Lagos needs an independent governor which is what I am – Adediran, Lagos PDP guber

In this interview on channels TV, politics today, monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Jide Adediran, speaks on the crisis rocking his party at the national level, his projections on Lagos State, among other sundry political issues

What is your position on the call for the national chairman of your party, Iyorchia Ayu, to resign?

I have not made any statement on this because we have elections ahead and we are so focused on it. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will not change the date of the election because we are still fighting in our party on whether or not a chairman should leave. Okay, so, we are focusing our election to go from Atiku Abubakar down to the House of Assembly in Lagos State. The entire five ballots that we have in Lagos are our focus. Let me ask you, if I join the clamour, if Ayu is removed today, are they going to make me National Chairman? If he stays there, will he retrieve the ticket I have in my hand? No. I have an election to win just like everybody in Lagos, so we are still working on that. Now, I excuse all our national leaders to continue playing their national politics but we are still focusing on this ballot in this state politics.

The governors have said they are fighting for the south. These governors, Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) are all, except Samuel Ortom (Benue), as a candidate from the south are you supporting this move?

Before the primaries, there were a lot of agitations that we should have a southern president or we should have what have you, we never joined such agitation because for me, what got us here is that we have a northern President Muhammadu Buhari, who is then behaving like a northern president, but for me, I said it when they were dragging all of that, I don’t care where this person is coming from, what I want, what we want is a Nigerian president that will get there and treat all Nigerians equally. Now, how did we get here, in PDP, we had a southern national chairman before the expiration of his tenure, we changed it to the north.

So, in essence, you are trying to stay away from all of this and focus on yours even if the fight is for the southern people and you are one

I am saying I want a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Essentially you are focused on your campaign. You know when issues like this happen, policies should have a way to resolve them. Have you reached out to Governor Wike or any other of your governors?
Yes as a matter of fact, when we put together our association, governorship candidate, I was the one that put it on that portal. I said guys, in this coming election, there are no greater stakeholders outside of us in this election and I think it’s about time we reached out to all our leaders and see how we can manoeuvre. First, we went to see the NWC, we met with our presidential candidate, we listened to him, and we went to Governor Wike in Port Harcourt to see him. Now, this is it, when we got to Port Harcourt, we saw him and had conversations with him in the evening, and I will quote some of the things that we said at that meeting. He said a whole lot, as usual, I spoke to my colleagues saying, you know what, anything you hear here, just use a rub body, we are here to achieve something and at the end of that we brought up the issue of somebody calling somebody hero of the convention. Of course, we all heard it and we are putting that behind us and we had to beg him can you come and be the hero of our party by shooting his sword and laying it bare. You know I’m a Yoruba man and if you know us very well, leaving Port Harcourt, he offered his aircraft to take us back, I didn’t join. I had to take a commercial flight back to Lagos with my colleagues. Three of us.

So things fell off at that point?

I worry that he should be a role model at that level.

Are you looking up to him as a role model now?

We should.

But are you?
I will be governor tomorrow and I will be governor of Lagos in 2023 but I think that office comes with some sort of decorum as a governor of a state.

The Rivers State Governor, Wike, is close to one of the national leaders of your party in Lagos State, Chief Bode George, how well have you prevailed on George to wade in on this matter?

That is his choice.

So you are not planning to reach out to George?
What I needed to do, I started to do, reaching out to the people of Lagos that is going to give me their mandate that wants to elect for the very first time an independent governor and not one that is handed to them.

So, when you say you are going to defeat the governor and godfathers, were you referring to the likes of maybe Governor Wike of Chief Bode George in the coming elections?
Bode George hasn’t come out to say he is supporting Sanwo-Olu, I don’t think he will do that.

Is he supporting you?
Of course, that’s our leader in Lagos State. He has no choice but to support us because he’s the leader of the party.

