‘PDP can’t win one ward in Ekiti’

Yemi AdaramoduMr. Yemi Adaramodu, Head, Media Committee of Dr. Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, speaks with Dapo Falade on the chances of the Action Congress (AC) in the re-run of the governorship election

THE issue in Ekiti State today is the re-run of the governorship election which has been characterised with violence. What could have led to this?
Our party is not a violent party. Members of the PDP have imbibed the political catechism of do or die. But the AC is not part of that kind of politics and in Ekiti State, we are violent-free.

When you look at the way the PDP has been conducting itself here, especially in the handling of its internal affairs, you woud agree that they resort to crisis. During the reign of the PDP, we lost many lives to political altercation.

The AC has been conducting its affairs violent-free. Look at the way we conduct our campaigns. The PDP is no more campaigning. What they do is to disrupt the AC campaigns. That was what they did at Ijan-Ekiti when a gunman suddenly ran into our campaign and another with sachets of a liquid suspected to be acid. We apprehended them and we even allowed them to go. If it were to be the PDP, that person is in trouble. Now, the AC is poised to take over the reins of power from those that can be called political wanderers who have taken hold of Ekiti State.

But is it logical for an individual or a few people to deliberately want to disrupt a campaign train consisting of a large number of people?
It is possible and depends on the machinery behind them. It is possible, even for only one gunman to scatter a large number of people who are defenceless. We always go to our campaign rallies with old men and women, young men and women who always dance at the rally. You don’t go to campaign rallies and see people dancing with guns. It is only somebody that wants to dare the people that will do so with weapons.

You are claiming that the PDP is the aggressor, but there were evidences of gunshots on the walls of a PDP senator when he was attacked. In line with your submission, is it possible for the man to shoot at his own home?
Yes, it is. He knew that he had been uncovered. He could have done that to raise an alibi so that he can escape from being prosecuted and the wrath of the people. We couldn’t have done that because we were going for a campaign rally and on our train were old men and women. An 80-year-old woman was shot. Do you expect her to carry arms and retaliate? Do you expect the people, the sick ones among them who were receiving attention from the medical missionaries of Dr. Fayemi to retaliate? We were not holding a rally there and our party members were not there. It was the people, irrespective of their political parties, that were at the event. So, who could have retaliated? It was the senator’s men that shot in order to raise an alibi that it was the AC members that had come to shoot at his gate.

The Court of Appeal was said not to have nullified the victory of the PDP at the election per se. How do you react to the submission that the PDP is more popular than the AC in Ekiti?
The PDP has never been on ground in Ekiti State because it has contributed nothing to its development. About the colour of biro used, I have heard Mr. Segun Oni several times that he lost to red biro. How on earth can somebody who is serious say that? If you read the judgment, it was stated there that Form EC8A, DCD were seriously mutilated and full of tipex; that in fact, there were layers of tipex on the forms, meaning that they had mutilated the figures written on the forms.

The other aspect is that there were some areas, especially in Oye and Ido-Osi local government areas, where the voters’ register were less than the votes recorded for a particular unit. Is that the fault of a red biro? Not only that, the results on Form EC8A will be different from the result on Form EC8B, whereas Form EC8B derives its authenticity from Form EC8A. Is that red biro? Mr. Oni and his acolytes will always say one thing to defend their failure. One thing is that the election had been declared as not conforming substantially to the Electoral Act, 2006.

The accusation is that your candidate is being remote-controlled from Lagos and that former Governor Bola Tinubu is out to annex Ekiti State into his political empire if Fayemi wins the election?
It amazes me whenever they talk about Tinubu supporting Fayemi. Tinubu is a national leader of the AC; a leader in Yorubaland and a progressive. Then, who do you want Tinubu to support? You want him to support Mr. Segun Oni? Is it more apt for Mr. Segun Oni to seek the support of Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, who is not from this area, more than for Tinubu to support Dr. Fayemi? Do you want to tell me that Tinubu, a Yoruba man supporting another Yoruba man, is more of a crime than Mr. Oni, who has gone to seek for friends outside Yorubaland? Who is more responsible to the Yoruba race among the people that I have mentioned than Tinubu? We don’t see any reasoning in that because Tinubu will surely support his party man.

