Kayode Ajulo is the national secretary of the Labour Party (LP). A legal practitioner, he handles the legal brief of the former Information Commissioner and Ijaw national leader, Chief Edwin Clark.
In this interview, he explains the circumstances surrounding the perceived feud between the Ijaw leader and his estranged political son and former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. He also reveals plans to reposition the LP in this interview with
Excerpts:
There is a trend now, what one can call the demonization of the former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan particularly by the beneficiaries of his administration. What is your take on this?
I know where you are going. Well, in specific terms, the denunciation of the Jonathan administration by Chief Edwin Clark…
Let me quickly tell you one thing. I am not speaking for LP now. It is well known that I am a legal practitioner and I have relationship with every Nigerian across board. Let me also quickly say this, though I am yet to get the brief of Chief Clark as his lawyer to say this on his behalf, it is always good to say what you know about people. I think those who wrote the report misinterpreted Chief Clark. What the old man stated was that at his age, 89, he ceased to be a member of any political party. But unfortunately, some misconstrued it to mean that Chief Clark has dumped the PDP for another party, they even mentioned APC.
Now, to the issue of Jonathan. We have to be sincere. You may say anything about Chief Clark, but one thing I know about him is that he calls a spade a spade. That day, he stated so much about Jonathan; he talked about how the man despite advice by some people, allowed the election results without raising any objection and when he called to congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari he didn’t even discuss it with anybody.
He also stated that one thing he never really liked about him was the manner he handled the issue of corruption. In all fairness, he has been consistent about that. If you remember, about two years ago he delivered a lecture organised by the Advanced Legal Studies. For almost four pages of that lecture, he talked about corruption and how it was being handled and even accused several agencies of government.
If you remember about two years ago he took on EFCC chairman, Lamorde accusing him of corruption, if you remember his face-off with Mohammed Adoke, the former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), trying to say the president allowed Adoke to do anything he liked. So, I can tell you different instances publicly. I remember apart from that I have been at private meetings where Chief Clark will raise the issue with any member of the Jonathan administration even the former president himself.
Now, why I am worried is the way it is being portrayed as if it is now that Chief Clark is raising the issue of corruption. He has been saying it when Jonathan was president even now that he is no more president I don’t see any reason it should be a sin, it is now be portrayed that he has abandoned Jonathan. He never did. It is still the same father-and-son relationship.
What annoyed Chief Clark about Jonathan will be revealed by Chief Clark himself at a later time. This is about father and son and nobody should come between them.
If you look at the list of ministerial nominees just screened by the Senate; what is your take on that list considering the time it took the Presidency to unveil it and the way the Senate went about the screening?
Well, the truth has to be told. After months of waiting, hues and cries and seeing the list the first question I asked is, can we say it is worth all the waiting and secondly, where are the angels? The president has promised the nation that he was going to bring people that would bring a clear departure, because from my understanding of change, it is something new, something different from what we have seen. But when the list was released, you find out that these are the same people they have been working together. The question we now asked, are you now finding them worthy to be named ministers?
Secondly, why all the waiting all these days, particularly if you consider the fact that by our constitution, you are mandated to appoint; the section of the constitution is so clear on how a minster should be appointed and your term is four year certain and the term starts running from the day you are sworn in. The constitution requires you to run the government with the ministers, it is a constitutional provision that you must kick off and start running with them. We believe that having been aspiring for the office for the past twelve years, he must have his grand plan, a blue print but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to know what he is doing. That’s why when the list came up, we now asked: despite all your promises, that list is a huge disappointment.
Of recent the PDP made an allegation that the anti-corruption crusade of the present administration is politically motivated. Do you share that perception?
Well, corruption is one of the biggest problems we have, we must face the truth here. Whatsoever might be our problem, you find out that it has its root in corruption. Now this issue of corruption, we have to be sincere. I agree with President Muhammadu Buhari that you must fight corruption, it must be fought to a standstill, but we have to be sincere.
True evidence can lie, but circumstantial evidence can never lie.
There are some instances that one may be pushed to believe that this government isn’t fighting corruption because it seems to be targeted and selected. But what I won’t agree with is that all those people that they accused that they are clean. That’s one thing but my own position is this: PDP may be shouting that it is targeted at them but the question I need to ask is, are these people being accused wrongly?
