Hon Adeola Ogunsina is the chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Republic of Ireland chapter. The politician who contested the House of Representatives for Ado Odo/Ota Federal Constituency in this interview with NIYI ADEJUWON, x-rays the positive contribution of Nigerians in the Diaspora, the level of political awareness in Nigeria and the chances of PDP to win the governorship election.

You are in Nigeria at a time the general election is around the corner.  What informed your decision to leave Dublin now?

I am in Nigeria to support the campaign of Gboyega Nasir Isiaka for the governorship seat of Ogun State where I am an indigene from Ijoko Ota and I contested for the Federal House of Representatives in Ado Odo/Ota under the PDP banner in the last primary. So, I am here to give my moral and physical support to the campaign of PDP to win back our state.

Precisely, how long have you been in politics?

I have been in politics for nearly 10 years ago. We started the foreign chapter of the PDP in 2004 in Ireland, which was inaugurated by the then Deputy National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun. It was an initiative of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to spread the party’s wings abroad to be able to get positive ideas from those of us living in the Diaspora to bring about innovative ideas to move the country forward. One of the ideas was to have chapters abroad so that those of us who are politically attuned would be able to contribute to the positive development of the country. So we started in 2004 and I was the initial treasurer of the chapter and in 2010, I became the chairman of the Irish chapter of the PDP.

Honourable Adeola Ogunsina

There is a global trend, a clamour for young people to take up the challenge of leadership. But we have a situation where people like you, prefer to relocate abroad to develop other countries. Why is this so?

As I have just said, one of the things I have done is to bring those ideas to Nigeria as in contesting for the Federal House of Representatives Ado Odo/Ota. The other part of me which I didn’t say before is that I am the chairman of Ogun State indigenes in Ireland and if you look at the track record of my association, we have done various projects in Ogun State as a result of knowing what obtains in Europe and the kind of ideas that will make people move forward. We have four libraries in different parts of Ogun State. We have done borehole recently in Idogo, in Yewa which is part of what we discussed when we go to these meetings and one of the reasons why I came back to contest for elective post as they say you have to put your money where your heart is as we have to come out with positive ideas and impact into our peoples minds. For the likes of myself, who had lived a couple of years in Ireland and it is interesting to know that Irish Diaspora is so big. The Indians are the most dispersed people. There is no where you go around the world that you won't find an Irishman who are practically Indians and Nigerians come after that.  It is this crop of people that develop their country by tapping into the power and the knowledge. We have a programme in Ireland whereby if I an Irish person is working with Google, for example, the person is encouraged to tell Google management to come and establish a branch in Ireland and if you succeeded in encouraging the company to establish a base in Ireland, they pay you for bringing the company to Ireland. In Ogun State here, we have what we called a free trade zone that was initially designed to accommodate 179 companies and they only have less than 60 companies there. How do you meet up the remaining number? It is to look for our indigenes living abroad and say if you are working for a company willing and ready to invest in Africa especially in Nigeria which is the giant of Africa, largest population and biggest growing economy, bring them to this country, we will facilitate the movement of your equipment and we are building so many infrastructural things you need and this person that is bringing can be absorbed as a GM, you are also helping that individual and if Ogun State say, ‘we cant pay that much money’, at least, the person gets some recognition for the venture. So, there are ways we can tap into the Diaspora. So, I am here to give my candid and honest support and service to my State and my country.

Elections are due for the next couple of days, what are your observations and assessment of the level of our political awareness when compared with what obtains over there?

The political awareness, I won't lie to you is there no doubt, but there is a peculiar politics that people are running here that is quite not right. This is because, the ideas and what politicians intend to do and what they stand for is in the background. So, when you talk about political awareness in Nigeria it is about individual parties and individual contestants. You will never hear anything about ideology. What are we going to do to better the lot of our people? All you hear is ‘oh, we are progressives, we are this and that’. But people should come out to start asking what do you have for us?  If you go to Brazil where they have a socialist government, all they preach is how to remove poverty by increasing the middle class and how do you increase the middle class?. It is by creating jobs, housing and people would now say, ‘this party stands for this’. Like in the country where I am coming from, the Labour Party is the party for the working class. You also have the party for the farmers and also another party for the business people. This means that people join political parties based on their personal interests. So we need to start changing our political orientation from personal and party based to individual issues based.

