In an interview with journalists in Lagos, the National Coordinator of the pan-Yoruba group, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Gani Adams spoke on the recent rally he organised calling for the removal of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, among other issues.Excerpts below: Can you reflect on the rally which you held recently and which has become so controversial? Do you think the rally is controversial? Many have criticised and condemned it It is the opposition that has condemned the rally. In my own opinion, I don’t know how and why they are feeling the pain about the rally that was not against them. The rally was made significantly to register our displeasures about the activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, over the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs. Right now, the South-West has not gotten up to 5 million PVCs and the election is almost here. Even in some South-Eastern states, they haven’t get up to 18 per cent of the PVCs, likewise South-South. In the North-East, where we have the Boko Haram insurgency, more than 90 per cent of their PVCs have been given to them. There is a Diamond Estate in Ikotun, here in Lagos, they went to the INEC to collect their PVCs, and INEC told them that the system is corrupt. Odogunyan in Ikorodu, more than 80 villages haven't gotten their PVCs. You remember about three to four weeks ago, the governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, went to INEC office complaining that less than 50 per cent of registered voters in the state have not gotten their PVCs. When you calculate the number of collected PVCs in the entire South West, it is only Ondo State that has gotten up to 70 per cent of their PVCs. And the election will soon come up. Secondly, the issue of registration of under-aged in the North, because we know that many under-aged were registered in the North. And we saw them on the internet queuing to be registered and Jega has not made any categorical statement. You know the cards we are going to use in this election are going to be a permanent one, so the scenario will continue in the next election. The third one is the issue of the 30 per cent polling units illegally created by Professor Jega, which he tactically called voting centres. Why was he creating new polling units less than two months before the elections? If you remember, about two and half months ago, the Afenifere issued a press statement that Jega should not create more polling units. The Southern Nigerian People Assembly, SNPA, also stated the same thing. Other organizations lent their voice to the call. But Jega had systematically created those polling units. That was the reason for the rally, the platform we used was not OPC, the platform we used was Coalition of Concerned Nigerians, But coordinated by OPC? No, coordinated by me, Otunba Gani Adams. It wasn’t an OPC affair because we have a lot of Nollywood stars, most of them from Igboland, some of them from the Niger Delta, so definitely you can’t call it an OPC affair. But don’t you think removal of Jega can led to something else? God forbid, God Forbid, what if Jega dies, won’t we move on. Assuming anything happens to Jega four days to the elections; won’t another person take over and finish the elections? We should not fool ourselves. The elections would hold, the nation must move on, heaven would not fall. I agree that they should not use the military where we cannot classify as war zones, what of North-East? Can anyone come out in North–East if there is no military? He has to be careful, we don’t need military in the West, we don’t need them in some states in the Middle–Belt, but what of North-East? And do you think you can organise elections in Yobe, Adamawa, Borno and Bauchi without the military? You cannot, who will come out? They will slaughter people, even in Kano. So I think the man is confused because I don’t see his priority in joining issue with the military. He should have allowed the opposition and the ruling party to trash the matter out. Election was held in Syria where there is war, the military monitored the elections there, election was held in Afganistan, and the military monitored the elections. We should not because of elections waste more lives in this country. Nobody has powers to create human beings. We should be less desperate about the way we pursue power, after all they (politicians) are not desperate to liberate Nigeria, but they are only desperate to enrich their pockets. Can you react to the rumours flying around that you were given N9 billion pipeline security contract? It is not a rumour, it was a statement from All Progressives Congress (APC) spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. It is unfortunate that somebody of the age of Mohammed can issue a statement without substantiating it. He should be integrity personified, how could you mention a figure without concrete evidence? One of the reasons why he issued that statement that Sunday, a day before the rally was to stop our protest slated for Monday so that by the time he says we have collected N9 billion, most of the people that have the spirit to join the protest, their spirit would be weakened by the time he says the protest has economic reason. That was the reason. It is propaganda. The pipeline contract is ordinary security contract, even the utility; some of the packages we included in the contract have never been included in the proposal because they just wanted the pipelines secured for the first three months after which they would now package it as a contract. That was what the Nigeria National petroleum Corporation, NNPC, did. And you can imagine how much we are losing to vandals and oil thefts in a year, more than N1.3 trillion every year. That money that would be given to secure these pipelines will not be up to N3 or N4 billion in a year in the three places assigned. We are talking of Line B, Line Ibadan, Line Ore; the three lines in South-West and the three other lines in the Niger Delta. We are losing not only oil, we are losing lives day by day; the cartel in oil thefts are killing people, pipelines are destroyed, including other Federal Government property and the government has the responsibility to protect our commonwealth. It is the responsibility of the government. They have used various security agencies and they have failed. What they have decided upon is that let us use community security. The choice of OPC is because OPC has structure in every community. The instruction given to us is that we should make sure we employ those who belong to the communities that the pipelines pass through; you understand what I am saying. It does not apply solely to OPC per se; they know we have the structures to do it. So the contract is not N9 billion**?** It is not N9 billion, it is just a contract on security, a minor security, the only difference is that the NNPC gave us a standard that we must not pay less than N50,000 to whoever we are going to employ. It is another way of employing the youth and that was their standard as NNPC and you must not pay less than N50,000. APC as a party is the one that criticises the ruling party that Jonathan did not create jobs and you can imagine how many people this petty contract would accommodate.
