Anayo Ezugwu 
Dr AbdulHakeem Adetugbobo is the Director General of the Asiwaju Grassroots Talk (AGT), a political group in support of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. In this interview with ANAYO EZUGWU, he speaks on mobilisation of voters and other issues
Your group is organising a seminar for party members, what is the Asiwaju Grassroot Talk all about?
The group is a relatively new group; it started in 2018, when our brother, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was the candidate of the APC. So, we started as Sanwo-Olu Grassroot Talk and a month after, when Dr. Obafemi Hamzat got the ticket as running mate to the governor, it was transformed into Sanwo-Olu/Hamzat Grassroot Talk.
Thereafter, when they were inaugurated, we changed to Asiwaju Grassroot Talk to position the group for what we are doing in this electioneering circle. We started off in Epe because of the peculiarity of Epe then. Nobody wanted to hear about Sanwo-Olu at all and we were a little bit methodological because we did our research and realised that people were rejecting him out of fear of truncating some of the projects then Governor Akinwunmi Ambode started. They didn’t mind the change of batten. So, we came out to reassure them Sanwo-Olu had promised that he would not truncate them, which he didn’t and he has done beyond our expectations in Epe and across Lagos State.
The other thing we promised them was that we will allow dividends of democracy to get to the grassroots. As a group, we just did it out of love for somebody and it has metamorphosed to this level. It is about the most feasible group in Lagos at the moment because there is no community that the group does not have its presence.
So, we want to be the most feasible and credible political group in Nigeria. The election of Governor Sanwo-Olu was far better than the 2015 election of Governor Ambode in Epe in terms of outcome. And this was someone they didn’t even want to embrace initially. We realised that what we pushed actually got to the grassroots.
Like the name of the group implies, how do you get to the grassroots across the state?
In order to get to the grassroots and target audience, we set up some directorates to reach out to the people. The group now comprises about 10 directorates, we have a directorate of CDC, a directorate of artisans, a directorate of farmers, a directorate of students,a directorate of youths, a directorate of professionals interested in politics, a directorate of inter and intraparty affairs, a directorate of education and directorate of women. In each of these directorates, we got people with a niche in the areas to head the directorates.
Why are you interested in getting the artisans, farmers and market women and men to be involved in the electoral process?
Since 1999, it is about 25 per cent of the registered voters, who come out to vote and it has been declining over the years. So, we are scientific and we did our research and realised that these critical stakeholders are the ones, who have actually gone to sleep. Our target is to bring them back to participate in the electoral process.
What is the target of the group regarding Tinubu’s presidential bid in terms of numbers during the election?
For Asiwaju Tinubu, we are not talking about winning this election because it is not only about winning but we want Lagos State to have the highest votes nationally. So, the theme of the seminar is ‘Political Evangelism: Raising Active Voters Above 50 per cent. We did just start with the election. We are involved in mobilising our members to go and register and get their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
After the registration, we have reawakened their consciousness and they are now willing to go out and mobilise. What we are doing today is that we are bringing in about 1,000 people and each one of them has a mobiliser card. Each one is supposed to go and look for 30 people with PVCs. As we have 1,000 people here, we are sure of 30,000 people that they are going to mobilise for the election. So, they will lead those they have mobilised to the polling booths.
So, it is deliberate and strategic mobilisation and we are teaching them how to get converts because everybody attending this seminar enters the hall with their PVCs and their mobilisation cards. We are doing a seminar that will re-enforce their confidence and we are giving them 30 tracks of developmental strides of Tinubu and Sanwo- Olu politically and infrastructurally.
so that they will be well equipped for the job. For the first time, Lagos State is producing a presidential candidate through APC and we are letting people know that our party is the largest party in Africa. And part of our target is that during the election, Lagos State should have the highest number of votes. All strategic work is not only about winning the election but increasing the number of voters and making sure that Lagos State has the highest votes nationally.
Do you have the target of votes you are looking to mobilise for Tinubu?
We have over seven million registered voters in Lagos and Lagos happens to be the highest, so we want to maintain that. And to maintain that, the next state close to Lagos State is about six million voters, so even if they have 90 per cent and the 90 per cent should be about five million votes, if we want to be the lead that means we should about have 90 per cent turnout. That is why we are taking this mobilisation this seriously to ensure everybody is involved. We have been able to educate them and they are now seeing it as their responsibility. This is not an electoral circle where people will be asking for money to go and vote and it is not an election of vote-buying. It will be an election that people will come out willingly in Lagos State to cast their votes for our leader, Asiwaju Tinubu.
The mobilisation that is ongoing, is it limited to only APC members in Lagos?
Globally, party politics has four parts; we have the party leaders, the party executives, the volunteers and the voters. That is why in the United State, people can easily say I’m a Democrat and they will be proud of it. I’m a Republican and they will be proud of it. So, that is where we are going. We want every Lagosian to come out and tell anybody who cares to hear that he or she is a progressive. So, we are cutting across everybody because what makes you a party man is when you continually vote for a particular party.
