APC: It’s the Candidate, Stupid!

Major-General Muhammadu Buhari

SPECIAL REPORT

Cast your mind back to former United States President Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid” was a phrase Clinton campaign managers used to keep the focus on the troubled U.S. economy. Americans love a robust economy; they care a lot about their economic wellbeing. By keeping the debate focused on economic issues, Clinton was able to defeat then President George Bush. Today in Nigeria, that phrase can be adapted for the newly registered All Progressives Congress thus: For APC, it’s the candidate, stupid. The choice of candidate, many believe, is what will make or mar the opposition coalition party. Will APC adopt an open presidential primary election model like the former NRC and SDP or resort to the culture of imposition of candidates, which was a hallmark of the politics of the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria and Congress for Progressives Change, two of the three coalition parties? Vincent Obia and Chuks Okocha examine the candidate challenge facing the APC…

Buhari is the Issue

The elephant in the room of the opposition merger All Progressives Congress is former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari. Will he run in 2015? Buhari has not categorically addressed this issue, though he has not ruled himself out of the race. He had contested for the presidency and lost on three occasions previously (2003, 2007 and 2011). But Buhari, running or not running in 2015, like double-edged sword. There are serious implications both ways. The former head of state is adored by the Northern masses, held with suspicion by the Northern elites but reviled by Christians across the country because of his strong views on issues, for which some doubt if he can truly be called a statesman. These views have raked in widespread condemnation and sometimes scorn for him in some parts of the country. At the height of the post-2011 election riots in some cities in the North, the former head of state who lost the poll declined to condemn the violence outright. In a statement at the time on the post-election violence by his spokesman Yinka Odumakin, Buhari had said: “In the last 24 hours, there has been a spate of violence across certain parts of the country. What started mainly as a political protest reportedly included the burning of worship places. This is sad, unfortunate and totally unwarranted development.

“I must say that this dastardly act is not initiated by any of our supporters and therefore cannot be supported by our party.
“I would therefore like to seize this opportunity to disassociate myself and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) from any such act. I must emphasise that this is purely a political matter, and it should not in any way be turned into an ethnic, religious or regional one”. Even his views on the Boko Haram insurgency and the military crackdown on them are widely perceived as unstatesmanly.
Speaking in Kaduna on June 2 during a Liberty FM Hausa Service Programme, Guest of the Week, Buhari said Boko Haram members were being killed and their houses demolished unlike the “special treatment” given to the Niger Delta militants by the Federal Government. He also blamed President Goodluck Jonathan for failing to tackle the security problems in the country, and argued that the challenges started in the Niger Delta. He had said: “What is responsible for the security situation in the country is caused by the activities of Niger Delta militants. Every Nigerian that is familiar with happenings knows this.

“The Niger Delta militants started it all. What happened is that the governors of the Niger Delta at that time wanted to win their elections, so they recruited youths and gave guns and bullets to them to use against their opponents to win elections by force.
“After the elections, they asked the boys to return the guns, and the boys refused to do so. Because of that the allowance that was being given to them by the governors was stopped.”

Yet, notwithstanding his seeming jingoistic views, the seeming pro-North positions, the APC cannot discountenance his cult following particularly in the North. In the 2011 election, Buhari won 12 states mostly in the North, particularly in the high votes yielding North-west, where support for President Goodluck Jonathan is at best tenuous. On the other side of the divide, the PDP prefers that APC settles for Buhari. It would be celebration in the ruling party’s camp if APC eventually pitches its tenth with Buhari. So how will APC handle this Buhari challenge? With him as its presidential standard bearer, the APC may win massive votes in the North but damned in some other parts of the country; left out of the ticket, the party may lose the much-needed popular votes in the North.

Speaking recently on the 2015 Presidency, the former head of state said his joining the APC was not all about securing the party’s presidential ticket. He said the formation of APC and his joining the group was to help effect the needed change in the polity and not just about his presidential ambition. “If APC fails to give me the ticket, I will remain in partisan politics and in the party. Anyone the party picks as its candidate, I will support him because I will remain in the APC,” he said.

He, however, qualified that position when he told journalists in Minna, that he would forgo his ambition to run for a record fourth time if a better candidate emerged in APC. He was in Minna for the maiden edition of the Sam Nda-Isaiah Annual Lecture Series. “I am willing to step down if there is a formidable and better candidate than me. It is not about me but for the survival of the party. APC is about ensuring internal democracy, whoever emerges is the person I will support. Yes I will be ready to step down,” he said.
But his associates believe Buhari remains the candidate to beat in APC. One of them, Osita Okechukwu, an ardent follower of Buhari from the South-east spoke with THISDAY on the Buhari challenge.

He said: “General Muhammadu Buhari, as the man to beat in the 2015 presidential race, has the greatest assets of integrity, candour and uncommon resolve against corruption. His greatest problem is from those who benefit from the monumental corruption going on in our country. They are so scared of his emergence that they resort to all manner of blackmail and brinkmanship to smear his image.
“GMB, as we fondly call him, is a victim of spurious campaign of blackmail to the extent that they pushed the government to set up the Lemu panel, thinking that he engineered the unfortunate post- 2011 electoral violence.
“When the Lemu report came out they were disappointed.

The report said he was not the culprit of the mayhem. The outcome is that up to date, the President Jonathan regime has refused to issue a White Paper on the report. GMB traducers have not rested, even when he openly declared that he would support any one that wins the presidential primary of the APC. They still throw barbs at him, calling a man who spent 32 months in the presidential electoral tribunal an anti-democrat.
“GMB, to sum it up, is loathed because he is the darling of the masses and can sacrifice his life for the masses. Because he rarely replies his traducers and is by nature a quite type, his traducers have a field day. But in all, it can be said that he has the tool to cure our indisposed polity, the transparency to revamp our decayed infrastructure and the patriotism to reposition our dilapidated social services.”

…And the Swing Votes

Call them renegade governors if you like, these PDP governors may ultimately be the ones to swing the votes in the election. One analyst calls them the ultimate game changers in the build-up to the 2015 election, writes Olawale Olaleye

The eventual registration of the APC on Wednesday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may have formerly kicked off the political chess game, with eyes set on the presidential election. While there are a number of factors that may work both in favour and against the two major parties, PDP and APC, based on their relative strength and support base, there is yet another factor that may swing the votes in the end: the nine aggrieved PDP governors and their sympathisers.

9 Aggrieved PDP Governors Plus Obasanjo
With the embattled chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and Governor of Rivers State, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, as the point man at present, are governors, who are not just big players in their respective states but also in their regions. They are the ones who may eventually swing the election.
Apart from Amaechi, the other governors are Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Saidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe).

Interestingly, while the nine governors are the ones that have openly shown where they stand, there are two other governors who, though have filed behind President Jonathan at present, are feared not to be with him in the real sense of it. One of them is from the North-east while the other is believed to come from the South-south region.

To say, therefore, that these governors, given their influence as PDP leaders, and their political networking, can determine who becomes the next president is simply pronouncing the obvious. These governors have fallen out with President Jonathan and the PDP leadership, though there are recent moves to reconcile with them and put the PDP house in order. The governors are believed to have the total support of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, who in turn has also fallen out with President Jonathan and the PDP leadership, and now claims he wants to correct his legacy.

These PDP governors had all but reached an agreement to work with the APC leadership and indicated they would be willing to defect to the party, but with a caveat that they must be part of the decision-making process in determining the APC presidential candidate and that Buhari would not be the candidate, which unfortunately the APC could not guarantee at the moment.

They had held several meetings with the APC leadership where they made it clear they would not support President Jonathan for re-election but based their support for the opposition APC on the choice of a candidate that would be acceptable to both parties.
The nine governors have been meeting; they have resolved to stick together. Their first plan is to field a candidate against Jonathan in the PDP presidential primary, if it ever holds. Note that the PDP leadership is also pondering options to give the president a soft-landing, including the one of first refusal.

However, if they lose to the president, they would not waste time to turn to their Plan B, which is to leave the party en mass and work with APC or float a third force.
But the governors have also not completely ruled out reconciliation within PDP, as they had indicated they would stay within the party and fight. If Jonathan is able to reconcile PDP and bring them back into the fold, they would strengthen the party. But against this backdrop, it is believed that whichever side the governors and their sympathisers swing may determine victory at the end of the day.
Though they are considered renegade governors, one analyst describe them as the real game changer in the 2015 general election.

