As Nigerians reminisce on 64 years of nationhood, Olorogun Eddy Olafeso, a former National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) South-West and one-time Information Commissioner in Ondo State, reflects on the journey so far. The Director-General of the PDP Campaign Organisation in the November 16 Governorship Election also tells BIYI ADEGOROYE that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) delivered mythical figures in the just concluded governorship election in Edo State

Nigeria is about celebrating its 64th independence anniversary. Would you say the country has lived up to the dreams of its founding fathers?
To be frank, I can tell you that we have seen Nigeria fallen from the great dreams of our founding fathers to a devastating nightmare. We have seen that founding fathers hardly dreamed of the kind of chaos that is currently taking place in all spheres of Nigerian life. It has been a very bad time for Nigeria. The 64 years has led us nowhere and the Nigerian project is becoming very daunting.

In specific terms, do you want to mention some areas where the dreams have not been realised?
If you look at it today, the economy has gone to shreds; there is nothing working for the government. Unemployment rate is very high. The quality of education we give to the younger generation is not such that it can take us to the next level. In agriculture there is food scarcity all over the place; security has actually been the worst bane in the last few years. People can no longer go to their farms because of kidnapping. Every sphere of life has been badly affected.

Is it the health sector, look at our hospitals; is it housing, all human development indices have gone south. Even our fiscal policy has betrayed the people. We are the sixth largest oil producing country in the world, yet our people are buying a litre of petrol at over N1,000 and even diesel used by the industries is costlier. How do you justify these in a country that held so many promises in 1960 which has gone astray in 2024?
There is no sector you turn to and it is not total darkness upon Nigerians. Inflation is around 37 per cent, and they call it runaway inflation now and nobody is doing anything to stop it. Nigerians have gone through such bad dreams. Every sector is affected and it is because of poor leadership, poor governance and inability to rein our opportunities, our potential and make this country great.
The political class has become roguish. They have stolen the nation dry. The business community too has connived with the political class in stealing anything they can steal from the country. It is only in Nigeria we find people with briefcases becoming billionaires. Almost everything we had has been stolen out of the country.

You said the political class has stolen the nation blind. How would you explain that?
Today, NNPCL is claiming to owe $6billion as fuel subsidy, despite the fact on his inauguration, this President said that subsidy was gone; they are saying they are owing $6 billion unappropriated debt, that Nigerians would have to pay with their blood and sweat. That is a clear example of roguishness and disregard for the Constitution.
There are many. You awarded the Coastal Road contract for over N3 trillion without getting appropriation for it at the National Assembly to determine if it was the wish of the people. It is a clear example of recklessness. When a contract is not subjected to all the various due process before it is awarded, it is being a rogue. It is only a roguish government that can actually do that.
And you can also remember the number of federal lawmakers in this government that have pending corruption cases hanging on their neck at the EFCC. Many of them graduated from being governors in their states and other offices, where they have been indicted and yet they are still in charge till today.
Remember the President of the Senate was a governor and is a former minister with several billions of fraud cases being investigated against him. He is sitting on top of the National Assembly of the country today, making laws and drawing salaries from the country. How can you have confidence in whatever that man does, because the sword of Damocles is still hanging on his head. These are some of the challenges.

But for 16 years, your political party, the PDP governed this country…
We are progressively digging backwards. The political class of the First Republic is different from the current ones. The truth is that Nigerians are less patriotic now than they were decades ago. And it is a conspiracy between the business class and the political class to syphon Nigeria’s wealth outside the country. Many multinationals have left Nigeria, why? Because of corruption, incompetence and inefficiency. These are the things I am talking about.

Talking about leadership recruitment patterns, how do you see the quality of people being elected into office?
The greatest problem this country has is the political parties. The political offices are occupied by the lankies of those in government. You can see that there are no decent people out there in politics. When you have a corrupt political party, there is no way they can give birth to an efficient government. And that is what the situation is today.
People buy their way into government, trying to perpetuate themselves there because the quality of the people running the political parties and the processes through which they are selected is faulty. It is corrupt and there is no way you can purify it to bring out very decent people to run the state for the Nigerian people.