People will come and say I want to create so many jobs.  Then I ask, ‘On  what basis’?

If you look at it from this angle, we are in Ado Odo/Ota. This is the most industrialized area of Ogun State and the roads are in deplorable condition. How did these industries bring out their products? So all you need is a government that cares,  a process that will directly approach these industrialists and say, ‘what do you need to grow your business in this place?  I am sure good network of roads will be number one factor, then the need for quality educated work force. It is then we are talking of getting our priorities right.

If for example, I were to be governor of the state or, I am representing this area in the Federal House, if you do that investigation and you now know as a politician what my people want and what my people want is a qualified work force, education, good roads, electrification for the industries, health services and other amenities. That is how a society can function, but in Nigeria, I think it is the other way round. The government will just come and say let us take away a housing estate from this place and construct a massive expressway. You are constructing expressways into the villages without water for Christ sake! So, which one comes first. We did borehole in Ibogo as I told you. We looked into it deeply and consider what is most important to the people.  Don’t get me wrong, roads are good, infrastructures are good but they need to be placed in areas where the basic needs are met and the basic needs of food, health and shelter needs to be taken care of first. It is high time that politicians start moving away and changing mindset, that the culture of ‘e ju owo sile’ (drop money) I experienced in the course of our campaign train, has to end one day to be replaced with ‘ki le ma se fun wa’ (what are your programmes for us) and let the politicians come out and explain how they hope to better the lot of our people.

The PDP has been in power for the past 16 years, but the slogan out there, especially from the opposition is ‘change’.  What do you thing the PDP has not done right to the people of Nigeria.

I won’t sit here to give you the impression that everything is perfect in Nigeria or we are in Eldorado as we are far from getting there, but there are some few remarkable improvements, something I can call outstanding giant strides recorded by this administration, especially in the areas of rail transport, agriculture, education and aviation sectors which are the unique selling points of President Jonathan’s transformation agenda. A couple of years back, the rail transportation is moribund. It has gone dead and you know the implication is that the available road networks in the country cannot withstand the pressure of usage as a result of congestion from heavy vehicular movement. But the situation has changed as we now have the railway back on track. In the agriculture sector, the PDP government under President Jonathan has for the first time succeeded in removing the bottleneck and corruption associated with distribution of fertilizers in the country. This has helped to boost food supply and created millions of jobs in that sector. Our airports are now wearing a new look ditto, for the establishment of additional universities as well as Almajiri schools in the north.

 But having said that, one is not particularly happy with the security situation in the country  now, because the spate of insurgency has almost eroded the landmark achievements of Mr President. But I believe the government has the capacity to arrest the situation because globally, terrorism is an issue now and that is why I believe that the issue of Boko Haram will cease if President Jonathan is given a second chance. Of course, corruption is one other major issue plaguing the country and I believe a lot still needs to be done in that regard.

Back to the politics of Ogun State,  four years ago, the party lost to the opposition APC through infighting and internal crisis leading to the emergence of different factions within the party, the last governorship primary of the party was also controversial until very recently when your candidate was given the party’s flag. What are the chances of the PDP to win back the state from the incumbent governor?

Yes, I agree with you that there are pockets of infighting within the party in 2011 which led to the unfortunate incident you mentioned. It is normal in any human organisation to have disagreement, but I can tell you with every sense of responsibility that we have put the past behind us by supporting Gboyega Nasir Isiaka as our candidate for the governorship election. GNI is the candidate of the party and we all have the absolute trust in him that he has what it takes to take this state to the next level. He is not new to the politics of Ogun State having contested before and knows the  workings  of  government. To his credit is the creation of free trade zone I earlier mentioned when he served under the immediate past administration. He is a man with uncommon drive and passion to serve. You should also take cognizance of the fact that the Yewa Awori part of Ogun State is yet to produce a governor for the state was created. So, the PDP which is a party that always preach equity and fairness has decided to field GNI and all of us have agreed to support him and the party to win the state back from APC. The campaigns are ongoing and the response we are getting from our people has been encouraging and positive to the PDP because the present government has failed in all ramifications and the people of Ogun State are yearning for a change which GNI represents and by a special grace of God, Gboyega Nasir Osaka would be our next governor come February 28.