Merger of Opposites
In terms of past leanings and antecedents, a majority of those who have come together to form the All Progressives Congress are no less than strange bedfellows. But they have a rare opportunity to make history, writes Olawale Olaleye

Expectedly, there was an uncommon elation on Wednesday when the news of the APC registration filtered in, though it had become palpable over a period of time that there was no stopping the registration.
A quick run down on the major characters in APC, from the stalwarts of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), would show that what binds them is not ideology or political philosophy but a resolve to grab power from the PDP.

From General Buhari to former ACN National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, all those who have come together to form APC are people with different political backgrounds and tendencies, strange bedfellows more or less. They must, however, pull together their individual strengths, work towards building unity and forging a common bond to work together.
Therefore, with a free and fair primary election to determine the candidates of the party, APC could rewrite its profile and those of its leaders in the artery of the nation’s body polity. But if it sticks to its old culture of imposition of candidate, this may sound the death knell of the opposition challenge and all the dreams and hopes of their supporters. Now, the leading lights in APC…

Muhammadu Buhari
Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) is the Chairman Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party. He has been contesting the presidential election since 2003 consistently.  He challenged former President Obasanjo and late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua in 2003 and 2007 respectively. In March 2010, he dumped the ANPP for the CPC, a party he founded.  He was the CPC presidential candidate in the April 16, 2011 general election and ran against President Jonathan of PDP, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of ACN and Ibrahim Shekarau of ANPP.

Buhari cuts a picture of the incorruptible and this is believed to have earned him respect and admiration from Nigerians, especially the grassroots who seek an end to the endless sleaze in government. In addition, he also enjoys cult-like following, particularly in the Northern part of the country. He headed the Petroleum Trust Fund (Special), an interventionist agency to rebuild the nation’s decaying infrastructure, set up by the late military President, General Sani Abacha regime. He was said to have discharged himself creditably, but allegations that some of the roads built by the agency were concentrated in the North abound till today. But with his seeming anti-corruption credentials, many doubt if he can genuinely work with some in the APC.

Bola Tinubu
The former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is one of the National Leaders of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).  Tinubu, who was elected Senator for the Lagos West constituency in Lagos State in the 1992 election on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), was elected governor in 1999 on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He was the only governor that survived the 2003 political whirlwind that brought other AD states in the South-west under the control of PDP.
An active player in the process that culminated in the registration of APC, Tinubu has been leveraging his contacts to reach out to key political figures from various parts of the country to ensure the success of the APC in future elections. He is a major voice of the opposition in Nigeria. But with his background, many doubts if a Tinubu can trust the military, whether or not in uniform.

Bisi Akande
Chief Bisi Akande was governor of Osun State between 1999 and 2003 on the platform of the AD. He was ACN Chairman and now the Interim Chairman of APC.  Although by virtue of his office he commands huge influence, he may have bought into the merger initiative by circumstance.

Ali Modu Sheriff
Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the ANPP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, was elected governor of Borno State in 2003. He was the first governor in Borno State to win reelection. Subsequently, Sheriff was elected Senator for Borno Central on the platform of the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) during the late General Sani Abacha regime. His tenure as governor ended in 2011 and was succeeded by the incumbent Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima. He has been a force to reckon with in the formation of the APC. Unfortunately, not many see him in the same camp with Tinubu, Buhari and the likes.

Ogbonnaya Onu
The first Executive Governor of Abia State between February 1992 and December 1993, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, was the ANPP National Chairman before the merger came full circle. He is no doubt committed to the merger deal. And for a man who had built a reputation for himself over the years, he may find it difficult to work with some in the APC.

Tony Momoh
Prince Tony Momoh was Minister of Information and Culture between 1986 and 1990, during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. He was also Director of Dr. Alex Ekwueme Presidential Campaign Organization in 1999. He was equally the Chairman, Media and Publicity of the ANPP Campaign Organisation in the 2003 and 2007 general elections. Also as Chairman of the Political Committee of the Muhammadu Buhari Organisation, Momoh was appointed Chairman of CPC in January 2011 ahead of the April 2011 general election of that year.

Malam Ibrahim Shekarau
Two-term governor of Kano State on the platform of ANPP, Ibrahim Shekarau was the ANPP presidential candidate in April 2011 general election. He believes in APC and has been leading the ANPP team in the merger deal until he was replaced by the ANPP Chairman Ogbonnaya Onu.

Ahmed Sani Yarima
Controversial Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima was governor of Zamfara State from May 1999 to May 2007 on the platform of the ANPP. He represents Zamfara West in the Senate and is also Deputy Minority Leader in the Senate. Although he had wanted to be ANPP’s presidential candidate for the 2007 presidential election, he later withdrew from the contest at the party’s national convention to pave the way for Buhari.

He was active in the APC formation. In fact, he was arrested and later released on March 9, 2013 in Kaduna after taking part in a live Hausa radio programme broadcast by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) for saying if INEC failed to register the newly-formed APC, the party would embark on a peaceful protest to the Eagle Square, Abuja. He remains a major force in his state of Zamfara but has penchant for courting needless controversies.

Rochas Okorocha
Another controversial figure in APC is Governor Rochas Anayo Okorocha of Imo State, who led a faction of APGA into the merger. Okorocha has been around for some time too. In 1999, he competed in the PDP primaries for Imo governorship. He also contested to be ANPP presidential candidate in 2003 but lost. He, however, formed the Action Alliance (AA) party in 2005 and planned to become as a presidential candidate on the AA platform in the 2007 elections. Ambitious Okorocha also gave the PDP national chairmanship a shot in September 2007.

Tom Ikimi
Chief Tom Omoghegbe Ikimi is an Edo State-born politician and former Foreign Affairs Minister between 1995 and 1998 in the military government of General Abacha.
He is one of the representatives of ACN in the merger and was chairman of the ACN Merger Committee. All the strategic meetings that culminated in the formation and registration of APC were held at his residence. The name of the new party was announced at his residence in Abuja on February 6, 2013. But he lost out in the bid to emerge as the national chairman of the emergent party.

Chief Audu Ogbeh
A former National Chairman of PDP, Chief Audu Innocent Ogbeh, contested election into the Benue State House of Assembly on the Platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in 1979 and became deputy speaker of the assembly. A former Federal Minister of Communications and Steel Development, Ogbeh was forced to resign as PDP National Chairman due to his criticism of Obasanjo’s handling of the crisis in Anambra State.  He was the chairman of the 20-member APC Manifesto Committee (Motto, Slogan and Message), and his name has been touted as also a possible presidential candidate.

Olusegun Osoba
Two-time governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba, had been involved in the merger process from day one and was in virtually all the committees that matter in the run-up to the APC registration. He is reputed to have a wide network of contacts; the journalist-turned politician understands the political terrain well.

The 11 APC Governors
Other than those listed above, there is a major power bloc in the APC and that is the group of its 11 governors. They are Kashim Shettima (Borno); Adams Oshiomhole (Edo); Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe); Tanko Al-Makura (Nasarawa); Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara); Rochas Okorocha (Imo); (Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti); Babatunde Fashola, SAN (Lagos); Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun); Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo); and Rauf Aregbesola (Osun).

The governors have been part of critical meetings with opposition party leaders, involving Buhari, Tinubu, Sheriff and national chairmen of the three merging parties.
They have also held meetings in Lagos, Abuja, Borno and Owerri over the formation of APC. The governors set up zonal contact and mobilisation committees across the six geopolitical zones to facilitate the party’s birth.

