almost invariably invites a stoic response i.e the president should appoint technocrats; appointments should be merit based; a quota should be reserved exclusively for women and the like. I want to add to all these the notion of using this opportunity to, as a matter of policy, seek to address the issue of political leadership succession and recruitment in Nigeria. Deliberate efforts must be made-within permissible latitude – to mentor a new generation of leaders which Nigeria needs badly.

Akin Osuntokun

What would you say accounted for the dismal showing of the PDP in the South-West?
It is a combination of factors. The most important is the success of the delegitimization campaign of their opponents through various channels; the media, judiciary and an injurious interpretation of history. And then there were the self-destructive contributions of the PDP itself; the unresolved supremacist struggles, unwillingness and incapacity for public communication and propaganda. And then, of course, the inevitable political cycle of a public desire for change.

Based on your party’s standing in the South-West, shouldn’t politicians like you be looking to the dominant party in your zone?

If I understand you correctly what you are suggesting is that I should consider the option of joining the ACN. It is not an advisable option.  First, I have a personal principle of not deserting any association I belong when the association faces a downturn. Second, I belong to a class of individuals in this country who owe Nigeria the obligation of preaching and practising politics as it should be practised in a functional multi-party liberal democracy. Multi-party system thrives on choice-real choice. The course of action you propose-that of denuding a party to bolster what is already a dominant party – kills this very important kernel. Besides, on a lighter note, ACN has not winked or beckoned at me and I am not under any existential duress to consider throwing myself at them!

Some argue that some politicians in the PDP from the South-West zone are in the party for purely escapist reasons because they know that the Yoruba people do not seem to share the sentiment of the PDP.

What you have just said is a precise indication of how successful opponents have been in delegitimising and demonising the PDP in the South-West. What is the sentiment of PDP that the Yoruba people do not share? There is of course an interpretation of your question that does not necessarily reflect positively on the Yoruba-which is to say that we thrive on isolating ourselves from the rest of Nigeria. There is nothing intrinsically good about being insular. Let me, however, use this opportunity to make one point. If and when there is a cause to be fought on a pan-Yoruba platform-some of us were not and will not be found wanting. So, I reject, without equivocation, this idea of people appropriating our common heritage as their patrimony and employ it to disinherit me.

Beyond the euphoria of Jonathan coming from the South-South, what factors would you want to point at which made his victory cut across the entire spectrum of the Nigerian nation?

The victory of President Jonathan is significant for Nigeria in two important respects. First is its widespread acceptability as an outcome of a relatively free, fair and credible process. It has also, to some extent, weaned Nigerian politicians from the morbid fear of credible elections.

There has been this psychological fixation among politicians that elections cannot be won without a resort to self help or that the loss of election somehow amounted to a sentence to perdition and oblivion. Second is a positive momentum towards nationhood which, among other important factors, is predicated on equality of citizenship; equalisation of access to political power.

The violence which erupted in the North after the elections is being blamed, rightly or wrongly, on the leadership of the CPC.  What would be your view on that?

I owe it to God and my conscience to agree with that ascription. At his first presidential campaign outing in Kaduna, General Buhari was reported (and was verified) to have advised his wildly cheering supporters to lynch anyone who conspires to rig the elections. Prior to this, he had sworn never to challenge the election result in court and threatened that whoever rigs should be prepared to face the “consequences”.

His running mate, Pastor Bakare, took off from where his principal trailed off and equally threatened the eruption of a wild wild North in mimic of the widespread violence that attended the 1965 elections in the Western Region christened the wild wild West.  And also take into consideration the character and pattern of the violence -all pointing to a self-fulfilling prophecy.