Chief Jide Awe, the Ekiti State Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), featured on personality interview programme on a private radio station in Ilesa, Osun State. We present excerpts as monitored by GBENGA FATUROTI.

What are the chances of your party in the coming election in Ekiti State?

The chances of my party are very bright. My party was rigged out of the last election by the power-that-be then. Former President Goodluck Jonathan perpetrated that evil in Ekiti State. Ekiti people were scared and yielded to the antics of the ruling party then, especially when then President Jonathan said they were taking over Ekiti State. You don’t use that type of military language in a democratic setting. Jonathan gave directive that they should take over Ekiti and they deployed all machinery towards it and they achieved it.

Why was it not so in Osun governorship election?

Yes, because the people of Osun quickly realised the antics and did not fall into the same pit. When the soldiers were wielding their guns, Osun people were waving their brooms. If the Ekiti election was held after that of Osun, it would have been the same story. I want to say that Osun people learnt their lesson from what that happened in Ekiti State and they made use of it.

In the first instance, let us not go into personality. It is APC that contested election of 2014 and the one that is contesting now will still be APC. Between 2014 and now, the person occupying the position of governor in Ekiti State, you know his attitude, his so much orchestrated stomach infrastructures, which he promised the people of Ekiti, has not been met. He owes the workers nine months salaries and heaven did not fall. Ekiti people are now worse than he met them when you talk of socio-infrastructure and some other things.

Second, for the fact that Kayode Fayemi lost that election in 2014 does not translate that the party will lose if the people of Ekiti desire to give him the party’s ticket.  We are preparing for a delegate election coming up on May 6, 2014. The people will decide. That we were not able to win that election does not mean we are not going to win this.

Are you not worried about the number of aspirants in your party? Would there be any screening?

We have 33 governorship aspirants and screening has been done. We had been in Abuja since Monday last week. We left Abuja on Friday and between then and now, we are expecting the results of the screening. But, in Ekiti State, we have so many capable hands, particularly in APC. The 33 people are jostling for that position. There is no problem at all.

It is the delegates that take that decision. The number of aspirants does not matter. They know that definitely, we will pick one person from among them. We did not beg anybody to contest on our platform. Once the primary is conducted, we will abide by the results of the primary.

We have signed an agreement with them. Our leader, Chief Adebisi Akande, also invited all the aspirants to a meeting on Friday apart from the one held in Ekiti. We told them that the party is bigger than any of them. Whoever that wins that election should be magnanimous enough to the others and those that lose must cooperate with the person that wins. So, at the end of the day, we move on and satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of the people of Ekiti. So, the number does not make any difference. People come to contest in a party that is strong. Any party that is not strong, you will not see two people coming to contest under it. Having about 33 people coming for an election is a positive development.

After the primary, are you sure that none of them will leave your party like Opeyemi Bamidele did?

In the politics of this country, I am not one of those who subscribe to carpet crossing or leaving one party for another because you are not able to get what you are looking for. The basic problem that we have in this country is lack of ideologically commitment. If you are progressive, either you win or lose, you still have to remain within that party. If you don’t get it today, you will get it tomorrow. So, I have told our people this time around not to run away. People leave their parties due to lack of ideological commitment. One thing that is sure is that one of them will succeed. We have told them that you cannot because you don’t get the ticket, you abandon the party. You now mount a rostrum elsewhere abusing or condemning us from outside. Of course, such a person will not prosper politically. That is what we have been telling them.

So, the 33 of them contesting now, I have taking them round to the party leaders and I have meetings with them constantly. If you don’t win, you still have to stay in the party. If we get the governorship seat, which I believed we will, we have a lot of positions to be shared among the aspirants. You know politics is all-comers affairs. There are some aspirants that I don’t know. I have never seen them in my life. As the chairman of this party in the last 20 years, there are some people that are contesting that I have never seen in my life. I met some of them at the screening centre.

I assure Nigerians that we will conduct one of the best primaries in this country. All eyes would see it. We will make it transparent and beam it on television and invite law enforcement agents. Even the political bigwigs all over Nigeria in our party would be invited to witness it. Voting will be open in the presence of all us and counted. Nobody will now turn round to say that he has been disenfranchised or not. There will not be manipulation in this primary election. We will try as much as possible to do it to be utmost best possible. So, nobody will say at the end that we compromised with the winner. But, we will urge all to cooperate with the winner.

Does your party has any preferred candidate among them?

They are all my candidates, including those that I have not seen. That is politics for you. We have 177 wards, some of them have gone round 177 wards, two times or thrice and somebody has never visited a ward among them. There are some who do not even know their wards. But, he came to contest for the governorship.

Would you say they are using this election as a stepping stone?

Even if you want to use something as stepping stone, it is not an election into the position of governor. That is why I am appealing to all the delegates to open their eyes and let their ears be functioning very well. Whoever that will represent you, you must know that person in and out. This is the first law in the politics. You must know the person who will represent you. The moment you subscribed to that person, for the next four years, you will be under him. This time around, it is not going to be cash and carry. It should be credible person, somebody who knows us, somebody who is an Ekiti person per se. No just somebody who came from nowhere.