The Tortuous Journey to Registration
Onyebuchi Ezigbo examines the challenges that promoters of the All Progressives Congress overcame to achieve registration and what lies ahead for the party

It was not meant to be an easy venture but through share determination, dogged approach and sacrifices, the coalescing political parties of Action Congress of Nigeria ( ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) took the step to form a merger and to everyone’s surprise got the new merger platform registered. The road towards the merger was indeed a rough one and the actors themselves were apparently aware of this having gone a similar route before and faltered.  Some political  parties first attempted an alliance in the 1999 Presidential election and tried to field a common candidate then in person of Chief Olu Falae on the platform of All Peoples Party (APP) but things did  not work out. Another attempt was also made in 2011, just before the general election by ACN and CPC and for weeks, the dramatist persona held the nation spellbound to the extent that even the ruling PDP became jittery on the likely threat posed by the move. In the end, the  alliance also failed to realise its objectives and it’s promoters became almost frustrated and abandoned the talks. 

However rather than get disillusioned over their past failures, the leadership of the three opposition political parties, Action Congress of Nigeria ( ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) summoned  courage and re-opened talks again, but this time they went for outright merger instead of mere loose alliance as was the case in the past.  Although the merger talks were kick-started by the top leadership of the parties, who brought their individual charisma and experiences to bear on the negotiations, it was not until the merging parties took the unique step to set up merger committees that the foundation for formalised relationship began. 

The history of the emergence of the new mega party will probably not be complete without the mention of the efforts and sacrifices made by the membership of the joint merger committees representing all the parties and interest groups involved in the political movement.  Part of the initial pessimism that  heralded the merger plan was that based on past experiences, there were fears that the parties and other interest groups promoting the venture were probably not compatible and as such may not be able to  agree  on a  common  platform.  Critics  were also skeptical  about  the  ability of the  parties to resolve  the  issues  of  ideologies,  manifesto,  logo  and  constitution for  the would-be  new party. 

Perhaps who looked like the first sign of a major break-through in the new coalition was when the merging successfully  floated a common constitution, manifesto, logo, slogan and flag for APC with a  subsequent concurrent approvals at individual party conventions. The choice of the name APC sparked off a row between the three coalition parties and another group, the African Peoples Congress leading to serious altercations between the geoups on one hand and INEC.  While African Peoples Congress was claiming tomhave filed its registration before the three opposition parries in March, the later said its choice of APC was made public since Feburuary this year. It took the quick intervention  of the commission to disapprove the application filed by African Peoples Congress, to douse the brewing tension in the polity. The second and perhaps the most challenging stage of the merger negotiation process came when the parties were to choose interim national officers as required by INEC guidelines.  Political gladiators and their parties could not resist the temptation to flex muslces with each other as they  deployed all manner of intrigues and manipulations in a bid  to secure an edge in the emerging party structure.  It took the ingenuity and perseverance of the Leadership of the parties and their governors who met day and night until truce was finally reached on how to distribute the APC interim leadership structure.

After crossing the party leadership hurdle and making final submission  of application to INEC, then began the waiting game. At first, it was as if the merger process will crumble at the table of INEC, following a court case hovering over the heads of the merging parties and which a rival political group had threatened to use it in frustrating the registration of APC. The weekend that followed the approval of the registration application of the merging parties was full of anxiety and apprehension with leaders of the opposition coalition alleging a possible sabotage by officials of INEC.
It was ACN that blew the first lead,  asking  INEC to be fair and unbiased in handling the  registration  of the merging registration application.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said since the  promoters of APC has met all the requirements to consummate their merger,  INEC has no defensible reason not to approve the merger.

However, Lai Mohsmmed tried to avoid direct accusation of INEC by insisting that inspite of media reports concerning the antics of some negative forces within INEC over APC’s registration, the emerging party’s leadership had no doubt that in the end, the electoral body will do what is right in accordance with the law.  “We urge INEC not to compromise its neutrality and integrity by acting contrary to the law. We remind the commission that Nigerians are keenly watching how it will handle this merger issue, and whatever it does will determine whether or not Nigerians can count on it to organize a free, fair and credible elections in 2015.

‘’We believe we are on the same page with INEC as far as this trail-brazing merger is concerned, and that has been confirmed by the INEC spokesman, and we therefore call on the commission to do the proper thing right now - which is the registration of APC.
‘’There is no doubt that INEC is under tremendous pressure, from both the card-carrying PDP members of the commission and their collaborators who are mortally afraid of the merger, and who will want the electoral body to commence, right now, the process of rigging the 2015 election in their favour.
‘’Given the already over-heated polity ahead of the 2015 elections, we believe INEC will not do anything that will aggravate the situation,”

‘’We are convinced that INEC has no discernible reason to write such a letter to us. In the first instance, there exists no court injunction anywhere restraining the commission from registering APC. There could be many court cases, but until there is a court order, no one can preempt what a court will do and act on that basis. In the meantime, ACN went on to appeal to all the supporters of the emerging APC across the country to remain calm over the registration issue. ‘’We know that many of our teeming supporters are upset by the report of the shenanigans in INEC over this issue. But it is important for them to remain law-abiding as we await the decision of INEC. We are confident, going by the words of INEC itself, that the court case instituted by those laying claim to the APC acronym has no bearing on what is going on”.  It was not only the ACN that was caught up in the tension and anxiety that gripped the parties.  ANPP through its National Publicity Secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Chief Emma Eneukwu urged the commission not to succumb to pressures from agents of the the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to frustrate the registration of the new opposition coalition party. Eneukwu said although it will be a shock to the merging parties if INEC rejects registration application for APC, they have the capacity to forge ahead.  All the worries and permutations eventually took flight when on Wednesday INEC made a surprise announcement in a statement signed by the secretary of the commission, Alhaji Abduallhi Kaugama, that the merging parties’s application for the registration of APC was successful

INEC letter to the merging parties said: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved the application by three political parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – to merge into one, to be known as the All Progressives Congress.  On considering the application, the commission found that the applicant-parties have met all statutory requirements for the merger, and has accordingly granted their request.

ThisDay

‘Oyebola lied against the dead’

Aremo Olusegun Osoba

When Chief Areoye Oyebola, prolific author and ex-President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, decided to revisit his tenure and exit as editor of Daily Times in a recent interview with ICON, he inadvertently stirred the hornet’s nest. In the interview, he accused the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose, the then chairman/chief executive of the newspaper conglomerate of deliberately planting his (Oyebola’s) erstwhile deputy and successor, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, to supplant him.

Oyebola was removed as editor after reporting late for work as the July 29, 1975 coup that ousted the nine-year-old regime of General Yakubu Gowon unfurled. Osoba, who with Alhaji Jose, produced the Evening Times and first edition of the paper, that day, was promptly named editor while Oyebola was made managing editor.

In the interview, Oyebola, now 77, cast a retrospective look at the saga and submitted that his removal was a culmination of long- standing intrigues by Osoba, now 74, to get him fired.

Enraged by the claim, Osoba, who, years later, became Governor of Ogun State, picked the gauntlet and punctured Oyebola’s allegations, point by point.

The former Ogun State Governor said he naturally would have ignored Oyebola had the septuagenarian author restricted his attack to him (Osoba). But he was compelled to join issues with the editor-turned-author because he (Oyebola) had bitten “Alhaji Jose’s fingers even in the grave.”

“It’s an unpardonable thing to do,” Osoba charged. “When he (Oyebola) came (to Daily Times), he was riding a rickety car. But Alhaji Jose gave him a Datsun of his own choice. Datsun, at the time, was like having a Mercedes 280 in those days. Gbolabo Ogunsanwo was riding a Toyota with a freezer inside the boot. I was riding a British Rover car. Alhaji Jose gave us freehand. He pampered us. Alhaji Jose nurtured him. Who was he (Oyebola) until Alhaji brought him from classroom to journalism? And after Daily Times, what did he make of journalism? He should just go and seek his peace. We are all in the evening of our years. The earlier he keeps his peace, the better.

“If he didn’t touch Alhaji Jose, if he had spoken only about me, I wouldn’t react. But to say Alhaji Jose was begrudging him? That’s an insult on his boss. In life and death, we respect Alhaji Jose. We hold him in high esteem in life and in death. And I am happy that till Alhaji Jose died, journalism in Nigeria virtually worshipped him. He retired before he was 60. Yet, till he died at over 80, he remained a reference point and will remain a reference point for journalism in this country.”

Call this unfolding drama ‘the war of journalism icons’, and you would have hit the nail right on the head. But that’s just a tip of the iceberg, as the cliché goes. Please, sit back, relax and enjoy the full interview.

