APC making mistakes in the fight against Boko Haram – Lagos Lawmaker

The lawmaker representing Ojo Constituency 1 at the Lagos State House of Assembly on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Barrister Victor Olusegun Akande, in this interview with some correspondents of the House, including Eromosele Ebhomele, talks about the major reasons his party lost woefully at the 2015 general elections as well as the alleged reality that has dawned on the All Progressives Congress, APC concerning the fight against insurgency

Q: Your party which until 2015 was the ruling party at the centre, is now the opposition and is under serious attack from the ruling APC. How do you see this?

Let me be factual with you; it was expected because when the APC was opposition, it was the same thing. So it depends on how you can absorb or handle the situation. It takes maturity, and calmness to handle such a thing. It takes maturity for somebody who is a king to become a servant. So, it was expected, we cannot eat our cake and have it. Since we didn’t do what we ought to do, we have to take it the way it comes.

Q: Your party was accused of causing the crises in the National Assembly. Do you agree with that submission?

It is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. The problem is when you fail to do what you ought to do, you don’t blame others for your negligence. There is a maxim in legal parlance that ignorance of the law is not an excuse. When a day had been fixed for the inauguration of the Assembly and the APC knew that, and at that hour they fixed the meeting when they ought to be at the venue and they refused to be there, you cannot eat your cake and have it? They neglected what they ought to do and they cannot claim they didn’t know what to do. He that comes to equity must come with a clean hands. They ought to come to the Assembly and pick the Senate President and Deputy Senate President as well as the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, why do they want to shift the blame on the PDP? The PDP had to support one candidate and the person was an APC man. As at the time they were having the election, the party that had the majority was the PDP. So, if a member of the PDP became the Deputy Senate President, there is nothing wrong with it and the PDP could have assumed the position of the Senate President because they were having the majority at that time. If they wanted to be malicious, they would have picked one of them as the Senate President because they had more number than the APC. The worst the APC could do would have been to go to court. President Muhammadu Buhari did not withdraw his declaration letter then or else whatever they did would have been null and void ab initio. We are talking about politicking, if you want change, you would have prepared for change. I came to the Lagos State House of Assembly not as a party person although a party brought me here, but once the election has gone, I might still be representing the party, but I am representing the good people of Ojo Constituency 1. I came to contribute my own quota to the development of Lagos State in general.

Q: How do you react to the allegation that the PDP has run the economy of the country aground?

When you said the PDP has been running the economy aground, I would disagree with you. What was the opposition for? Did they do what they ought to do at that time? They were not there to just go and make money, it is for you to go there and redress the anomaly created by the ruling party and everything would blow open and the masses would support you. You don’t barb the head of a person in absentia, when the head is off, what remains. Former president Goodluck Jonathan is no longer in power, you cannot now start accusing him. You should have brought this out long ago and he would have been aware. I cannot say it happened or it did not happen.

Q: What would you say the PDP ought to do that it did not do before the elections?

So many things. When you lose an election, you should go back to the drawing board. I cannot give the reason for the loss, but for us to have lost the elections, we have failed in one aspect or the other.

Q: How would you assess the government of the APC in the last six weeks that it has run?

It is still difficult to assess them. You cannot say anything now. Even when you are employed, you are given six months of probation. So we cannot judge them now.

Q: President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked security chiefs and taken some steps on security. How right are these steps?

