Mrs. Jumoke Anifowose
Mrs. Jumoke Anifowose, is the daughter of the first Civilian Governor of Old Ondo State, late Chief Adekunle Ajasin and also the former State Chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). She will be contesting the governorship election in 2016. In this interview with ABIODUN BADEJO, she warned leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the danger ahead if there is imposition of candidate.
Excerpts:
How will you access the present APC leadership in your State?
Well, I personally think that we have able and capable chairman who is directing the affairs of the party in the state and like the old adage will say, “nobody is perfect” people can have their own opinion and I think he is trying his best for the party. So many people from PDP under his leadership have joined the party. So I want to commend him on that; for having been able to attract some bigwigs from the PDP to join the APC. Personally, I think the leadership of APC in the state is trying its best. The Publicity Secretary, Adesanya is doing his best too in making sure that he reacts appropriately. I think with the support of the other members of the executives at the state level , the sky will be the limit for APC when the time for gubernatorial comes up.
Why do you want to join the governorship race?
I don’t want to talk too much on my ambition, but I will come out because I know that with Buhari as the President, my party will perform to satisfy the needs of Nigerians and that will help me to win the heart of the Ondo State citizens and I will win both the primary and the gubernatorial election. I want my party at the centre to stabilize very well , and if the party at the centre is doing very well, it will brighten the chances of APC in Ondo State.
Do you think you have the financial strength to contest the ticket of your party with your male counterpart?
Well, that was the story they put forward when I tried to contest under ACN in 2012. Did Buhari pay for his nomination form to contest the Presidential election? Did he have money? So, I have so many well wishers who believe very much in me, and are ready to support me and if we are still talking about money at this age when Buhari became President without money, I think we should all go and check our heads because money shouldn’t be used in getting people with integrity, getting people who will do the work well, getting people who will make sure that government is run properly and not government of my family, for my family and by my family. So if people want government of my family, for my family and for my family, let them run after money, but if they want government of the people by the people and for the people, then I am the right person to be voted in. Being a woman too, looking at, Angela Merkel of Germany, , she is doing so well , German economy is the best in the world today and she is a woman and I want to say if people are thinking of voting anybody for governor, it is the woman in their middle that they should think about and vote for because women we can do 100 things at the same time and we will bring you men up, because without many of you, we will be juvenile delinquent on the streets of Lagos and Abuja, but here we are, we are in charge of the family and without us, the family will be no where and the family is the basis of the society. So if I am the only woman coming out, I see no reason why all the men that are coming out should not give me the necessary support and I see no reason, why the leadership of the party should not support me because I have supported them, I have been with them and I have not jumped ship, so I think if the time comes, it is a pay back for me.
In the last governorship election, your party failed to conduct primary, is there be a primary in this coming election?
You know, even the presidential election of APC, there was primary. We were all there from evening till the next day, and we had about five aspirants, they all came out for the primary and the party accepted the primary election method. So I see no reason why the primary should be jettisoned in Ondo State during the gubernatorial election. I think that will satisfy all contestants instead of just imposing or bringing somebody from nowhere to be the candidate of the party. I am in support of a primary election.
What do you think may likely be the implication if the party fails to conduct primary?
I pray we do not fail to conduct primary because it will boomerang. It will boomerang in the sense that party members could get discouraged over imposition. So, I am praying that the leadership of my party will not go the way of imposition. Let us give everybody level playing ground, let us put ourselves to primary elections, let us see how we can mobilise the delegates to be on our sides. The delegates are the representatives of the people and they will know who should be their candidate. So whoever wins, will be the preferred candidate. It will not be the preferred candidate of the leaders. If imposition is used again, it will boomerang and we could have the same results like we had under ACN.
Since 1999, your party having lost power in the state has been finding it difficult to return to power, what do you think is the cause, and why has your party been failing?
Well, I will use President Buhari as an example. It took him four consecutive times before he could win an election to become the President of Nigeria. He tried it one, two, three and it was at the fourth occasion when he was even trying to give up but as faith will have it, he succeeded. Even, if we have been losing elections in Ondo State, we too could be lucky to come back to power in Ondo State like PMB who tried four times and succeeded in the fourth time. We have been trying and many of us have stayed put in the party, hoping upon hope, so with that kind of situation, I think we will get there one day. You will see that we have five legislators in the state Assembly. That is a plus. Before, we didn’t have any, and two are still hanging, maybe we will become seven at the end of the day because of the two outstanding results, even though, they were illegally sworn-in by the Speaker, there are two outstanding candidates . I won’t say the people of Ondo State do not like the progressives, we all live in Nigeria and we know what the economy says, They have seen it with the banning of Okada riders, with the payment of Kaadi Igbe-Ayo, even the National Identity and Management Commission (NIMC) does not charge people but here in Ondo State we are being charged. Somebody who does not have N100 to feed in a day is been asked to pay N2000, when we have all kinds of IDs all over the place; National ID, Drivers ID, International passport and so on and so forth. You are bringing another one just to oppress the people. This is what we call over taxation.
What other things can your party do in order to win Ondo State?
Well, I think we should start educating our people on what the progressives stands for and what the people stand to gain by voting for us. They should compare and contrast what is happening in our states with the kind of money coming into the state. Can you compare the development in Ondo with the development in Osun. Osun State at the last quarters is the last on the revenue allocation. I think Ondo State was six or seven. Can you compare the development in Osogbo with the kind of development we have in Ondo State. Osogbo looks more beautiful than Akure. So, my party will have to do the the comparison of programmes and projects that are going on in all APC states. We have to do a lot of campaigns. We must not wait until too two or three months to election before we start going about, telling people that the election will be coming up and that our candidate that emerges from the primary must be voted for. We must explain our manifesto to them, discuss on the radio, discuss on Adaba FM, Breeze Fm and luckily we are in charge now and we can discuss on Radio Nigeria. We have enough media presence to be able to impact on the people about what they stand to gain by voting for us in Ondo State. We have everything working for us to tell the people where we stand with them. We just have to be more pro-active in Ondo State in order to gain the confidence of the people. Not just the people, the leaders in the different communities.
What about the division among leaders in your party, don’t you think this will work against your party on the election day?
I am hearing that there are factions for the first time. I know we have gubernatorial aspirants having their followers, which is normal. So if they are talking about groups and caucuses, I don’t want to take it to mean faction or division. Faction is different from group or caucus.
You and Governor Mimiko served under late Adebayo Adefarati’s administration. How will you describe the governor?
We were colleagues in the cabinet but I can say sincerely that if we spoke at all, may be, we spoke four times. Throughout my tenure, we were not just close. We didn’t have any kind of close relationship.
People have been criticizing Buhari on the few appointment made so far. Some are of the view that he has so far favoured the north.
One thing is that our people do not understand the geography of Nigeria, we have six geopolitical zones and when you see a northern name, you will think may be that northern name is from Katsina, Maiduguri, or from Sokoto. The name usually connotes that one is partial and if at the end of the day, you put down such names, they may not be from the same geo-political zones or even from the same states. I think we had Kingsley Kuku from Ondo state here as coordinator of the Amnesty and now that Kuku has been replaced by somebody from the South South, I think the President is fair. You can see that Femi Adesina is the spokesperson to Buhari, and that is a big position that has come to the South West. When you are talking of Femi Adesina, nobody knows if he is from Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Lagos or Ogun states. You know names usually brings this idea that somebody is biased towards a particular area, except if he is able to identify their states and geopolitical zones. For now, I don’t think he has done any wrong by the appointment he has made so far.
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