Are you saying the person must have been visiting you constantly?

Such a person must be a financial member, somebody who has a fixed address. Some people don’t have fixed address. You cannot locate them easily. We need somebody that can be located; somebody who knows you within the party. Somebody who knows what it is and what was. It is that person that will know what is going to be. This is what we are saying. Not that somebody came with dollars or foreign currencies and delegates are collecting money from them. It will not get us anywhere.

That was why I said that we politicians are at vantage position to key into the people what we want. If the people say they want somebody and will vote for somebody, give them that person and at the end of the day, the vote will be easy. All of the 33 people are credible.

As a leader, have you called some of them to order?

We have been doing so. You can only advice your friend on a position of governorship. We have called them, we have talked to them and this is the point we are referring to. We held meetings with them in Ado-Ekiti, we held another in Lagos and Abuja and there are some private meetings, which we have held with them as well. We talked to some of them not to waste their money. We urged them to wait for another time. Then there are some who actually want to use it to test their popularity. You can’t stop them. The primary we did in Akure in Ondo State, there were some people who scored zero. There was a particular lady, after the election I called her, and say, sister there are more than 260 women delegates, and yet you scored zero. How come? She said, don’t mind them.

Don’t let figure 33 worry you at all. We are politicians, we know what we are doing. We know how to sort ourselves out at the end of the day. But, what we are saying is that delegates must try as much as possible to be reasonable. They should use their votes wisely. We are trying as much as possible to mend fences to avoid repeat of Ondo episode in Ekiti.

Which delegates’ lists are going to be used?

The delegates list is with us because two months before now, I have gone to Abuja with the master list. We prepared it in 2014, but none of us knew that it will be used for gubernatorial election. So, it was perfectly prepared, we are using the list prepared in September 2014, when we did our congresses. A copy has been taken to Abuja since then, copy with DSS, INEC, and a copy with me at the party’s secretariat. We have taken it to Abuja to compare and contrast with what we have there and they are tallied.

All aspirants that have been screened has been given a copy. So, we have minor faults there which we are going to correct and return to Abuja; just about two or three places. We also have people we refer to as super delegates. If you have been governor before, if you have gone to the Senate or House of Representatives before, or you are Principal Officer of Ekiti State House of Assembly. These are the people I refers as super delegates. The much orchestrated delegate list is perfect, consisting the names of executive at ward level, local government level and state level plus the super delegates. It is not that the delegates have not been chosen, no. They have been chosen since 2014 performing in their ward as the executive and administration of the party, they are not just new people.

What about the dead and those that have left the party, how do you replace them?

We are not replacing anybody, those who have died, may their souls rest in perfect peace. If we replace them, crisis will set in. Those that have left the party, we have one or two of them. This is because we don’t have congress now, if the congress would have been held, say two or three months ago, that would have given us the opportunity to replace the dead ones. But, since there was no congress up till now, we are just planning for one. You cannot replace anybody now.

Are you not overwhelmed seeing the calibre of people contesting on the platform of your party?

There are so many calibres that are not contesting that are still in the party. We did not force anybody to contest. Whatever calibre you are, you must listen to the dictates of the party. Whoever cannot cope, should opt out. There is still time for them. Once a winner emerges on Saturday, that is the party’s candidate and that is the person we are going to rally round. If you think you are big in your house, the party is bigger than all of us. Chief Akande, not only Asiwaju, drummed it to our hearing that that the party is veritable jar that can contain all of us. Whatever you are, the party is bigger. So, all of us must subsume our power under the party.

What is happening in your party at the national level as no date has been fixed for congress?

We want to come out with new programmes that will be acceptable to all Nigerians. You know a big party like APC has to take it easy. We have discovered the pitfalls, the banana pills and we don’t want to be involved. That is why we take things easy. I want to tell you that we hear rumbles within the same political palace. It is a normal life for we politicians because that is the time we are trying to put things possibly right. The only place you don’t expect much noise is in churches and mosques. When you hear much noise about a political party, it is then that we try to make some adjustments.

When we attempted to elongate the tenure, there were problems in some states and we don’t want internal implosion that will bring explosion at the end of the day. In the past two months, in some states, things were not easy and we are trying as much as possible to douse the tension. That was why we came up with extension of time by one year so that the primary election would have been conducted and whoever that is going to run for the Presidency would be there.

At times you learn from people that are behind you. The President thought that if we do that, it will be a serious constitutional matter that in the future will derail the whole system and caution was actually maintained. There will be congress in September in Ekiti. That is when we are going to be due for four years because Ekiti and Osun postponed our congresses in 2014 so that we will be able to conduct our election. Our own congress will be conducted in September and that of Osun will be in October. Immediately we finished Ekiti election in July, we are preparing for Osun election. So, you cannot take two or three iron into the furnace at the same time.