That takes us to Edo State. The outcome of the election has been greeted with mixed feelings. How do you see the outcome of the governorship election?
We watched aghast and helplessly how the APC government rubbished democracy without any recourse to all the electoral processes and law. We watched how they invaded Edo State. I must confess to you, PDP won that election in Edo State, and Asue Ighodalo became a folk hero in his action and his ability to fight against the invaders and marauders in Edo State who are celebrating. And the most insulting part is that their Publicity Secretary said that Edo’s victory is an indication that Nigerians are really appreciative of the way the APC government under President Bola Tinubu has promised Nigerians.
Nothing else can be farther from the truth. My brother, so many children will drop out of school this session because their parents cannot afford it. A lot of people can no longer go to work because they cannot afford the transport fare. The minimum wage is N70,000, but you cannot fill your car tank with that. A bag of rice is N100,000, and despite all the lies under the Buhari government, it is still the same thing they are positioning themselves to do to lie to the Nigerian people, because they knew they were coming with force of violence, intimidation and using poverty as a tool to oppress the people in any election cycle. Nigeria is in for a very, very difficult time. It is only God that can really liberate us, and for so many of us to stand up and still be close to the government, otherwise, this is going to be a long suffering period for our people.

The APC National Chairman, Abdulahi Ganduje said that the Edo election signals the party’s readiness to take over Rivers and Ondo states. How do you react to that statement? And how would you describe the heavy presence of APC governors in Edo State during the election?
They knew what they were doing. They must have been tasked to bring in money to buy the people. They know they are not popular; they know themselves that they have wreaked havoc on the people. And they know too well that this won’t last forever. Their presence is to continue to perpetuate their criminality, and that was exactly what they did and the world saw it. It made them smaller when they were leaving the place, because they have actually earned the certified disdain that will linger a long time in the mind of the people.
We say it and nobody could believe it that in the 21st century INEC, in collusion with all the institutions of election can do that brazen disservice to humanity. Even all the election monitoring non-governmental organisations confirmed the election was neither free nor fair. They (INEC and security agencies) sat on the oath of office they took and they did what they did for a pot of portage. It is so unfortunate.
And coming back to Ganduje, a man who could not run his home state, where NNPP ran through, wants to come and manage Ondo State. He must go back to history books. The most liberated state in Nigeria today is Ondo State. Our people are educated; they know their rights and they know that the only way we can say no to the APC government is to ensure that we reject them at the polls come November 16.
Ganduje should go and check his history books. When the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) government wanted to rig an election in Ondo State in 1983 the consequences still reverberate with us till today. But this new generation of people in Ondo State are peace-loving. We are not going to be violent, but we are going to tell them that we will be their Vietnam, the way the Americans scurried out of Vietnam is the way APC will be humiliated out of Ondo State. Mark my words.

How prepared is the PDP and its candidate for the Ondo election?
We are prepared. We have gone through a series of rigging and abuses in the past, and we know exactly what we are going to do. Our salvation is with the ordinary man on the streets who can no longer eat three square meals in a day, who can neither go to work nor their farm, who live in constant fear of herdsmen or kidnappers or bandits. Our people have been baptised by the eight years of APC and are ready for a change. And with the people ready for a change and our willingness in providing a template for sustainable development, in all the areas of human endeavor, from security, agriculture, health, education, infrastructural development, youth and women development and rural development, the blue economy, we are sure to excel in these areas and bring prosperity to Ondo State.
All the APC does is to collect hefty federal allocation, and it disappears at the bureau de change. You know. In the last few months, they have given over N100 billion to Ondo State. Not a single project has been commissioned, neither have they flagged off any project. All the governors do is to hire Special Advisers and Senior Special Advisers with the view to using them to rig the election. We heard that they have earmarked about N15 billion for that election, but they will be so humiliated and surprised, when the people will move against them with their thumbs. I am very positive. APC has no place in the life of the people of Ondo State any more. They have failed themselves, and they have failed the state.

What level of support is the PDP giving your candidate in this election? A lot of APC governors were seen in Edo, but only a few PDP…
Were those governors supposed to be in Edo State in the first place? The Electoral Act is very clear. Only those who have voter’s cards in the specific areas where voting is taking place are supposed to be there. So what were they doing there? To influence, they destroy all the processes so that they could come up with those…, can you imagine even at the collation centre, people were being teargassed and party agents barred from there! The IREV took the results from the units, but they were never allowed to do the collation. And when eventually they delivered the results, it was the mythical figures they had written a long time ago that they declared.
I celebrate the leadership of PDP in Edo for the good fight they put in place. History will justify them, and I am very sure that the judiciary will return the stolen mandate. So sad that they want to impose those who are near illiterate on the people.

How united is the PDP at the national level now. Is it still dogged by leadership squabbles?
We are one; we are better. We are back and better. We have lost some weight; we have lost some people that were not too sure of where they belong, and those jobbers that move from one party to another during every election cycle. They are gone. We are lean now, but better. We are mobile and we believe that the experience of our candidate is enough for us to queue behind and encourage him to do what is best for the people. Our party will dare to be more organised in the future and we are back better than before. So believe me, we are a lot better than we were before the election in 2023.

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