ACN Has Always Rigged
Elections At All Levels – BABATUNDE GBADAMOSI
Babatunde
Olalere Gbadamosi is an Entrepreneur, Tax and Property Consultant, and was one
of the gubernatorial aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos
State in the 2011 general elections. In this interview with Murphy Fadairo,
he spoke extensively on a lot of issues ranging from governance, politics,
deregulation of the oil sector, security challenges and his guber ambition come
2015. Excerpts:
Background
My
name is Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi. I was born into the well known Gbadamosi
family of Ikorodu. My patriarch was the late Chief Suleiman S.O Gbadamosi, the
first indigenous industrialist in Nigeria and one time National Treasurer of
the Action Group as well as a Member of Parliament in the western region. My
father the late Fatai Gbadamosi was a great manager of men and I was able to
learn a lot from him from resource management; not just financial resources but
also human resources most especially. My uncle Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi is also
a well known industrialist, public policy formulator and analyst. He is also a
pioneer in his own right having been the first founder of bottled water
industry in Nigeria, RAGOLIS which is a household name now. My family has also
been in the public service one way or the other; my Aunt was once an Attorney
General of Oyo State, also once a Director of Public Prosecutions in the
federal ministry of Justice Mrs. Wonu Folami. So I come from a family where
public service is seen as the benchmark of one’s humanity. Yes you must make
your own personal achievements in life to make a mark but then you haven’t
actually arrived until you have given off yourself to the service of humanity
in some way or the other. Coming from that kind of a background, I was
fortunate to have been quite popular as a child in the family. I was raised by
three fathers first my uncle Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi who played a big part in
molding the person that I am today because I lived with him for the first
15years of my life and he has been a great positive influence in various aspect
of my life; then my father late Fatai Gbadamosi who taught and gave me several
practical tools that I could use to live a very practical, for trait, honest
and straightforward life. The one thing that also marks out the Gbadamosi
family is this attitude that we have that the best name we can give our
children is education; there is formal academic education and there is life
training which can only be imparted more or less at home. The target of the
training that we get is mainly to make us independent to give us the ability to
independently forge our own part in life. I was in the UK for over 17years from
1990 to 2007 and at that time one went from (without overusing the cliché)
grass to grace. I started out doing all the usual menial jobs that young
Nigerians of my age did back then to survive in the UK office, street cleaning
and all that kind of stuff. I met my wife in the late 90s; together we grew an
IT business from a small 50sqm office and built it into something big in a
prominent high street position in South London. As we were doing that we also
ventured into property investment and were able to build up a sizeable
portfolio that helped pushed in the return back to Nigeria; then we decided to
make the move in 2007 to come back home.
Politics
I
really don’t know when I will say I ventured into politics. I think there is a
mistake that Nigerians make regarding politics as some kind of profession which
in fact it’s not. I know there are some people who see it as a profession and
tend to view those people with great disdain. Politics is not a job; it is
something that arises out of concern and I would like that belief that everyone
that has an opinion on how things are been done by those in charge of our
resources is a politician. I think I got into politics as far back as I became
aware that some people were in charge of how things were run and I became to
form opinion; that is when I became politically aware. I have been in politics
for a while; I will say I have just been a concerned onlooker and then as an
active participant in 1995 when I got involved in the Anti Abacha movement back
in London. A pro democracy movement basically because late MKO Abiola was in
jail, Ken Saro-wiwa was on trial, Mrs. Kudirat Abiola was murdered, a lot of
atrocities committed by the then military junta. We realized what was going on
and then we realized if we didn’t take action to sensitize the world about what
was going on in Nigeria because there appear to be a media blackout on issues
concerning Nigeria at the time. But if we didn’t take action to make it public
so much would go on and the military would get away with everything. We got
ourselves together; I happened to be one of them and we fought to make our
voices heard and let the world know what was going on in Nigeria. That is where
I first got involved; then when I came back to Nigeria in 2003 we were on and
off before we now took permanent residence in 2007. I was always a supporter of
the PDP because of its policies which Obansanjo pioneered in terms of getting
the country out of the woods, sorting out our external debts problem, fixing
telecoms which he did rather rapidly. He also promised to sort out electricity
which unfortunately he couldn’t do but I do understand why he wasn’t able to do
it. I have always been a sympathizer but actively supported PDP in 2007, a card
carrying member since 2008 and I decided to run for office in 2011 mainly
because I felt that with my experience and knowledge of physical development
which the people of Lagos state needs right now more than anything else. We
need more roads, power, means of transport, water; we need to sort out sewage
problem which has not even been addressed by past administrations. This is
something that can be dealt with, the right sort of attitude; an attitude of
working without seeking acclamation. It seems the acclamation is more important
to this particular government than the actual work and that is something I have
a problem with. So I decided that it was time for me to come into the system
actively to serve my people and that’s why I decided to run for office.
Why
Governorship as first shot
My
talent would have been wasted elsewhere. I couldn’t go in as a legislator
because that’s not me and am not a talk short type of person and I could not go
in as a council chairman because I need to have unfertile executive power in order
to achieve the things I think we can achieve in Lagos state. There was no way I
would have wanted to be appointed as a commissioner because one still will want
to bow to the whims and caprices of the governor. You might have great plans as
a commissioner but if your governor can’t see your dreams then they are dead. I
see myself as helping people achieve their dreams so I thought as a governor I
would have helped Lagosians achieve their dreams of becoming a true 21st
century state.
