Senator Lekan Balogun is a key player in the Oyo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and one of those opposed to the present position of things in the party. In this interview with WALE ADELE and BANJI ALUKO, he speaks on the raging issue of zoning in the party among others. Excerpts:

WE have seen 11 years of democracy in Nigeria. As a major participant and a key player, what is your assessment of the journey so far?
Using the examination grading system, I will rank us between F9 and P8. While it is not quite a failure, we have not succeeded. You are now free to criticise me and I am free to criticise you. That was an impossibility in the military era. To the extent that we are masters of might is right, our story has not been quite successful. The three factors that determine what you get in our kind of democracy I called the three ‘Ms’ factors — money, muscle and mischief making. If you are not ready to influence the process, you won’t likely succeed in our kind of democracy.

If you are not ready to spend money, kill or maim people, or steal ballot boxes, you won’t likely be a success story in the politics of Nigeria. If you are not ready to combine these two factors with mischief making, you are not likely going to succeed in Nigerian politics. That said, a few people, who are not of that orientation still succeed although they are very few. On the contrast, in the US, a country whose democracy we are copying, the variables that determine what you will get I will term ICC – intellect, character and charisma.

If you look at Barak Obama, you will discover that these three variables won him the election in America. To now drive home the contrast between our system and  the American system, Obama would not have succeeded in becoming a councillor in Nigeria. Lately,  I am linking this regime with god-fatherism. It is my own theory. I just took part in a seminar in Jigawa State and all the speakers more or less ended up talking about our value system. There is a common feeling that leadership and value system are our main problems. Ideology are there and nobody talks about ideologies anymore, otherwise the foundation would have been ideologies. As long as we are having the three ‘Ms’ regime, you won’t get anything good out of our leaders. The three ‘Ms’ regime produces bad leadership at various levels of the hierarchy — councillors to the president.

You once won an election into the Senate. Would you say that it was the three ‘Ms’ regime that produced people like you?
It is the same regime but it was a different climate at the time. I belonged to the Alliance for Democracy then and we had to go for an interview. My competitors then were late Mr. Ajibola Olanipekun (SAN) and Chief Kolapo Ishola. We were interviewed as if we were seeking admission into the university. There was also a panel of interviewers and we sat in front of them. In terms of financial buoyancy, I was the least buoyant but I got it. When I became the Mogaji, the family told me that I was through with politics and I said fine. But years after, they came and said that our fore-fathers were warriors and the politics of their time was warfare.

The warfare of our time is politics. So, my family leaders, who had said that I should not participate in politics, returned to tell me that since the warfare of our time was politics, I should move ahead with politics and that they will support me. I am from Lagelu Local Government and Lagelu had always been a conservative local government but I led the campaign for AD in the election in Lagelu and the party won by landslide. When the story unfolded, the late Pa Abraham Adesanya said the man that led theprogressives to victory in Lagelu must go to the Senate. So there are exception across the country of people who won election without the three ‘Ms’ but they are few.

From the position of Mogaji to the Osi of Olubadan which is just two steps form the thrones of Olubadan, are we expecting an Olubadan politician in you?

No, no, no. If you look at the context of the ban the Olubadan imposed on his high chief not to participate in politics, it was a prominent Ibadan high chief who created it. The high chief had a reputation for encouraging thuggery and violence and he was bringing disrepute to the council. That was why Baba said anybody in his council should not be involved in politics. What Baba meant to say was that if you will not play it with honour, then you will not sit in his council. It was in that context that Baba (Olubadan) issued the ban. Kabiyesi is highly dynamic and intelligent. Politics as an activity of correcting the ills of the society cannot be submerged. The Yoruba Language is the most effective weapon to draw a line between the politics of violence and thuggery and politics of idea. In  this society, a semi-illiterate became the chairman of an education committee in acouncil and a man who can hardly express himself became the Deputy Speaker of a state House of Assembly. All these happened in this society.

Now that we are having misfits in key political offices, how do you think change can be achieved?             
We will move the country and the polity away from the three ‘Ms’ to the ICC. We will scrutinise a man for his character and intellectuals. We will check if  he can cope with politics of ideas. If he cannot cope, no matter how much money, intimidation or mischief making he does, we will not listen to him.

Your party, PDP is facing the problem of keeping faith with the promise of zoning as President Jonathan looks poised to contest the 2011 election?
Why are you negotiating power. At the time zoning started, a section of the country seemed to be monopolising power so the others said we are not your slave, let power rotate amongst us. Now, we are moving into a new season, where we have discovered that even a move from monopoly to power sharing has its own problems. Whether we like it or not, late President Umaru Yar’Adua was a good president but poor health hampered him. He was also the most educated until Jonathan came in. I expect Jonathan to be an improvement on Yar’Adua. We will move to ICC gradually. Inevitably, we have to get there.

(Barnabas)Gemade said some few days ago that this is God-own zoning. Human beings manipulate things the way they want but God decides His own. I would abide by God’s divine intervention and say Goodluck Jonathan should carry on. We are all subjected to God’s formulae; everything He does, we have to abide by it. Jonathan did not want Yar’Adua to die. He said he was his boss, brother and friend. How much sincerity must a man convey. So, let us accept God’s judgement and let Jonathan carry on.

But there is this fear that this is the North’s time to produce the next president and that by the time they get hold of  power they might not want to relinguish it.

People talk as if the North is a monolithic group. They are not! Chief Awolowo knew this about fifty years ago and was popular in all the minority groups all over the country.

He was the first to go to Cross-River, North Central, including Plateau, Kogi and other places, and he was acceptable to them.

He knew that they were not monolithic. People also ignore the place of ideology in our thinking. When I chose to join Aminu Kano in PRP, UPN was the most popular party in my area of the country but when I looked at the ideologies, I realised that Chief Awolowo was a welfarist but Aminu Kano was all about the change in social order. So, I found the PRP more attractive.

Great man Awolowo was but I wouldn’t join the then NPN, an outright bourgeoise party that believes in the exploitation of people. People ignore the fact that people such as Balarabe Musa and so on are from the North. Gemade is also from the North and people like him have been saying that Goodluck Jonathan should continue.