I will not accuse Buhari of that. But my own concern is that the corruption is everywhere, not only in PDP—- it is in APC, and other parties. If you know of anybody that you have genuine case against, take him up but where the problem would be is when you left some people and others are being harassed here and there. I think it should be holistic and I believe that the law must take its course, if heavens must fall and that’s why we must have strong institutions. I don’t want to believe that because we lack the man power and that’s why we cannot go after them. If you have the manpower to go after Governor Akpabio, if we have the manpower to go after Saraki, then check within your party, you should have enough manpower to rein them in too.
People tend to dismiss the Labour Party as an appendage of the PDP, considering its romance with the latter in the last two general elections. As national secretary of LP, how will you react to this?
I won’t want to believe that. We have to understand one thing. Nigerians have this selective tendency to listen to what we like to hear. Yes, in the last elections, after rigorous deliberations by the national executive of the party and a committee set up to look at all the presidential candidates and between the two major candidates, President Muhammadu Buhari and former president, Dr Jonathan. We looked at their antecedents: the issue of rule of law, the issue of our constitution, of service delivery and all and mind you, the LP belongs to Nigerians, we are pro-workers.
So, we first picked the issue of workers, between the two, we asked ourselves, who can we really say tried to do something for workers.
You will find out that not less than four different legislations were passed during Dr Jonathan: the Minimum wage, Compensation Act even pension. Politics is about interest, who will promote my interest.
So, at the end of the day we realised that Dr Jonathan administration seemed to promote the interest of workers than Buhari. The only thing you can make reference to was his last administration as military head of state, when we had repressive laws and violation of fundamental human rights. So, we had to defend what we thought was defendable.
But today the party appears to be the last haven for desperate politicians seeking for tickets for elective offices, each time they lose out in PDP, APC primaries.
Let me tell you, in the LP, for you particularly when you aren’t a member, for you to be a candidate, or to be a member, we have a process for it. We have to grant you waiver and there is a committee that does that. Mind you, I have to say this in that 2015 elections, virtually in all states we had politicians that wanted our ticket because LP happens to be the next place to run to.
Was it desperation for their money that informed your willingness to accommodate them?
If I must tell you, only Alao-Akala was allowed. In some places like Ogun State, of course, after some people came to the party they even picked party forms, but a committee had to look at their applications to join the party. I know many people would ask, why Akala? It was because as governor of Oyo State, after his initial problem with the workers, after settling with them, he was in touch with LP and it became so easy for him that the second day he quit PDP he moved to LP.
Before that time we had five aspirants and all of them accepted and presented Akala to us. I must say this, Dimeji Bankole was supposed to run under our platform. The question people should ask is, why was he denied ticket? In LP, a committee sat and the committee checked all the applications very well and those we believed didn’t have antecedents to promote our position, our goals and manifestoes were shown the way out. We gave Opeyemi Bamidele our ticket because everybody knows his stance when it comes to pursuit of peoples welfare and that’s why we were proud to showcase him and gave him our ticket.
We are in business to enlarge our coast.
Is LP in business?
We are in business to enlarge our coast, to expand our horizon and we wouldn’t do anything for pittance to kill that. Of course, there may be issues that some people may have but one thing you have to know is this: it is about people, it is about democracy and the majority must have their say. We will try as mush as possible to keep to the values of the labour movement and that’s what we did. We presented roughly 18 governorship candidates whereas every state, politicians came with applications, some even begging us with money to run under our party but we refused.
So, what is the way forward for LP?
The way forward despite the misunderstanding between the former chairman and the incumbent. He has presented the certificate of registration to the NLC which I didn’t know what made him to do that, but INEC has issued another to us.
That has been settled. What is important is for us to now sit down together with all our stakeholders to fashion out a new way forward for us. We are of the view in LP that with the new dispensation, PDP lacks the capacity to maintain and manage the opposition in the new Nigeria because of its antecedents. Where are they? They have tainted their hands. The party to beat now is the LP and I have been saying it.
You think your platform is so formidable enough to pick the gauntlet?
Look, once you speak the truth, people will be by your side. Once you criticize and stand by the truth. It is no rocket science. It is natural, if you see somebody speak your language you draw closer to that person. That’s what LP is doing; we are supposed to speak for the people but we wouldn’t deliberately run down any government. We will say it as it is and if there is going to be any criticism, it will be constructive to make it better. Anytime the ruling government is doing what the people want we will commend it. What we are saying is that we will chart a new course for the nation.
The Sun