In his interview with us, Chief Areoye Oyebola said that upon your appointment as his deputy, a senior member of management warned him to watch his back because Alhaji Babatunde Jose, the Chairman/Chief Executive of Daily Times at the time, had planted you or appointed you as his deputy to supplant him. How do you react to that?

First of all, let’s make a clarification. I would not have granted this interview in reaction to Areoye Oyebola if not for the fact that Alhaji Babatunde Jose is dead.

Therefore, he couldn’t defend himself?

Yes. It is very unkind of Areoye to still continue to bite Alhaji Ajose’s finger in the grave. That is why I am agreeing to grant this interview. Alhaji Jose is no more to defend himself. For 38 years, Oyebola had opportunity to explain himself in as many interviews as he wanted. He had as many opportunities as he would have wanted when Alhaji Jose was still alive. He never did. Why he chose the fifth anniversary of Alhaji Jose to now still be forcing the man to turn in his grave hurts me. That is why I am agreeing to this interview.

But, sir, how do you respond to the allegation that Alhaji Jose deliberately planted you to supplant him?

I have always said that Areoye is not truly a Daily Times man…

How do you mean?

We, the original Times men who Alhaji Jose treated as a family, we still see ourselves as one family till tomorrow. For instance, Henry Odukomaiya and I heard about Alhaji Alade Odunewu’s demise within very short notice, and we were all there at the funeral at Ikoyi Vaults and Gardens. And the first person I asked for when I got there was Prince Odukomaiya. Shortly after, he came in. And I said I had just been asking of you. Till tomorrow, we are still one family. Oyebola came (into the Times family) midway; that is why he will make that kind of statement.

In any case, he was not the first person I will be deputy to. I was assistant news editor to late Kunle Animashaun. When he died, Chief Theo Ola became the news editor. I was deputy to Chief Theo Ola before I was promoted as editor of Lagos Weekend. From Lagos Weekend, I went on to be assistant editor to Mark Alabi, as (acting) editor of the Sunday Times. Now, the question you should ask Oyebola is this: which of these people that I was deputy to did I supplant? Oyebola is a paranoid person because he knew how he came to be editor of Daily Times. He supplanted everybody.

How did he supplant everybody?

All of us were his seniors. We were there long before him and he suddenly came in, and within two or three years, he was promoted editor over and above everybody.

His own argument was that, as it’s the practice all over the world, the scale naturally tilted towards those of them who were senior graduate journalists at the time; and that you and Alhaji Babatunde Jose were apathetic to graduate editors on the stable at the time. What’s your take on that?

Alhaji Ajose was the promoter and the philosopher of the idea of what he called his own graduate policy then. The sole aim that policy was to recruit people who had academic exposure. Again, Oyebola is being economical with the truth because at that time, he was not the only graduate. There was Tony Momoh, a tested and more experienced hand, who had gone to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, from where he transferred to the University of Lagos when the war broke. He had come back as a graduate at the time he was appointed editor. Oyebola wasn’t the only graduate in the place. Gbolabo Ogunsanwo had also left to go and read for his degree at University of Lagos, and had come back. Still, within the same Daily Times, we had people with higher degrees than his, people like N. C. Idowu who was a PhD holder and Doyin Abiola who had come with a Masters degree. All that Oyebola had was a first degree. So, what makes him to think that he is higher in academic exposure than N.C. Idowu with PhD, or Tony Momoh who had years of practical experience before he acquired his degree, or Gbolabo Ogunsanwo who was an assistant librarian in the library of the paper but went to the University of Lagos to acquire his degree? Or is it Dipo Ajayi who had also gone to acquire his degree? Is he the only graduate? In any case, he was recruited directly by Alhaji Jose himself. So, at what point did Alhaji Jose start envying him because he had a degree?

Was it true that when he met you at Harvard doing a diploma programme, that he encouraged you to proceed to acquire a degree? He said you seemed content with the diploma programme you were running at the time?

What a great insult for Areoye to say that of me. The Nieman Fellowship, which I went for in Harvard, an Ivy League university, is meant for people with minimum of Masters degree. It was a postgraduate fellowship programme, and Professor Nighe was the one who supervised me as a post-graduate scholar. The Nieman Fellowship is highly rated and it’s strictly designed for journalists that Harvard sees as future leaders of the profession. And I happened to be the first Nigerian journalist to qualify for the programme. I spent one full year on the programme in Harvard.  Professor Akinkugbe was also there on a one-year sabbatical. So also was Professor Dike, the black Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan.

Although I won’t call them my contemporaries, we were relating at equal level. Soladoye, who later became the secretary to the Government of Kwara State, was also in Harvard. Akin Oyebode, a Professor, an activist, and a leftist, was also there. He was doing his doctorate. These were the people I was with as a postgraduate student. So, how can you now come and tell me to go back and pursue a first degree when I had already attended three major courses in journalism, both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria?

My first journalism course was in 1965 when I did a diploma course at the University of Lagos, under the auspices of the International Press Institute. In 1967, I went to UK to do another one-year course under the Commonwealth Press Union Fellowship. Part of my course was at Oxford University. In 1970, I was in Indiana University, Bloomington. It is one of the highly rated schools of journalism. I had done three major diplomas in journalism aside from my practical experience. I had passed the stage of a first degree, and I was doing a postgraduate programme at the time he said he was saying this. He couldn’t have said that to me.

I was made editor of Lagos Weekend as far back as April 1969. I was appointed editor, Lagos Weekend, the same day that Henry Odukomaiya was appointed editor of the Daily Times. How can Oyebola be saying that? Is he coming to teach me my career? My career was already formed. I had already made my mark as a journalist. I had covered the civil war. I had been covering international events with renowned journalists allover the world. I was at the Nigerian Peace Talk in Kampala. I was with Papa Obafemi Awolowo for OAU (Organisation of African Unity) conference in Algiers during the civil war. So, how can Bola, a neophyte, come and tell me to go and read degree when I was already doing a postgraduate programme?

You see, they are the ones who had inferiority complex; they are the ones who think that having a degree is all you need to make a great journalist. You can go to a university but the university can’t make a professional out of you. He came. His reason for coming to see me was that there had been speculations about his removal. I was not interested in anybody’s removal. I was happy to have been recommended by the likes of the Newsweek (the international magazine) that I was their correspondent in Nigeria.

The same Newsweek?

The same Newsweek magazine. I was UPI correspondent. I was the correspondent for BBC. They were the ones who recommended me. My recommendation to Harvard was by international bodies. They were the ones who recommended me to Harvard, for them to take me as the first Nigerian to be Nieman fellow.  I don’t think since I became a Nieman fellow we have had more than six or so. Very few of us have had the opportunity of being a Nieman Fellow from Nigeria. So, what Oyebola said is not true. He won’t dare say that to me. I was already an executive in the Daily Times. In any case, if I wanted a degree, I had even tried to be an evening student at the University of Lagos, as far back as 1964. But it was conflicting with my work and recommendation for training in and out of Nigeria.

Coming to the heart of the matter, Chief Oyebola alleged that having done him in on the coup day, you came to his house in Surulere, the second day, praising him to high heavens as a man of high sense of responsibility, courage and commitment. He alleged that you said all these beautiful words just because you were pricked by your conscience for what you had done?

Most untrue. Let’s take it stage by stage. Before you come to that…

Events of the day of the coup (July 29, 1975)?

Yes, the day of the coup. He claimed that I was not in the office, and that he produced the first edition of the paper. He is being economical with the truth again. On the day of the coup, I was the first to come into the office. I think the first broadcast (of the coup by the then Brigadier Joseph Naven Garba) was 6 a.m. By 6:15, I was already in the office. As I was coming in, Alhaji Jose too was driving in. Now, what should a good journalist do hearing the broadcast of a coup? Your instinct, first of all, is to get to the office. After Jose came in, Jaja followed.

