NIYI ADEBAYO, was the first civilian governor of Ekiti State, elected on the platform of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD). He is now playing a prominent role in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), an offshoot of AD, as one of the prominent leaders. One of such roles was leading the delegation of the party in the historic negotiation with the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), in the run up to the last presidential election. In this interview with Group Politics Editor, SUNNY IGBOANUGO, he gives insight into several developments in the party, which has grown as the major opposition in the country and its new role in Nigeria.Excerpts:
•Adebayo
Should one say congratulations?
Yes, you can go ahead and say so.
Then, congratulations. It appears the tsunami that swept the through the entire South West in 2003, has been checked. Is that so?
Yes, thank you very much.
Can you relate what happened then with what happened recently, with the 2011 election?
Yes. I’m happy that Nigerians, especially we in the South West have finally been vindicated, the democratic political leaders in the South West have finally been vindicated; because at that time I said that the PDP may have won the South West, but they had not won the heart of the people. We, my colleagues and I, who were kicked out of office at that time, we complained that it was about an election having been rigged. The PDP, under President Olusegun Obasanjo, embarked on a propaganda that it was as a result of us telling the people to vote for Obasanjo; that the people were confused and that they voted for PDP in all the elections and that’s why we lost. They came up with all sorts of propaganda. But with the election that has just been held, that shows that it is not true; because if the people could vote for President Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential election and at the next elections vote for the Action Congress of Nigeria, it goes to show that there is enough political sophistication in the South West. So, that goes to disprove all those theories that came up with at that time. And it goes to show also that in a free and fair election, anytime any day, the South West will throw its votes for the progressives, now represented by the Action Congress of Nigeria.
Sir, which one is not true? Is it that it is not true that you went into an agreement with Obasanjo at that time, the governors of the South West…?
No, it is true. There was an agreement that we should vote for Obasanjo, because he had appealed to us and the Yoruba elders and elite had appealed to us that since there was a Yoruba man we should try to allow him have a second term in office and we agreed we were going to do that. The deal we had with him was that he guaranteed us that there was not going to be any rigging when it comes to our own election. But, unfortunately, he reneged on that and as we all know, the PDP rigged us massively out of office.
What would you have done even if you knew that he was going to renege and that he was going to rig the election? Would there have been an antidote?
If we had known that there would be rigging, we have not gone into that agreement. We would have voted. Our people wouldn’t have voted for him. Yes, they probably would have rigged us out office all the same, but there would still have been the problem of acceptability with his people, which was the problem he had. His major problem was that in 1999 when he became President, he was not voted for by his people of South West. And that seemed to have bothered him. Continued
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