The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 564 (February 9 - 22 2022)

Page14 TheTrumpet FEBRUARY 9-22 2022
Politics
Otunba Adewale Adenaike: I want to
leave a legacy of selfless service
Continued from Page 13<
profession within my first two years of
being elected. Human Capital
Development is the fulcrum of
development. It is therefore imperative
that a lot of premium would be placed on
capacity building.
Please take note of my promises and
confront me with them as at when due.
There’s been a lot of controversy
about constituency projects... the main
argument is that legislators have no
business awarding contracts and that a
lot of money is stolen... what will be
your justification for the continuation
of this regime?
There is nothing wrong with the
concept of Constituency projects. The
project earmarked for a constituency is
intended for the development of that
constituency. Democracy is about who
gets what, where and when.
Constituency project is also supposed to
help speed up the pace of development.
What we therefore need to look at is how
to make people become more
accountable for whatever they have done
in contrast with what the law states.
Looking at elections proper, what
ways do you think Nigerians can have
free, fair and credible elections?
Free and fair election is a product of
strengthened institutions. Democratic
institutions include a free and
responsible media, unfettered judiciary,
an electoral umpire that is independent, a
vibrant and effective communication
architecture, etc. Once all democratic
institutions are strengthened, elections
will be free and fair. I must however say
that we have improved in the area of
electoral management. You don’t want to
know what happened in the NPN/UPN
days when ballot boxes where openly
snatched. There has been immense
improvement in our electoral
management systems. I trust that in the
years ahead, more improvement will be
forced on us by our realities.
I must mention the role of money.
While acknowledging that campaigns
are expensive, vote buying is a
problem... stomach infrastructure as it
is called... why is this a major strategy
for winning by the political class? Is it
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Otunba Adewale Adenaike
a function of poverty or ignorance
among the electorate?
In response to one of your previous
questions, I clearly stated that two major
issues that I will pursue with
unrestrained vigour are: economic and
mental poverty. Those two factors fuel
money politics in our country. When a
man has not eaten, his thinking is
skewed, it becomes so warped that he or
she is unable to have clear-cut thinking.
Until you cure him of that hunger,
nothing else is meaningful to him.
There’s a lot of anxiety in the build
up to 2023 as usual, how do we douse
tension especially within party ranks as
people jostle for positions?
Tension is an in-built feature in any
form of contestation. As the day of the
political contest draws near, gladiators
and spectators become apprehensive and
worried about their position not because
of anything other than the fact that in any
competition, humans get worried. Even
on the day of marriage, the man and the
woman are apprehensive – will she come
or has she changed her mind? The
woman too will be asking herself silently
whether she has taken the right decision
and whether the man will not change his
mind over night and put her in a state of
shame. In the case of Nigeria, our
tension is further accentuated by the fact
that we run an expensive electioneering
campaign. Democracy all over the world
– whether in the US, Great Britain,
Germany, Russia, etc is not cheap.
Therefore, when the reality of losing so
much money as a result of the loss of the
election hits you, there is bound to be
tension. But we can douse this from
different perspectives. First, is that our
language of campaign must be devoid of
belligerence. We must also find a very
creative and innovative way of cutting
down the cost of electioneering
campaigns. It is also very important for
us to look at the process of how party
flagbearers emerge. The idea of direct
primaries looks like a strategy that will
help remold some of these tendencies.
Do you support direct primaries?
It has its own benefits that we can
examine again and again. Allowing party
flagbearers to emerge through direct
primaries underscores the concept of
‘power belongs to the people.’ I think it
is an idea that has some utility embedded
in it.
INEC has introduced lots of reforms
to the voters registration and polling
procedures... relying more on
technology... do you see this as
sustainable given that lots of voters are
not tech savvy or even literate?
I have no issue whatsoever with the
innovations that INEC has introduced
into our electoral system. They are
welcome developments. I fully endorse
them. It is also important to state the
need for INEC to continue to research
into ways and means of further
improving on the current height the body
has attained. Give a few years more,
some negative things commonly
associated with election and the entire
electoral process will be impossible in
this country. So, we must give credit to
INEC for their efforts to give us an
electoral process that is error free, an
electoral system that is so sound and
reliable that contestants will find it
unnecessary to approach the judiciary for
any form of adjudication because the
process will not only be transparent, the
outcome will simply be acceptable by all
and sundry.
What sort of legacies would you
want to leave behind as a politician
given that a lot of Nigerian politicians
are forgotten as soon as they leave
office?
I want to do those things that will last
from one generation to the other. In the
next 50 years, Chief Obafemi Awolowo
will still be remembered in this country
because of the positive ways he affected
the life of his generation and future
generations. The legacy I want to leave is
the legacy of selfless service like that of
the likes of Aminu Kano who was an
apostle of talakawa politics, the politics
and service that take people out of the
dark alley of mental and economic
poverty.