•‘Why many G-5 govs worked for Asiwaju’

•Reveals reasons Delta APC’s boiling

•I was surprised to see Obi overrunning  South-South, South-East’

By Charles Kumolu, Deputy Editor

Director, Directorate of Health All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Iyke  Odikpo, in this interview reviews the performance of the partyin the presidential poll, saying the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, must makecertain critical decisions to make an impact in six months. Odikpo, afounding member of APC in Delta State and former governorship aspirant, also opens up on the crisis in the state chapter of the party.

You headed the health directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council. Were you surprised by the outcome?

I was the Director, Medical of the presidential campaign council. I didn’t expect anything less. I knew Tinubu was going to win. I was rather surprised by Obi’s performance. I was surprised to see Obi overrunning the South-South and South-East. For Asiwaju, I expected him to win and win well. He had worked hard for this, and our party has spread with 22 governors.

If you look at the trend of elections in Nigeria, the governors are a major factor. What we got was not different from what we expected. Our winning strategy was that we campaigned well. Among all the political parties, we were the only party that went around Nigeria, marketing our candidate. The Presidential Campaign Council visited some places more than once campaigning, did town hall meetings and consulted various interest groups.

We have structures from the ward level to the presidency. That is how elections are won. Voting is done at the polling unit. It is important to have presence at the polling units. If you don’t have structures at the units, even if the people vote for you, it is difficult to collate your result. But we had the structures in place and were the most prepared.

Asiwaju worked hard and built bridges across different classes of people. For example, the five governors who were protesting in PDP, indirectly or directly, worked for the APC. There was no way another party could have defeated APC given our spread across Nigeria.

Asiwaju, historically, is a man who builds human structure. He is not nepotic in the choice of those who work with him. For example, before the campaign, I had not worked with Aiswaju even though I am an old member of APC. Someone recommended me to the Presidential Campaign Council and I was found competent to work as the Director of Medical, APC Presidential Council.

I am sure that in constituting his cabinet, he is going to look for competent hands all over Nigeria to work with him.

In Delta State where you come from, APC didn’t do well in the presidential election even though it secured two senate seats. What happened?

Many factors are responsible but I won’t say we didn’t work hard in Delta. I was in Abuja. When I got into Delta a few days before the presidential election, within the limited time allowed to campaign, we reached out via consultations and medical outreaches and told the people why APC was the right choice.

Asiwaju anchored the campaign on gubernatorial candidates or serving governors as the case may be. Our governorship candidate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, was in charge of the presidential campaign in Delta State but many factors played out. Obi being on the ballot affected the voting pattern in Delta State. Also, PDP vice presidential candidate is from Delta State.

Majority of the people were not happy with certain things they felt were the fault of  APC government. For example, fuel and funds were scarce. I don’t know whether the policy was designed in error to affect the result of the election. Whatever it was, we survived it and did our best. The people were unhappy and felt they needed to vote out APC, but Asiwaju’s acceptability helped us.

This is the worst presidential election result we have ever had in Delta APC. In 2015 and 2019, we managed to score 25 percent. This time, we barely got 15 percent. Going forward, I know the APC will become stronger in the state. We would put our house in order.

Delta APC is boiling. The Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, was reportedly expelled. Lauretta Onochie, who is from your ward, is also having issues. What’s the problem?

The Deputy Senate President, who is the leader of APC in Delta, is my friend. Lauretta Onochie, Chairman, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, board, and I are from the same ward. She is my cousin. I am caught in between the crossfire. In Delta APC, certain things were done wrongly, which some of us are talking about.

APC is a party that was put together in 2013. And we have been building our membership gradually. In the first registration, we had 155, 000 members across the state. It implied that in an election, the minimum number of votes we would have got was 155, 000. But we got 167, 000 votes, meaning that we were able to convince other persons to vote APC. In 2019, we got over 200, 000 votes, meaning that membership had increased.

We did a membership drive in 2021 and our membership increased to more than 250, 000. In the presidential elections in 2023, we got 90, 000 votes, meaning that some members didn’t vote or we lost members. There are some internal problems in Delta APC like any competitive group. The fallout is what is happening now. For example, Lauretta had always worked for APC since 2015 under Buhari Support Organisation even when she wasn’t a card-carrying member of APC. She supported the party financially and otherwise.