He (Bode George) has spoken about the grouse with you in the build-up to this in your selection of your deputy governorship candidate saying there was some sort of conversation and agreement saying that things happened and it looked like you went the other way. Have you been able to repair that relationship?
Let me say this we never had a relationship that is forced but I will say we have a good relationship. What my leader tried to tell the people of Lagos in that conversation is to say they will be having an independent governor in 2023. Let me say this now, I do know that his allegation touched on my character and integrity and I should come up to speak against him or anything. No, I won’t do that. I do know that venturing into this trade you can’t but have your character and integrity stained because it comes with the terrain. That’s why they say politics is dirty. So, I’m doing it this way and putting it aside but just sum everything up. My people in Lagos just said to the people of Lagos, this Jandor is going to be an independent governor.

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His words were quite clear, he said, “After their presentation here in my office we saw that these were the best two we have…according to him, they asked you pointedly, would you work with this man as your deputy, and he said, you said yes sir. And you gave your word and eventually reneged on it

I will quickly narrate something to you, I didn’t want to call my leader a liar. I can’t call my leader a liar, but yes my leader said we had a conversation and I consented to that that was what he said. Now the same person you spoke about (Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour) that we had an agreement to be my deputy had to follow me on the day of the primary election, he was going about campaigning yet we had an agreement. The people that stepped down for me during the primary called a press conference to say we are stepping down for Jandor and everybody knew they stepped down for me. On the day of the primary, we were six that were running. If we had an agreement, I don’t think somebody like that should have any business being there. At that meeting, three people stepped down to say we are withdrawing from this race. I thought at that time, somebody like Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour should have said to me I have long withdrawn my aspirations because there is an agreement. He didn’t say that. We went to the venue of the primary together and he brought an agent. So, if we had an agreement, what is he doing there?

So, in other words, you reneged on that agreement
No. Listen, I said this is on the day of the primary, if we had an agreement, before that day, I don’t think he should have had any business in that place or he should have even addressed the press. This thing my leader is talking about would have been in the public domain. Gbadebo, just like every other person, I have evidence to show, applied to be my deputy and signed it. I have a copy of that application.

But you didn’t see to that request
It’s my choice to weigh the options that I have. He wasn’t the only one that applied.

Did your current deputy governorship candidate apply?
No. She didn’t have to apply because it is my constitutional right. My deputy, I picked her on merit. Not that she wanted to be a deputy governor.

People have said you made a mistake in the choice of your deputy, others have said the Labour Party candidate (Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour), would have been a better choice because he is better accepted there, do you think so?
No. As a matter of fact, within the Labour Party, I have more support than him their candidate (Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour) and that’s the truth.

So, are you saying the Obi-dient movement supports you?
Let me say yes. Just like you called it 2023, the ‘obi-dient’ movement, is about your personality, it’s about your candid ability, It’s about that person, we are shifting, and something is shifting. It’s about what you are bringing to the table. So, you called something obedient now, you didn’t say the Labour Party. That is for an individual. It’s not for a party. If we do an election inside LP today, I will defeat him

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom recently said if he was not in the PDP he would be supporting Mr Peter Obi. It looks like some people within your party are having the same sympathy for Mr Peter Obi who was at your party anyway. So, do you have that same sympathy for him?

Well, I think Governor Ortom, you heard him, and he said if he wasn’t of the PDP he would have supported him. He said it all. He said he’s of the PDP and he has a candidate he is supporting. That is all Mr Peter Obi was at my reception when I came into PDP and then he was one of the former governors that came to the reception to support me. Over the weekend, we met, at a function and I greeted him very well as my leader. But unfortunately, I have a candidate in my party who is experienced, and even Mr Peter Obi himself, agreed on national TV that he is the most prepared, he is experienced. Let me use this word. He called him the unifier that Nigeria needs at this time. He said that as a candidate of LP himself. I mean, he has said it all and I quite help but agree with Me Peter Obi.

Before you defected from the APC, you had these lofty ideas about Lagos, did you ever discuss it with your party leaders then?