Alhaji Jose then called me. He said, ‘Segun, pick your radio, meet me in the production room. Start monitoring the radio. Start giving me stories.’ So, I was inside the production room, monitoring the radio and writing my own stories. Alhaji Jose was standing, receiving the stories, casting the headline, dictating the typeface, planning the page, and proofreading. It was the age of hot metal. The whole production was working. First of all, we had to produce the evening paper, Evening Times. That was the first paper that must come out, at least to announce the coup. After we had completed the evening paper, we then went on to produce the first edition of the daily. Oyebola, the editor, came in at about 10 o’clock, almost four hours after Alhaji and I had been working in the production room.

Again, how can he say I was nowhere to be found. It was after we had finished the Evening Times and the first edition that I now left. Normally, he now started the second edition in the evening. I hadn’t had breakfast. I hadn’t had lunch. I hadn’t even had my bath. And as I drove back to Surulere, the whole place was empty because the coup people had declared the day a work-free day, and announced a curfew of between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.  So, I went home and refreshed myself. Of course, I wouldn’t be there when they were producing the second edition.

But again, I was already an executive with official car, an official driver, well pampered; and I was already living in my own house! I purchased the house from LSDPC from a loan taken from Daily Times and a mortgage from LSDPC. I was at the topmost level of my career already. I had passed the stage of being a reporter but the reporter in me just couldn’t stay idle while all these historic events were unfolding. No journalist worth his calling would stay aloof on such occasion.

Now, this is how I got my scoop on the coup day. The telephone exchange on Lagos Island was the only one that military demobilized. On the mainland, you can still phone people. So, I phoned General Abisoye (one of his top sources). Thank God, General Abisoye had given me the right to name him because it is very unethical for you to name your source of information. Thank God, General Abisoye is still alive, you can crosscheck what I’m about saying. I called him but he said ‘this is not a telephone matter. I have just come back from a meeting in Dodan Barrack. Meet me at home.’ He was then living in Ann Barracks in Yaba. As a reporter, I knew from my experience in the war that you don’t drive your car near sentries on the day of a coup. If you do, you could easily be shot and killed.

So, I parked my car at Yaba Magistrate Court and walked down to the Ann Barrack’s gate. Of course, in accord with the military style, which I was already used to during the war, they will first of all shout at you: ‘Who goes there?’ That is, ‘who is that person shadowing around there?’ Then, he (the soldier giving the order) will tell you: ‘advance to be recognized.’ Then, you move few steps. Meanwhile, he will be cocking his gun. When you move few steps, he will ask you: ‘who are you? What is your mission?’ You must, at this point, identify yourself and state your mission. And until he turns his gun down, you don’t move; and you must keep your eyes up.

So, I took the risk to go into General Abisoye’s house. To my shock, he told me all that transpired at the Supreme Military Council. To cap it all, he said he was then a minister and colleague of Brigadier Murtala Mohammed. Abisoye was the Minister of Health, while Murtala Mohammed was Minister of Communication under General Yakubu Gowon, the man they had just toppled. They were both in the same cabinet. So, he said sarcastically: God don catch you, Segun. Your good friend is now the Head of State. I said ‘which friend?’ He said Murtala Mohammed.

He (Abisoye) knew that Daily Times had engaged Murtala Mohammed in a war over the contract he awarded to M.K.O. Abiola and ITT without going through the cabinet and his permanent secretary. The late Akindele had written to say that his minister didn’t go through the due process. Those were the days when civil servants were civil servants; and Daily Times took side with Akindele to query Murtala Mohammed’s manner of awarding the contract. Murtala, as usual a no-nonsense man, just wanted the telephone problem resolved as quickly as possible. He didn’t have the patience for going to council. As far as he was concerned, he was minister and he felt that he can just approve the contract. That was on. So, I said, ‘my God! Murtala Head of State? A man that Daily Times was still fighting up to that second.’ Then, he (Abisoye) told me the details of who had been retired. He said Kam Salem (the then Inspector General of Police) was out. Hassan Katsina was out. And so on. He told me all the major decisions they had taken.

Meanwhile, there was no immediate broadcast after the council meeting. The only thing that was out throughout that day was martial music and Joe Garba’s coup statement. Up till the night, the country was hanging in the air. And you cannot go anywhere because they had declared a work-free day. Nobody was allowed to move anywhere. There was no telephone in the Daily Times office because they had demobilized the telephone on the island. There were up to 10 stories that he gave me that day.  And I told him, ‘General, I am worried. This thing is too explosive. Which of them can I use?’

General Abisoye impressed me. Remember Abisoye has always been a tough, no-nonsense person. Everybody knew him to be tough, sharp-tongued. He said to me: ‘Look, Segun, use your judgment. If you run into trouble, I will stand by you. I will stand by you.’ He repeated it to me, and that was it. So, I drove back to the office just before 6 p.m. only to find the whole place empty. The whole of editorial department was empty. Only those on the production desk and one or two people working on the inner pages of the Evening Times were around. Within seconds, 6 p.m. had clicked.  The problem now was: how do I get out this information? As deputy editor, I could not, on my own, unilaterally change the edition’s front page. There was no phone to call Oyebola on the Island. He himself that is saying all this, how can he go home at 5:30 p.m. when you know that curfew was starting by 6? Why should he go home at that time?

He said he left at about 4 p.m. to go and freshen up…

(Cuts in…) He first of all said 5:30 p.m., now he is saying 4. He could not have completed the first edition by 4. It’s not possible.

He said he completed the first edition and now had to go to his house to freshen up…

I will come to that. What led me to Alhaji Jose was the fact that Alhaji Jose, all his life as Chairman, remained the editor-in-chief and the editorial director of the paper; and we were all having meetings with him every Monday. I had become Editor, Lagos Weekend before I became Deputy Editor to Oyebola. I was already on the level of an editor, enjoying the benefits of an editor. So, what is he talking about? Being his deputy does not make me a subordinate to him. I was only deputy to him of equal rank. I went to Alhaji Jose simply because it was easier for me to move from Kakawa to Ikoyi than to go back on the bridge and meet Oyebola in Surulere. The military had surrounded the whole of Kakawa. There was Central Bank to the left, the General Post Office to the right, security exchange commission to the front, and Ministry of Defense to the back of Daily Times. What did I do? I collected 50 copies of the first edition (of Daily Times) and I started distributing them to the military sentries along the road. We used to do that during the civil war. Again, I did that based on my experience during the war. That was how I got to Alhaji Jose.

To get the permission to run with the story?

When Alhaji Jose heard that Murtala Mohammed was the new Head of State, he decided to join me. He followed me. Alhaji Jose was telling me as we were going back that we were in trouble. I said ‘why sir?’ He said it was good that I had come to call him. He said there was no curfew outside Lagos and we had other papers that would have, as I was writing the stories, picked the Murtala’s broadcast around 9 p.m. as the new Head of State and run with it. Alhaji Jose was saying that it was good that he and I were in the office, otherwise he wouldn’t have known how to defend the situation. There was Herald in Ilorin, Sketch in Ibadan, Tribune in Ibadan, Chronicle in Calabar, Observer in Benin, New Nigerian in Kadua, Standard in Jos, and other newspapers scattered all over the place, operating in places that were not affected by the curfew. And they would have carried the broadcast of Murtala. And we would have come out the following day without a line on Murtala Mohammed, and we would have been in trouble. If Oyebola is going to be honest, he should know that Daily Times was at war with Murtala up to the time he became Head of State, and therefore, any mistake from us would have been disastrous.

That was how you got the exclusive published and you were able to take the new Head of State’s inaugural address to the nation?

Yes. I had to monitor it on the radio that night and our own paper was the richest. This is because, beside the broadcast of the Head of State, which all the other papers had, none of them had the other exclusive details that I had, and which we published.

The lesson in all of these is that journalism has certain inborn attributes. You must have high intuitiveness. Your intuition must be strong. You must be resourceful. Resourcefulness is part of the attributes of a good journalist. Courage is another vital attribute. None of these is taught in the university.

TheSun

How Osoba betrayed me

CHIEF AREOYE OYEBOLA Ex-Editor, Daily Times

By ’YINKA FABOWALE and TUNDE THOMAS

Thirty-seven years after, Chief Areoye Oyebola has dismissed as falsehold, allegation that he was sacked as editor of Daily Times as a result of his negligence. Rather, he said his unceremonious removal was a result of high-wired intrigues by Aremo Segun Osoba and Alhaji Babatunde Jose. Osoba was Areoye’s deputy while the late Jose was the managing director of the Daily Times.  According to official sources, Areoye was fired because he was not at his duty post to produce the newspaper on the day Murtala Mohammed led a putsch against General  Yakubu Gowon.

