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Why were you and other aspirants afraid of the primary election?
I was always ready for the primary; I believe I have the biggest structure in Ekiti but since the President had talked about consensus and because we wanted to carry everybody along, I was part of the consensus. We know those who have structures on the ground in Ekiti.
This is a fact known to journalists in Ekiti State. You know those who can participate in elections and win. I was ready whether for primary or for consensus.
There have always been attempts to have a consensus candidate but they have always failed and I believe the last attempt, which Gbenga Aluko was saying produced him, also failed. This is why it failed: there was an attempt initially to select the consensus candidate for Ekiti South but I did not believe in what they were doing, I backed out and I didn’t participate. The arrangement produced Dare Bejide as number one, Gbenga Aluko as number two and, I think, Abiodun Aluko as number three. I did not participate in it but Gbenga Aluko and others rejected it.
We were invited by the Board of Trustees members and other leaders in the South-West, including the chief of staff who had been mandated to select a consensus candidate among us.
At the meeting in Chief Bode George’s house, people like Gbenga Aluko spoke but I did not utter a word. They all said it was practically impossible for aspirants to choose a consensus candidate. They said they made attempts but failed and would surrender all their rights to the committee of leaders from the South-West to pick one of us. That committee did their work and I believe they produced a consensus candidate. Aspirants heard about the result from the grapevine and rejected it even before the result was made public. So, where is their honour? They signed that they would surrender their rights to the committee to pick a candidate for them; nobody forced them, they signed. So, where is their honour?
When we got to Gbenga Aluko’s house last week and they were talking about consensus arrangement, I said they should go and ask that committee to produce its report because we all signed an agreement that they should do it for us when we realised that we could not do it on our own. They said the report was wrong and they would not accept it.
They said they wanted a new arrangement and I said instead of doing a new arrangement, we could write everybody’s name in a paper, fold it and ask somebody to just pick one lucky winner.
I said that it was not possible for one of us to have the support of everybody, we were debating it but Gbenga Aluko insisted on voting and I told them voting was not consensus.
So, out of 12 aspirants present, he got five votes, is that consensus? Go and check the ordinary meaning of consensus; it means all of us must agree before you can say you are the consensus candidate. Five people agreeing to you out of 12 present is not consensus. Consensus means unanimity and if one person disagrees, then that is no longer consensus. As a matter of fact, Bisi Omoyeni was not even present; so that means we cannot even have a consensus. So, how can Gbenga Aluko be claiming that he has the consensus of the 13 aspirants when Omoyeni was not even there? Even you can’t say he has the consensus of the 12 aspirants present because five aspirants voted for him, only five. You can only say five aspirants voted for you and those five aspirants have no base. I don’t want to talk in a disparaging manner against anybody.
Was the primary which produced Fayose credible?
You are aware that I was the only one who contested against Fayose and you know what happened. Where were all the people claiming consensus? Were they in Ekiti during the ward congresses?
You were one of the 13 aspirants who dragged Fayose to court that the waiver given him was not ratified and later you boycotted the primary.
I did not boycott the ward congresses. I participated fully but when I was not satisfied with what it produced, I joined in boycotting the primary and I made my position clear to the press. Categorically, there is no consensus candidate. If you want to have a consensus candidate, then you have to go back to the Bode George report. What Gbenga Aluko is claiming has nobody’s signature; none of us signed anything. But we all signed that we would agree with whatever that committee produced. So, there is no consensus candidate.
Why did you agree to work with Fayose?
As you are well aware, I have moved beyond the consensus arrangement and I have agreed to work with Fayose. In the overall interest of the party, we must move forward. The people are tired of the government in Ekiti State and we must remove them.
I am the most aggrieved person among the aspirants. Those who do not even have structure are claiming to have been cheated. I am the most aggrieved and I have decided to let bygones be bygones. I have swallowed the bitter pill and I have decided to support my party and the candidate it has chosen. We have moved forward to work on the election and to make sure that PDP wins Ekiti back.
Do you think Fayose, who was removed from office, can still win Ekiti governorship election?
It is left for the Ekiti people to decide who they want to vote for. If they know he was impeached, let them go and challenge it in court. Even if he was impeached and Ekiti people still vote for him, that is their choice. I believe that with me coming to join Ayo Fayose, we have already won the election by the grace of God.
Don’t you think Aluko can win the state for the PDP if given the ticket?
On what ground will he be given the ticket? I have told you Gbenga Aluko is not a consensus candidate; so, on what ground will he be given the ticket? Tell me, on what ground? He didn’t emerge the consensus candidate; so, on what ground will he be given the ticket?
Don’t you think the crisis will affect your party at the poll?
I have told you we are winning the election. We are solving the problem, I have made peace with the candidate of our party because I want the party to win. Let everybody come together and work for the party. If I can make the sacrifice by putting the party’s interest above every other things then others should do the same.
Aluko said he would rather have Fayemi remain in office than have Fayose as governor: how do you react to this?
That is very unpatriotic. Ekiti people are yearning for change. That is his own position, but I don’t agree with that position and Ekiti people are tired of the present government.
If Gbenga Aluko had won, would he have expected others to support Fayemi? That is unpatriotic. I am the most aggrieved but I have decided to bury the hatchet and I have moved on.
Aluko said you were rejected twice when you were nominated as a minister. Is this not true?
He is talking rubbish. I was never rejected. Who rejected me? Was it not people like him and others who wrote petitions? I was nominated to be a minister in 2007, all security agencies cleared me. I have no blemish despite the fact that some enemies in Ekiti wrote more than 100 petitions against me. They investigated and found nothing against me. I put my records in the public domain; let anybody say anything against me.
I was nominated and people were excited about my nomination. But some people went and piled up newspaper clippings regarding my statements in Afenifere. They said I abused former President Olusegun Obasanjo. I have the clippings with me because Baba Obasanjo later gave them to me.
They went to tell Obasanjo, ‘This was the man who used to abuse you in Afenifere.’ The man called me to find out. He sent a message to me that I should come and visit him, but unfortunately the message was sent through an enemy who wrote petitions against me. The message was not delivered to me.
They went back to Baba Obasanjo and told him Adeyeye was so arrogant, saying he (Adeyeye) didn’t have any business with him (Obasanjo) and that he should go to hell. That was when late President Yar’Adua was just entering office and he was heavily under the influence of Baba Obasanjo. So he told President Yar’Adua to withdraw my name.
I have been injured so many times in my political career. In some of the petitions, they said I had psychiatric problem but it was a lie. I have never been admitted into any hospital and I thank God for that. But do you know that as recent as yesterday, some people are saying that Adeyeye once had a psychiatric problem. There has never been any psychiatric issue in my family. But that is the reality of the society I live in.