Yes, I was of the APC but I have never been appointed nor elected before in that corridor, I was providing my services which is a consultancy and it’s a professional thing that doesn’t go into that era but I have been able to understudy a whole lot in that system and that is what we are coming to change and let me tell you what is the problem of Lagos and that is what we are coming to change. The problem with Lagos is that we are a wealthy state, only on paper. That is it for us. Our agenda is centred on us, coming to invest in Lagos which is wealthy in the streets. A Lagos that you are going to see the wealth of Lagos as against the current one that you only hear of our huge revenue, huge budget, and performance with nothing to show for it. So, what we need to do really, what Lagos needs is an independent governor that will sit, add convictions before judgement, join in the process that believes in himself, not the one that was eroded or called upon by somebody and all of that and that is why for seven years we’ve been everywhere even in 2023, we got the solution to some of these problems. For some of these solutions, you don’t even need to invest one naira. Let me give you one. We have this menace in Lagos that you guys call the NURTW, and somebody like me, looked at that sector of our economy and I believe that NURTW is a body recognised by law because it’s a labour union but leadership of the state decided to turn them to tools and create a menace to the society but in my case, I will change them and convert them to blessing.

How?

I was coming through traffic and this is the time you see traffic robbers coming to your car, breaking your car, and taking your belongings. As the governor of Lagos, if I give you Berger garage to manage and you are there making free money, the day they rob on this corridor that is the day I am going to take it away from you. You will see that they will protect this corridor.

How will they be securing the corridor because they shouldn’t be bearing arms?
No. They don’t need to carry arms. If you tell the chairman of that garage, this is where you make free money, if anybody gets robbed on this corridor, I will take this garage from you. You will see what he will do. During peak periods like this, he will send all his boys out. They will file out to that garage and they will secure it. That is if, they are not the ones doing that.

So, how will they secure it is a question. To see people secure, you will see guns, weapons, and all that
I was born in Mushin. I grew up in Mushin. You can’t come to our Hood in Mushin and steal anything. We secure the area. If they cut your pocket and we see how they cut your pocket, we will tell you who cut that pocket and bring that person out. We will secure Lagos with native intelligence

Are you going work with miscreants to ensure that they keep the streets safe?
We are turning them from being miscreants to protecting the corridor where they make money. It’s just like you tell somebody who is selling market here, you tell them that I don’t want to see any dirt in this place. The day I see dirt here, I will take that stall away from you. That person will always keep that place clean

So what happens to the current leadership here in Lagos? Will you be working with him or there will be a replacement?
The NURTW is recognised by the law, we are talking about the body now, and you cannot do anything about that. What we have currently, is the choice of the current leader of the state to make tools

Will you be revamping, changing leadership, or allowing them to get a new leadership or work with the current structure?
Everybody in that business, they are in this economy, what I’m saying to you is that whether it’s them or anything, are or going to provide leadership that will make them responsible

People saying that you are fronting for the presidential candidate now of the APC, Bola Tinubu. That he is supporting you behind the scenes and you come out and look like you are for the PDP when in fact you are for him. What is your reaction to this?

If you know my story very well, I was from the APC but I committed that unpardonable sin that you must not commit as a member of the APC. You must not have a structure of your own because over the years, I studied that system and I looked at why my forbearers have been failing and that is because one man controls the structure. The day you even think or envision saying that you want to be Governor, that’s the day you will never be as far as that system is concerned because the owner of the structure will prefer to pick somebody who is not ready, doesn’t have an ambition, who is not even prepared to be in that office. It was an unpardonable offence to have that ambition, so I committed that sin, I included the party on January 21 this year, and I took everything that we put together in that party to the PDP.

Did you take your structure?
Yes. Everything I had built in seven years I took. During that time, he made a pronouncement that all groups within the party should be suspended and they suspended their own just to ruin my mandate. One of the leaders now called me and said won’t you suspend Lagos for Lagos I reminded the leader that Lagos for Lagos is registered under the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and it is the only court of competent jurisdiction that can do that pronouncement on an individual. So we didn’t answer him. We were able to take that huge chunk from APC to PDP that has been doing 35 per cent to 40 per cent every election circle in Lagos. What they need to do to cross the threshold is what we have brought into the PDP and we are going to use it to win the 2023 election and I am going to be the governor.