But speaking to ICON in Ibadan, Areoye said it was not true that he was missing in action on a coup day. He blamed Osoba for his travail

“Osoba betrayed me. I gave him all the support and love as my deputy, but he didn’t reciprocate my good gestures to him,” he said.

In this interview, the second in two weeks, Areoye in an effort to set the records straight noted: “It is not my removal that pained me, but the circumstances, and the falsehood being peddled that I was missing in action on the day of the coup.”

Excerpts:

A development happened in Daily Times, you were removed probably because of poor judgment, in that you were found missing on a coup day, what exactly happened on that day sir?

Thank you. This is nothing but a total fabrication that I went missing on a coup day. Thank you for the opportunity given me to state my own side of the story.

The argument was that you are supposed, as an editor, to have deployed your reporters on the coup day, but that it was your deputy then, Chief Olusegun Osoba, that took charge, and used his own initiative to lead with the coup story which the Daily Times carried the following day.

This is nothing but total falsehood, and this falsehood has been spread over the years all over the place. During a recent interview I had on BCOS TV, I explained in detail what transpired that day.

Let me start by saying that on the day I was appointed editor of Daily Times, people were coming to congratulate me. This was in 1972. One person came to me, he was among those that were congratulating me. But he waited while others had dispersed, and he said, ‘Mr. Oyebola, I congratulate you once again, but note it that Alhaji Babatunde Jose has a sinister motive by making Segun Osoba your deputy.’ I was surprised. But the man quickly followed by saying that time will tell whether what he told me was true or not.

From that day till I left the seat of Daily Times editor, Osoba decided to operate on a parallel line with mine. You know that parallel lines don’t meet, and when that person told me that the motive of Jose was doubtful.  The fellow who gave this information was an old fellow, and he had been part of the Daily Times system for a long time. He had been there with Jose, Osoba and others.

As a human being, what he said touched me. I wondered why Alhaji Jose wanted to do this against me. But as a committed Christian, I knelt down in my office, and told Jesus Christ to take control. That whatever might be Jose’s motive against me would come to nothing.

After the prayers, I refused to be bothered again. Not long after I was appointed editor, I started preaching at revivals in Mushin. The Daily Times management didn’t know about it, but I continued attending the fellowship and revivals at Mushin. Mushin at that time was a rough area. I later started distributing tracts about Jesus Christ, and the words of the gospel both in Mushin, and later in the office.

One thing surprised me greatly one day, Alhaji Jose made photocopies, about 200 of my tracts, and was distributing them.

One of those people he gave later came to inform me, and said, ‘Editor, are these tracts by you?’ I replied the fellow that Jose was a top leader in the Ansar-u-Deen Movement, but how come he was distributing my tracts? I then went to his office, and said, Alhaji, you are distributing my tracts, how come? He then said, Mr. Oyebola, if that is your strength, it is worth being looked into. I left it at that and went out of his office.

But coming to the day of the coup, I told you Osoba and myself, we don’t see eye to eye, and I will tell you something he did that you will know that he disliked me, and he was digging holes around me.

In 1973, when the University of Ibadan was 70, I was 25, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was made the guest speaker for the occasion. This was during the university’s Alumni Association dinner event. On that occasion, I was on leave, and I had travelled out of the country, but I was informed that Awolowo in his speech during the event said among other things that University of Ibadan has produced so many good people that had dominated journalism, both print and electronic media. He added that two names readily come to his mind in this regard- Messrs Areoye Oyebola, and Adamu Ciroma.

Awolowo further added that paradoxically, Ciroma and I had many things in common, that we are shy, quiet, and unassuming, but that we are formidable in wielding the pen. But do you know that Osoba who was my deputy killed that story. That great testimonial for me and my good friend Adamu Ciroma, Segun Osoba killed the story. Only New Nigerian and Nigerian Tribune published that story. What further evidence of hatred and malice of Osoba towards me do you need again?

Let me tell you this again; on the day of the coup, it took place early in the morning. It was a dawn coup announcement. I was in office till around 5.30 p.m. Until I left the office in the evening, Osoba was nowhere to be found. All the rubbish people have been saying against me on this are fabrications. They are rubbish. Jose had malice against me. He grudged me for a supposed wrong I did to him which was not true.

What was that?

No, I won’t say it. On the day of the coup, I was in the office with other members of staff. How can people say I abandoned my post? How can people say I was missing in action?

Obasanjo, when he was a member of the then Supreme Military Council, confided in me that he was going to lead some military officers to take over American Embassy at Race Course in Lagos. I was there with him till 1.30 a.m., and I refused to go even when Osoba who I took along with me, and others were saying that I should go home. But I insisted on staying with them being the leader of the team. I went on that risky assignment knowing fully well that there could be stray bullets or exchange of gunfire between Nigerian soldiers and security officers attached to US embassy.

I refused to leave until we produced the paper carrying that story and circulated the first edition. How can you now say I abandon my duty?

Then, when we produced the paper, that was the first edition of the day the coup took place, I didn’t see Osoba. He was not around in the office. May be he and Jose were planning what they would do against me and unfortunately, circumstances worked in their favour.

By the time I got to my house in Surulere, I discovered that the people who announced the military take over made a fundamental mistake. I later went to Dodan Barracks very early the following morning before coming to the office to face Jose’s persecution.

At Dodan Barracks, I met all the senior military officers and told them that they had made a fundamental mistake. Babangida, Obasanjo, and others were there. I told them that the announcer of the coup should have exempted some category of workers like nurses, journalists, and others on essential duties rather than the blanket order clamped on Nigerian populace. What the military officers now did, although belatedly, was to give me a letter exempting Daily Times from the no movement order.

But on that day, what happened was that when I got to my house that evening, my official car was undergoing routine maintenance. A cab was hired for me to take me to the house. The cab driver promised to come back later around 6.30 p.m. to pick me.

However, by this time, the restriction order had been put in place, and there was no way the driver could come to my house to pick me again. This was how I became stranded. The cab driver later apologised to me profusely.

In desperation, I started trekking to office. I had walked for almost half a kilometre, and was approaching Eric Moore, when a security man approached me, and said: ‘Sir, where are you going?’ I told him my predicament, adding that I was on my way to my office. But he advised me against taking the risk. He said I should not allow myself to get killed. I then came back to my house.

But this will, however, interest you; before I left the office, other key members of staff crucial to production including the night editor, were all there. The night news editor and the production editor were all there. Everybody was there fully before I left for home.

That was the night editor, Chief Ayo Adefolaju, who is now late. Others were furious that why would anybody complain that I was not around. They openly grumbled that if I were not around, that wouldn’t the paper be published?

Surprisingly, the following morning at 7 a.m., Osoba surfaced in my house having known what he had done, or the things he perpetrated against me with Jose. He came to my house at Lucina Joseph Street, Surulere, and he said: ‘Editor, I know you are somebody with high sense of responsibility and you are a courageous man, when I didn’t see you, I was worried and disturbed, and I sent a scooter rider to come to fetch you but he was turned back at the Lagos end of Eko bridge.’

Was there no phone then?

The military people had ensured that all telephone lines were dead. There was no signal. But while Osoba was saying all these to me, I didn’t know he and Jose had perfected a scheme to remove me from office. Unfortunately for Jose and Osoba, when the news of my removal filtered out, workers on duty that night became furious.

The following day, Daily Times was engulfed in confusion. Members of staff kicked against my removal. But, however, I am happy about three things people can’t forget all the time, the truth must come out one day. Papa Awolowo was so fond of me. He loved me. He said he loved me because I was bold.

When Awolowo sent for Jose and asked him that he was told he removed Areoye Oyebola as the editor of the Daily Times, Jose said yes. Awolowo now said he should confirm the following facts that he (Jose) removed me without hearing my own side of the story, that he alleged that his deputy worked to produce the paper. Awolowo now followed by asking him again, whether there were no night shift. Jose could not answer.