Local
Government Elections in Lagos
It
is not. We are still engaging the people; you saw the result of that at the
last local government election where PDP won in virtually all the local
governments but of course the ACN administration felt that the wishes of the
people were to be disregarded, mocked and trampled upon. We had an outright
situation where in Badagry a PDP candidate was announced as winner; it was
recorded, it’s all over the internet and then the same day in the evening the
chairman of LASEC who was not present at Badagry and could not know the result
announced on TV that ACN won Badagry without giving the figures. I have never
seen that happen anywhere in the world where a candidate will be declared
winner of an election without figures being made public. I can’t come to terms
with it and so is many Lagosians; Lagosians are fed up of the ACN and their
antics. People are beginning to see that perhaps when the President said that
the South West was too important to be left in the hands of rascals; perhaps he
was right. It’s also clear to Lagosians what the PDP have been saying that the
ACN have always rigged every single election. I have no doubt in my mind that
every ACN member in the national assembly was rigged into office by the ACN
rigging mercenary like financial inducement, conspiracy with the judiciary.
That is the situation and it needs to be addressed. The media unfortunately has
not been on our side. We have been treated unfairly because we are the party in
power at the centre but that is mainly because we really are the most popular
party in Nigeria spread across the country. Whereas our friends on the other
side choose to concentrate on the South West where perhaps we still have a lot
of followers of PDP like it was clearly shown in the last local government
election in their heartland Lagos.
Way
Forward
I
would really hate to see what happened in Libya happen in Lagos state but if
the will of the people is not allowed to be supreme then the people will find no
other means than to impose their will. One day the proverbial pieces will lead
a ventilating device and all hell will let loose; this has to stop. This has
nothing to do with me; it has more to do with human nature. You can see how it
is happening in the Arab world, the West; you can see Occupy Wall Street,
Occupy New York, all these things are happening before our very eyes because the
people are not getting what they want from their government. So Nigerians are
also human being, Lagosians are human beings too and it will get to the point
if the ACN are not careful people will erupt in spontaneous rebellion and take
what belongs to them.
Security
Challenges in the Country
First
of all President Goodluck Jonathan is confronted with a security challenge, the
type of which Nigeria has never seen before and it is quite unfortunate that
this has come at a time when he is president; it could have been any other
president. There is no doubt about it that there are very serious security
challenges particularly in the North Eastern part of the country and that the
potential for it to spread to other parts of the country is not in doubt. Some
people call it sectarian violence but I think it’s just plain naked terrorism
and there is no doubt that that terrorism will spread if it is not carefully
managed. But I think that considering the capacity these people (it’s not just
Boko Haram), there are other groups hiding under the Boko Haram to perpetrate
all sorts of evil deeds. The capacity of these groups to wreck havoc is
something that cannot be washed away therefore the security agencies have to
gather their machinery as they have been doing and step things up a bit more.
There is no point treating this matter with kid’s glove anymore; we need to go
out there if Boko Haram leaders need to die then so be it. If there are any
foreign organizations behind this perhaps we should go after them.
Removal
of Fuel Subsidy
Subsidy
is a false economy. The people importing the fuel are being guaranteed that it
would be bought at a certain rate by the government from them. When government
buys at that rate, they now sell into the country at a cheaper rate to allow
Nigerians get petroleum cheaper. But then what happens is that what is sold
into the country; a huge proportion of it sometimes much as 80% get out of the
porous Northern borders into neighboring countries like Niger, Chad, Cameroon,
Republic of Benin and apparently Nigerian tankers have been seen as far as
Congo. So in reality it is not Nigerians that are enjoying the subsidy; it is a
few people the people importing and the people exporting illegally thousands of
tankers daily. The regime of subsidy really does need to stop in order to get
enough refining capacity to drop the price really in the country. Competition
is what is missing in the petroleum sector. Once you remove the subsidy and
everybody knows that I can produce and sell at whatever price I want; they will
set up factories. Yes prices will go up as soon as the subsidy is removed but
that will remain so only for as long as there are no refineries and that will
not last because importation will become unfashionable (unprofitable) when you
remove the subsidy. The importers will be forced to build refineries or buy the
federal government owned ones and operate them efficiently. If we have 30
refineries in Nigeria it is not too much but the government cannot do it; it
has to be the private sector and the competition will drive the prices of the
products down.
Last
PDP primaries and Future Aspiration
At
the last PDP primaries, mistakes were made by me and by the party; we have
learnt from those mistakes. I think we have realized that the method we used in
playing politics at that time was not what it should have been and we saw that
the blunder we made at that time became very obvious during the election
itself. Lessons have been learnt, certain people have shown the caliber that
they are made of, people have been seen either as loyal or disloyal to the
party and the party has grown as a result; that growth was reflected in the
last local government election in Lagos State. That is not to say winning the
election in 2015 will be easy because of the constitutional infraction that the
ruling party is known for which has led the people to penury. They will fight
tooth to nail to remain relevant but I tell you it is a fight that they will
lose because Lagosians are now aware of the fraud, rascality, thuggery, theft
of mandate that the ACN represents. I am contesting in 2015 by God’s grace and
I am coming out strong. We will make
history.
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