Now that she is a registered member and NDDC Chairman, certain persons, I feel, are not too comfortable. There is needless unhealthy competition and pull-down syndrome in politics. Her purported suspension at the ward level was orchestrated. The incident in question, I was in the field when it happened. I didn’t expect that someone would dramatize it. Members of the party in my ward are addressing the issue because one man cannot wake up and begin to give orders in the party we all formed.

On the purported expulsion of Senator Omo-Agege by an exco not known by law, if I were him and the party, I wouldn’t respond to it. If someone wakes up and says he is suspending me from APC tomorrow when I know I did not commit any offence, I won’t bother myself because it is laughable. I think in Delta APC, we should focus more on the election we have just had and the decision to go to court to challenge the result declared by INEC.

But a section of the party said the Deputy Senate President hasn’t been a uniting figure in Delta APC…

I know him very well. I call him a finisher. I always liken a political party to a football team where you have strikers, midfielders and defenders. To make the party function, you need midfield players. Omo-Agege plays politics like a top striker. When he possesses the ball, he must score a goal.

Unfortunately, in the exco that we have, we don’t have many people who think like midfield players. I don’t subscribe completely to the strategy in today’s Delta APC. They believe that to win, you must empty PDP into APC. It looks nice on paper, but not too practical because as you are taking the PDP members, they are taking the APC members too. Unfortunately, Deputy Senate President as the party leader takes glory or blame depending on the result we get.

As the head of the Health Directorate of APC campaign council, what are the key areas in the health sector the Tinubu administration should focus on?

During the campaigns, one of the things we did was convening a health town hall meeting. We brought health experts from across the nation, who looked at our manifesto, interacted and debated it. Inputs were made and we have put together a document, which we will present to our principal.

One of the major problems the health sector has is the brain drain crisis. Every young person who has a certificate in the sector wants to relocate abroad. They feel life is better there, the pay is better and the environment is safer.

One of the strategies we have put in place is the one that would reverse the brain drain to ‘’brain gain.’’ Another thing is health tourism. In Nigeria, people travel out to treat a mosquito bite. And the places they go to do not even know how to manage malaria. We have to reverse the trend. How do you do that? You must provide the facility for people to work.

The environment must be conducive. The remuneration must be good. The man who is working needs a home and an efficient transport system. During the campaign, Asiwaju was asked how he would curb the crime rate. He said if people are engaged, crime and fraud would reduce. He gave an example by saying that banks should find out how credit can be made available to the people so they can acquire basic needs like cars and homes.

Tinubu is a man who has great ideas. I think the man came earlier than his time in this environment. If the work environment is good, people would prosper. Look at what he did with the judiciary in Lagos State. He turned the judiciary around, making it convenient for judges to do their jobs effectively. He transformed the tax system in the state and increased the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR.

Accessibility to healthcare is a major challenge in the country. In the document to be presented to the President-elect, did you highlight the Primary Health Care, PHC?

Of course, we captured Universal Healthcare. It is a system that ensures that healthcare is available to everybody in the country at a good rate under an insurance scheme.

Your party’s mandate appears to be facing a legitimacy challenge. And many feel the way those around Tinubu are handling it isn’t the best. What do you think?

We have a great team dealing with the post-election issues and I am satisfied.  

The post-election complaints and agitations are not new. No election had taken place without such complaints. This election won’t be different. But this is one of the most credible elections, just like the June 12 election where we used the OptionA4 system. This election was highly competitive.

An election where a ruling party could not win most of its strongholds can’t be said to be flawed. When people say it wasn’t fair, I wonder what they expect.

In life, you can’t satisfy everyone. There are processes to address the complaints. I am not worried about the agitations because, in reality, they didn’t win. How did the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, expect to win the election when five of its governors worked against it? How could the PDP have won when its major strongholds were taken by Obi?

Kwankwaso and Obi left the PDP. How could they have won when these persons and five governors had taken their supporters along? God just loves Asiwaju because if all of them were together, they would have made our victory very difficult. The agitations are normal, but they should allow the system to be going on.

Already, our principal is magnanimous in victory. He is an experienced politician who should be supported to transform this country. He has the political maturity to do that. It is not going to be easy. If I were him, certain critical decisions must be made for the nation to move forward.

One of our major problems is our inability to refine our petrol. We need to start refining our crude oil in Nigeria. If we do that, the stress on our currency will be removed and the naira will gain. Good enough, this administration has commenced the fixing of the refineries. If all these are in place, in six months, we would begin to see positive changes.