When this administration wanted to come into power, they said that the issue of Boko Haram would be solved in a matter of days or few weeks. They thought it was a child’s play. When you are dealing with people and you want to use kid gloves, you are courting trouble. One of the mistakes the APC makes is giving out their strategies, my father told me before he died that when someone beats you once or twice, you don’t run away from such a person, you get closer to him so that you would learn his strategies, the antidotes and how to beat him. Once you have known the antidote, you would learn how to beat him. You want to beat the insurgents, you go to the media and reveal all your secrets and your strategies, which is not the best thing to do. The problem with the Nigerian government on Boko Haram are three. The first one is favouritism because the Nigerian government knows those who are involved, they know the sponsors of Boko Haram, they are wealthy people. They are trying to cover them and beg them and see whether they would stop. Number two, why are we negotiating with terrorists? If you do so, it means you have surrendered to them. What makes you think that those girls that are being used for suicide bombings are not the girls kidnapped from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State? And we are releasing the Boko Haram members so that they could go and re-group. Are we really serious?
Number three is the equipment; what we learnt during a training in Abuja recently was that the Nigerian Army were given new equipment, but are they really there? So, these are the issues, and we should not put our strategies in the media. Once you release the strategies, they would know how to get you.
Removing the service chiefs is political because the present administration feels they would sabotage their government since they worked with former President Goodluck Jonathan. They have forgotten that experience cannot be bought. The people have been there for sometime, they have made one or two mistakes and you are removing all of them at the same time. You don’t do that. You can remove them gradually; change is not instantaneous, it is gradual. That is how governance goes ahead, which is what the APC is doing in Lagos State. They brought Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to take over from former governor Babatunde Raji Fashola. They don’t want someone to change their ideas, changing those people overnight has set us back for years.

Q: The PDP has not been able to win Lagos State since 1999. What do you think is responsible for this?

This is a very critical question; I would be careful with it. you don’t bring out all your strategies at a time. It is not that we have not been able to win Lagos, but it is only PDP that can bring PDP down. We are the architects of our doom. We have not been able to win Lagos State because of the bickering and the acrimony within the party. The day everybody sheath his sword and the party members speak with one voice, we will win Lagos.

Q: How do you react to the fact that the PDP is being infiltrated by the APC?

That is politicking; you cannot overrule that. What is the assurance that the PDP does not have their people in the APC? I don’t want to believe that. if the APC is so wise to have done that, I give them kudos. The genius must do their own things differently in a class. If the APC did that, then they are genius. All I am saying is that PDP members are the ones killing themselves politically in Lagos State.

Q: Some people feel that all the eight members of the PDP in the LSHA would cross to the APC. How true is this?

I have integrity. I came here to contribute my quota to the development of Lagos State, but that does not mean I would change my party. I have a committee of about 36 friends and I am the only one in the PDP among them. If I had been in the AD, ACN or APC, I would not have had the opportunity to win the ticket to be here because there are so many queues and bureaucracy involved in the APC. There are so many godfathers and many other things in the party.

Q How free and fair was the last election?

I would say it was fierce because we fought a good battle.

Q: Would you subscribe to pay cut for lawmakers?

It depends on what our salary is all about. If it is enough to take care of us and our responsibilities, then we can talk about pay cut. This salary you talk about, even if we are given N5 million or N10 million, it is not enough. I am representing so many people in Ojo Constituency 1 and when they see you around, you must drop some money for them. Recently, I went out to look for a place for constituency office in my area, I just strolled down in the area and when I entered a place, by the time I came out, about 40 area boys were waiting outside for me. I was not having enough money because I strolled there and I told them I didn’t have enough money with me then, I wanted to give them the N5,000 I had on me and they were shouting that it was small. As I was trying to go, I hit my leg on an object and I got wounded seriously such that they had to stitch the leg in the hospital. The wound is still there. Except you don’t live among your people, we spend between N50,000 and N100,000 everyday and how do you orientate the people that you are not in the executive arm of government? So many people have brought applications to me for jobs and I told them I am not in the executive. They bring invitations for various events and when you don’t answer them, you would be in trouble. How do we manage this situation where poverty is everywhere?

Q: In this case, would you say the government has abandoned its responsibility?

Yes! Totally. When there was an accident in Irewe waterside and some people died inside water, when their boat capsized, I spoke about the issue on the floor of the Assembly that the government ought to buy flying boats and make them available to the students. We can do it. If you talk about pay cut, you have to look at our responsibilities. You take care of your people, your family and extended family members, so how do we cope if the salary is too small?