Awolowo said again to Jose, was it not the same Areoye Oyebola that I know very well, he was a fearless writer, when I was in the prison, Oyebola at a time went to Ogbomoso to stage a protest in front of Samuel Ladoke Akintola’s house – Akintola was then the Premier of the defunct Western Region, but it was the belief of many people that he was rigged into office. That I went to Akintola’s house, chanting slogan and cursing against electoral manipulation that put him in office.

I remembered clearly that Akintola told his aides, including security details, not to touch me, that I was looking for somebody that would kill me.

Awolowo now told Jose that was it not the Oyebola the courageous and bold writer that you say was missing in action?

Awolowo also told Jose that was it not Oyebola you removed that you gave double salary increment because he used his own initiative when you sent him on assignment to Ghana to cover Kwame Nkrumah’s burial, but was able to maneouvre his way to Conakry with the help of S. G. Ikoku to cover unfolding events in Guinea where the late Guinean president, Sekou Toure, had refused to release Nkrumah’s corpse to Ghanaian government? He was sending stories from Conakry, which were exclusive, how do you now treat such a man like that?

Papa Awolowo told me that Jose could not reply, and Awolowo further said that Jose promised to correct the situation, and make me editor-in-chief of Daily Times, but he never fulfilled that promise he made to Awolowo.

Jose’s action, however, provoked a rebellion in Daily Times as no fewer than 95 percent of the workforce rose against him in protest against what they perceived as unfair treatment meted out to me. Nearly all the departments including marketing, editorial and production kicked against Jose’s action.

The protest was led by Prince Henry Olukayode Odukomaiya who pioneered Daily Champion, and the defunct National Concord. He is a great newspaper pioneer. He was a Director of Daily Times Training Institute when I went there for some courses when I was appointed editor of Daily Times. He was the arrowhead of this protest against Jose. The other five percent remaining members of Daily Times workforce could not raise a finger against this group.

The protests and agitations against my removal was so serious that at a point Daily Times could no longer function again.

Further still, Obasanjo and Murtala Muhammed later called Jose, and asked him what happened. They felt he was high-handed. They later felt that an organization as sensitive and as big as Daily Times, which was an octopus couldn’t be left in the hands of a man that was power drunk.

I was reliably informed that during Jose’s encounter with the duo of Muhammed and Obasanjo, they asked him whether he took his time to hear my own side of the story? I was told Jose didn’t have an answer.

They further asked him whether I had been queried before or whether I was a first offender? Jose reportedly told them that I had not been queried before. They then reportedly told him that even in the Army, they have provision for first offenders, and that if I have not been queried before, why did he remove me without hearing my own side?

The third question they asked him was: ‘What is the meaning of a deputy, so if Oyebola had taken dead by any chance, and the deputy did his work, would you remove him from the grave to punish him or what?’ They then told Jose, as I was informed, that the duty of a deputy is to act for his boss when the circumstances warrant that, and Muhammed and Obasanjo further told Jose that they were informed that Osoba, who was my deputy didn’t show up in the office until Oyebola left for home around 5.30 p.m., and that what type of deputy was that, that what kind of cooperation was I enjoying from my deputy? Then, there were no phone services for me to communicate with any official including Jose himself.

It must be Osoba’s guilty conscience that made him to come to my house very early the following day. Unknown to me, Osoba and Jose had conspired to do what they did to me.

It is not my removal that pained me, but the circumstances, and the falsehood being peddled that I was missing in action on the day of the coup.

At least, I had resigned on my own volition twice before. I’m not happy that Jose and Osoba wanted to damage my reputation by pretending that I didn’t come to work on coup day. This was nothing but falsehood.

Osoba betrayed me. I gave him all the support and love as my deputy, but he didn’t reciprocate my good gestures to him.

TheSun

Igbo, Yoruba fights for supremacy at Lagos market; police, soldiers takes over

SECURITY PRESENCE AT LADIPO MARKET

Armed soldiers and policemen have been drafted to the popular Ladipo Market, Mushin Lagos, South-West Nigeria following the tension generated by the appointment of Baba Oloja for the market, says a report this afternoon by P.M.NEWS.

News Express, had on Monday reported on rising tension in the market after the police Area Commander told protesting Igbo traders to either accept the headship of Alhaji Oladotun Abibu Oki, who controls only one unit of the market, or leave Lagos and return to their home states. Below is the P.M.NEWS report:

“Some of the traders, mostly Igbo, have refused to recognise the new Baba Oloja as the leader of the market.

A combined force of armed soldiers and mobile policemen were seen at the market this morning at strategic points to forestall a breakdown of law and order.

Many of the traders interviewed on the presence of the security agents said they did not know the reason for the deployment of the security men.

The presence of the security agents prevented most of the traders who had gone to the market for the weekly sanitation exercise from performing the exercise. Their shops were locked while they stood on the road discussing the latest development.

Speaking with P.M.NEWS on the deployment of security personnel to the market, the President-General of Ladipo Auto Central Executive Committee, LACEC, Mr. Ikechukwu Animalu confirmed that the men were brought to the market by the new Baba Oloja, Alhaji Oki, to take control of the market.

He said he got information yesterday that Oki had mobilised soldiers, policemen and members of OPC to take over the market.

He disclosed that he immediately alerted the Area ‘D’ Commander, Mushin and the state command of the development, adding that the matter was being investigated.

Animalu said he advised the traders to remain calm when he was told this morning that armed security personnel had been deployed to the market.

He reiterated the stand of the traders not to recognise the new Baba Oloja.

“We will not recognise him. If he wants to lead the market, he should wait for my tenure to expire and then contest for the leadership of the market,” he stated.

Operatives of OP-MESA were seen in their vehicle with registration number DD 47 KTU positioned in front of the Warehouse A.

Also seen in the market were about 15 pick up vans with armed mobile policemen. Operatives of SARS were also on ground.

Most of the traders were yet to open their shops as at the time of filing this report.

NEWS EXPRESS

Amaechi will see hell – Wike threatens

•Says Gov must beg him
•Declares: ‘If President Jonathan removes me as minister, I’ll continue to fight’

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State must brace up for more trouble from the opposition in the days and months ahead, if the threat, yesterday, by one of the forces against him, is anything to go by.

Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, boasted at a reception for him in Port Harcourt that he is ready to make life even more uncomfortable for the governor who is locked in the political battle of his life with the Presidency and his party (PDP), at the state and federal levels; the State Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu and the Police Command; the Minister and his five supporters in the State House of Assembly; ex-militants; as well as other political forces from within and outside the state.

The reception also doubled as a grand finale of the inauguration of units of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI) in Obio/Akpor LGA of the state.

Wike is the grand patron of GDI.

“We will make sure they will not sleep again, as they are sleeping now. They will not sleep with their two eyes closed. One eye will be open because they know there is danger,” the minister said, 24 hours after Amaechi told a delegation of Niger Delta Bishops who are trying to resolve the political crisis in the state that Wike remains a minister today by “the grace of God” and his (Amaechi’s) effort.

The governor’s words: “Nyesom Wike was appointed Chief of Staff by me. Nyesom Wike as a Minister of State, I nominated him. I was under pressure by the President to drop him, I refused. The President persuaded me to drop him and bring a woman but I refused.

” I heard he is going all over town saying I didn’t appoint him, I didn’t appoint him, the President appointed him but I nominated him to be a minister as the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum. I did, but you know character doesn’t come easily, character is a very difficult thing and I am a man of character.”

But in what looked like a response to the broadside fired at him on Friday by Amaechi, the minister said yesterday that the governor and the 27 members of the State Assembly on his side have not had enough trouble occasioned by their April 22 suspension of the Obio/Akpor Local Government Council.

Wike, who is aspiring to replace Amaechi as governor in 2015, hails from the local government area. He was a two-term chairman of the council.

The minister, speaking at yesterday’s rally, said: “They said we are nobody. Then they have seen. When you are dealing with nobody, be careful. The nobody will show you that he is somebody. We will make sure they will not sleep again. As they are sleeping, they will not sleep with their two eyes closed. One eye will be open, because they know there is danger.