It is on record that Fayemi was in the struggle to chase out former Governor Ayo Fayose out of office. Today, Fayemi is in alliance with the Fayose. How do you explain this development?
As you mentioned, when Fayemi and others currently in the PDP said that Fayose should vacate office, that was what the people wanted then. Now that Fayose is doing what the people want — that Fayemi should be their governor, rejecting Segun Oni — Fayose is now teaming up with other progressive people of the state. He has said it several times that he is going to queue behind the truth and that he will go wherever the people are going. He is not a blind politician; he is not deaf or dumb and he is on ground. He knows what the people want. Do you expect Fayose to go against the interest of the public?

Your governorship candidate said in a recent interview that if the election should fail to hold, someone (that is, himself) will be declared the winner. Is that not pre-emptive?
What he was saying is that the PDP had already made up its mind to rig the election. But the people of the state are saying no to rigging. Even monarchs, in a communiqué issued recently on their position on the re-run, said they were against violence and that they support one-man, one-vote. This means that every man in Ekiti supports that. But the PDP is now saying that it is going to be one-man, one-million votes. If eventually the PDP now goes to town and ensure that the election is not possible for the INEC to hold, surely the AC has a majority of lawful votes on ground. So it means that the results of the areas that election has been concluded will be announced and it will be to the peril of the PDP if they do not allow for a peaceful election.

The view of the people is that the AC has negative disposition towards monarchs by not paying homage to them during your rallies in their domains. What could have informed your position?
We don’t talk about our monarchs in the AC because we believe they are not politicians and we should not treat them as such. Our current campaign rallies are just a thank-you tour to politicians and our obas are not part of them. We have another day for them to be greeted in their palaces. We can’t tell them to come and greet us on the way when politicians are greeting us; we can’t just tell them to come and greet us when politicians are exchanging posters, billboards and chanting political songs and the likes. We believe that they are the revered representatives of our ancestors and we have to treat them as such.

Our governorship candidate is a very responsible Ekiti man; he is intelligent and deep. We don’t loathe our obas. Even, what Dr. Fayemi has been saying is that whatever anybody or any government is giving to our obas, it is just a minute part of what they will get from his administration. He said the five per cent that goes to the traditional council from the Federation Account to the local government in the state should be released to them in block, then our obas will enjoy more than what they are getting now.

Your party recently adopted a slogan, ‘Rig and Roast’. How do you now convince the people that you are not going out there to win the governorship seat by all means possible?
The poster, ‘Rig and Roast’, bears no logo of our party. The skeleton you saw there is not our logo but a broom. If you look at the PDP, they have the poster on many of their buses because the PDP too is accusing the AC of proposing to rig the election and that if we rig, we are going to face the consequences and we too are telling them the same thing. We are not the author of the poster. The people too paste it on their walls. We believe in what the people believe, including the PDP members, because the PDP had already said it is going to be one-man, one-vote and we adopt that.

What is the AC leadership doing to ensure the conduct of a peaceful and fair re-run election?
We insist on one-man, one-vote during the re-run election; we are even saying that election is a civil matter, so why do we need soldiers and a retinue of mobile policemen, fake and genuine, or thugs? Everybody must be given the opportunity of who they want to vote for. Voters are not violent; our fathers and mothers and the school children of voting age who want to cast their votes are not violent. What I will advise is that the PDP should be begged to allow for the sanctity of the ballot box in Ekiti State; allow the votes of the people to count and not to engage in rigging.

What happens if your party loses the re-run election?
If there is a free and fair election, supervised by all Nigerians, all Ekiti people; and the INEC, through its actions and inactions, convince the people that a free and fair election had been conducted, our party will take the result in good faith. But I am very sure that we are going to win outright because we now control about 95 per cent of the voters in Ekiti State. Look at those behind us; all the former governors of the state are with us, none is with them. The politicians with integrity are all with us.