In this interview with AKINWALE ABORISADE, the Chairman of Action Congress of Nigeria, Chief Adebisi Akande, reacts to the party‘s alliance with other opposition parties, infrastructural decay, and the return of the progressives in the South-West How far has the Action Congress of Nigeria gone considering its recent alliance with the Congress for Progressive Change?
Honestly my party doesn‘t believe in alliances in a presidential system. In a parliamentary system, we can agree to form a government. But in a presidential system, it has never worked and I don‘t think it can easily work. But it is true that Buhari‘s party is offering to work with us under an alliance. Ogbonaya Ornu, the chairman of All Nigeria Peoples Party, has also been talking to us to work under an alliance. We set committees on both ways. Buhari and I sat down and asked how do we do it? I nominated a few people while he also did the same thing. When Ornu met my party, we decided to set up a committee to arrive at a consensus. Until we take a decision, I can‘t tell you we are going into alliance with anybody. But we believe in the veracity of talking with members of credible opposition parties so that we all can come together to confront the Peoples Democratic Party.
The PDP is beating its chest that the opposition cannot withstand it even if they all come together (cuts in)
Honestly, in a non free and fair election PDP can boast but in a free and fair election there is no PDP in Nigeria. The PDP is not in the heart of the people anymore. They have been in power for more than 11 years and nobody can say for certain that this is what PDP has done to promote human capacity, wealth or physical infrastructure. In the Southwest, there is no one kilometre of federal road that is passable. Before the PDP administration the Petroleum Trust Fund road projects were manageable. But since 11years monies were stolen but the roads were going bad. The PDP is largely known for direct bribing of the people by distributing rice, groundnut oil, etc. to make them vote for their party. They end up making the people poorer.
A school of thought holds the belief that it is very difficult for the progressives to get candidates to fill elective positions as a result of deficit of credible people. What is your take on this?
I don‘t know what those that hold the opinion mean by deficit of credible people because I am a member of ACN and I have a clean slate and we have others who are credible too. I don‘t think there is anybody coming out in the PDP that is better than I am, whatever way you look at it.
But you are not contesting (cuts in)
Yes, but there are numerous people with credibility in the ACN. So, it is an arrogant statement to say that the opposition lacks the right kind of people. Who among those who are contesting in the PDP are better than the people in the ACN?
Some people reasoned that the ACN/CPC alliance might produce Buhari with a running mate from the South-south. This, they say, might threaten the ambition of Senator Bola Tinubu to become Vice-President?
That is a hypothetic question. I won‘t join any party because somebody wants to become a president. Even when we go into discussion with Gen. Buhari‘s party we will see what they have on the table. We will look at Buhari himself to see whether he has the ability to carry out what he says he would do. We don‘t join politics because of anybody‘s ambition. We call ourselves progressives because we use peoples‘ money to better their environment. We don‘t share public money among ourselves like the PDP.
When the idea of mega party was mooted, it was assumed that the ACN was ready to collaborate with other political parties. How far has the party gone in this regard?
The idea of mega party is in the sub-consciousness of the media. ACN had never been part of mega party arrangement. The only thing we tried was to bring together credible opposition. Some leaders of the over 50 political parties in the country are worse than the PDP. Some of them are fraud. So, we never dreamt of bringing these political parties together. There are some political parties that cannot win local government election in a ward. What pride do I have dealing with such political parties? ACN has described it as an arrogance of idea to call a party mega.
How do you take the issue raised by the CBN governor that about 25 per cent of the nation‘s budget is being used to service the National Assembly?
Nigeria is not fortunate to have a National Assembly. What we have is a national looting group. I don‘t think the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria got the figure right. In the first republic Nigeria was spending less than 3 per cent of its budgetary allocation on the National Assembly and the president or the Prime Minister. Today, when you add the presidency and the National Assembly, the PDP government is spending about 40 per cent of the budgetary allocation on itself. They are really milking this nation dry. That is why you can‘t see road and electricity can‘t work. It is military mentality that government should be used to aggrandise the rulers and their wives. The looters that are in the National Assembly are doing it because they are not expecting the people’s vote. If they return, they will be spending 70 per cent of the budget on themselves. And before you know it they will be borrowing to pay themselves.
So much money went into the legal battle to reclaim some states from the PDP in the Southwest. There are worries that the ACN governors may be busy recouping the spent money (cuts in)
We went to court like that to retrieve Edo State and the state is doing wonderfully well. Lagos is doing very well. So, why do you listen to such suggestion? What makes the judicial advocacy costly is one of the things that the ACN government hopes to look into. Interestingly, many of the lawyers that worked for us did the job free of charge because many believe in our course while many are doing so for the love of the country. It is costly in fact, but the government of Nigeria should sit down and address what makes it costly.
In Osun some people expressed worries about the former PDP members that defected into ACN barely one week after the court judgement. What is your take on this?
Character of man is dictated by the process of the system. PDP is a corrupt and violent party and members might have imbibed that culture. By the time they come into ACN, the atmosphere of the system will begin to change the character of the new members. I can see that most of the people that newly defected had been part of the Alliance for Democracy or the Unity Party of Nigeria who felt they were not making quick money. They discovered that no responsible person should remain in the PDP. They will have a good probation anyway.
So much is said about shoddy execution of contracts in the state. What is your view on this?
I have not discussed with the governor and I don‘t know detail of the looting in Osun. But I see a lot of project failures in Osun. I said it in the beginning that what Oyinlola inherited was like a body that has lost its own spirit. In such case the body will start decaying in your hand. That was the case. I saw a lot of project failures in Oyinlola‘s administration. I don‘t know the detail of how much looting they did, but the purpose of their coming was to loot. They then embark on projects as mere cover up. I must say that probing is a diversionary thing and any governor should be careful not to lure himself into that. You can use the internal audit to find out the fact. You can now present the findings to EFCC and ICPC.
Source:punchng.com
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