“Those who are saying they must remove me, I have even overstayed. For you to be minister for two years, you must thank your God. If today we are no longer minister, do not worry yourself. It will not change us. We will continue to fight for what we believe in.

“We were not minister when we fought for them in 2007. When we were here, they were not having problems. Now, we have gone, they are having problems.

“We have always told them: you cannot do it. What you do not know, you do not know. It does not matter, whatever money you have, money cannot buy everything. Now, they are having sleepless nights. When we were here, were they having sleepless nights?

“When we were here, were they not travelling up and down? Are they travelling again? Tell them, they should come and beg us. Tell them to come back and beg us. We will tell them the secret. What God has not given to you, you do not need to do anything about it.

“I can assure you, all they are asking for: they want a commissioner of police that will be arresting you. Anytime they call the CP, he will arrest you. But let me tell you, we are not interested in whoever comes here (CP), all we are interested in is to have somebody who will not be partial.

“Let them bring whoever they want to bring (as CP).We want somebody who will want democracy to be practised in Rivers State. They said one man, one vote. Now, they do not want one man, one vote again.

“Obio/Akpor LGA is not a place you can toy with. Those who feel they can suspend Obio/Akpor council officials, we will make them uncomfortable. They felt once they had dissolved the council, they would sleep.

“The party has suspended them, because they have touched the lion and when you touch the lion, you know the consequences. Since they said the councillors will not take their salaries, they also will know that they will not belong to the PDP.

“The party chairman (Chief Felix Obuah) warned them and they said he would not be able to do anything. At the end of the day, they are going to court to challenge us. We will meet them in court. We are not afraid of the court. We are accustomed to it. All the ones they have gone, we have been winning them and we will continue to win them.

“They are doing everything they can. They are using their power and their money. Money cannot solve all problems. Sometimes, you have to come back home and realise that the people matter a lot. It is the power of the people that has put us in positions and you must come back to thank the people.

“Forget about what they are doing to you (his supporters). Do not worry. We are all together. Do not lose hope. God is on the throne.”

Wike said the suspended Chairman of Obio/Akpor LG, Mr. Timothy Nsirim, who also attended the rally; his deputy, Solomon Eke, and the 17 councillors have been denied their salaries since April, but said that is part of the sacrifice to make democracy survive.

The minister asked the people of the state to continue to support President Jonathan and the party.

He urged members of the GDI, in particular, to go to all the wards, communities and families in the state not to abandon President Jonathan and his wife.

Wike added: “Your duty as GDI members is to go and mobilise the entire state for our son (Jonathan), eventually when he decides to run and we believe the people of the Southsouth zone cannot sacrifice, for whatever it is, our own son, for anything less than President.”

Factional Chairman of the PDP in the state, Chief Felix Obuah, pledged at the function to reconcile Amaechi, Wike and other aggrieved members of the party in the state.

Obuah said: “I want to invite the governor (Amaechi), the minister (Wike) and all aggrieved members of Ikwerre community, to be with me in my palace next weekend. Let us sit down and fashion a way forward. I will not sit down and see my children quarrelling, and I will not feel concerned.”

A former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, described Obio/Akpor LGA as the home of the GDI and the PDP, stressing that “anybody standing on your way is standing before a moving train and will be crushed.”

The President-General of the GDI, Bright Amewhule, in his remarks, stated that President Jonathan would be supported to return in 2015 and that they were solidly behind Wike.

The ceremony is the latest by the anti-Amaechi camp in the state.

Similar ceremonies by pro-Amaechi groups are routinely disallowed by the police, prompting observers from within and outside the state to accuse the police leadership in the state of taking sides.

A rally scheduled for last Tuesday by civil rights groups to protest what they called anti-democratic tendencies in the state was not allowed to hold by the police.

Some militants even threatened that the lives of some of those expected at the rally were not safe should they come.

 THE NATION

2015 Campaign: Jonathan’s Men Fight For Positions, Funds

PRESIDENT GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN

A major crack has been noticed in the fold of loyalists of President Goodluck Jonathan: they are now engaged in a fierce battle for the control of the campaign structure of the president ahead of the 2015 presidential election, LEADERSHIP Sunday has learnt.

A top presidency official told our correspondent that, rather than harmonise their positions and state why they should be part of any move to “soften the ground” for the president towards 2015, those involved are in “a blame game of character assassination and name-dropping”.

The presidency has, however, declared that any move to link President Jonathan with campaigns toward 2015 was premature, saying those identified to be spearheading the move were on their own.

The presidency’s denial notwithstanding, LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that at least four major groups claiming to be working for the president’s 2015 re-election project have emerged.

Information at the disposal of LEADERSHIP Sunday rates the PDP as spending more funds than any other political party. For instance, in the 2011 presidential election, the party was said to have initially budgeted the sum of N40 billion based on an interim proposal prepared by a serving minister. The projection was however slashed to N10 billion on the intervention of a leading light in the party who played a significant role in the presidential election.

The PDP was followed by the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) with an expenditure profile of N2 billion, while the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), spent less than N1 billion each. The ANPP, ACN and CPC are now known as All Progressives Congress (APC).

Major items usually targeted for funding include; media/publicity, transportation, accommodation and security.

It was gathered that under each of the groups are lesser pseudo-campaign outfits with “not fewer than 1,000 in number”.

The emergence of the four major campaign cartels is coming on the heels of reports that the 2011 presidential outfit, Neighbour 2 Neighbour, financed and promoted by the president’s close allies, is embroiled in a crisis of confidence among its principal promoters.

The leading groups contending for favour in the presidential villa include the PDP Re-Loaded Group, Goodluck Jonathan Support Group, National Unity Group, and the National Consensus Forum.

Of the four groups, only promoters of the Re-Loaded Group — former deputy Senate president Ibrahim Mantu, former secretary to the Bayelsa State government Dr (Mrs) Boloere Ketebu and Chief Richard Lamai — are known to the public for now.

The three others are said to be oiled by some ministers and heads of a few federal government agencies.

For instance, while the National Unity Group is said to be funded by a serving female minister manning a juicy revenue-yielding ministry, the Goodluck Jonathan Support Group is bankrolled by the chairman of a labour-related federal government agency who is also a female politician said to be eyeing the governorship seat of a south-south state in 2015. She is being supported by a presidential aide. A serving minister is also behind the National Consensus Forum.

The source said: “We are not unmindful of the struggle for prominence among persons or groups trying to put in place one structure or the other for the 2015 presidential election; honestly, much as we appreciate the move and the zeal some of them have exhibited, it is disturbing that the pattern is becoming something else because the matter is gradually being seen as a struggle to control funds and structures for campaign more than moves to soften the ground for the president, if at all he would run in 2015.

“If we are all working for the same purpose and we are genuinely concerned, we need to be sincere and show some love, but what is happening now is nothing but blame game and character assassination, and it is disturbing. We will soon ensure that they are all brought together so as not to allow it get out of hand,” he told LEADERSHIP Sunday.

He further disclosed that not less than 1,000 campaign groups are being identified as belonging to the main four, each claiming to have mobilised more of the pseudo-campaign outfits.

LEADERSHIP Sunday’s efforts to speak with promoters of three of the groups were fruitless as only a stakeholder in the Goodluck Jonathan Support Group, Dr Eddy Olafeso, reacted to the development.

Olafeso, who is the deputy national coordinator of the GJSG, however, said his group’s immediate responsibility was to create public awareness for President Jonathan’s Mid-Term Score Card.

But he was evasive on whether a rivalry existed or not among the various campaign outfits.

Meanwhile, special adviser to the president on political matters Ali Ahmed Gulak has reiterated that President Jonathan has not told anyone to kick off the 2015 campaign for him, saying those involved “are on their own”.

“Without being immodest, all such groups are on their own; the president has said it over and over that his mandate is to deliver before 2015 the mandate Nigerians gave to him in 2011.

“All such groups campaigning for him are doing that on their own volition and no one can stop them. If I may ask, did they say they have the mandate of the president to start his campaign? I will say Mr President has no hand in what they are doing and, as a free society where freedom of association is guaranteed, they can do what they like and support whoever they want without anyone mandating them,” Gulak told LEADERSHIP Sunday.

LEADERSHIP