Why Agunloye lost ACN ticket

Idowu Ajanaku is the Media Director of the Akeredolu Campaign Organisation (ACO). In this interview with LEKE AKEREDOLU in Akure, he explains why Dr. Olu Agunloye, a former governorship aspirant of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), lost the ticket for the October 20 governorship poll in Ondo State.

How would you react to the claim by Dr. Olu Agunloye that he left the ACN because he was betrayed by the party’s leadership? 

That statement is not a surprise because it is coming from a politician like Agunloye. You know very well that Agunloye’s stock in trade is to betray and seek political office for political gain. You will recall that Agunloye, when the late Adebayo Adefarati was about to be picked as the governorship candidate for Ondo State by the Alliance for Democracy in 1999, despite the fact that everybody agreed that Adefarati should be picked because of the role he played in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) to free the Yoruba nation from the stranglehold of the late General Sani Abacha, Agunloye, who was not known, who did not participate in the exercise, came out to challenge Adefarati, but he was defeated. He did not stop at that, he went ahead to collude with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to make sure that they stopped the late Adefarati who is from Akoko like him. He joined hands with former Governor Olusegun Agagu to get him out in 2003. The romance between him and Agagu did not last long before he manifested his stock in trade with Mimiko.

Perhaps that was because he was a longstanding friend of Dr. Agagu...

He started planting all manner of stories in the newspapers to discredit Agagu’s government and, eventually, Mimiko came into power. Besides, his romance with Mimiko did not last long because Mimiko and Agunloye have certain things in common, which is betrayal.  Mimiko decided to scheme him out from the senatorial ticket of the party and Prof Ajayi Boroffice was picked as the senatorial candidate of the Labour Party (LP) from the Ondo North Senatorial District for the 2011 general election. This was what angered Agunloye because he believed that he had lost out again. Following this, Agunloye crawled back to the national leadership of ACN, particularly Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whom he met in Lagos and with sympathy because we have several aspirants for that ticket then, but they were begged to withdraw from the race and the ticket was given to Agunloye. That election was funded by the party but he performed woefully. He did not only lose his ward to Boroffice, but also lost his ward to Senator Bode Olajumoke of PDP, who is not from Akoko but from Imeri in Ose Local Government Area of the state. That shows that Agunloye is not on ground even in his home town. 

But he was still regarded as a progressive.

Agunloye betrayed the progressive leaders by joining President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. Agunloye was the Personal Assistant to late Bola Ige when he was shot and murdered in Ibadan; it was one of the greatest tragedies that befell this nation then. Some suspects were arrested but were later released. Incidentally, Agunloye refused to listen to the voice of the late Ige’s family and the leadership of the Yoruba; he joined the PDP government. You will recall that the late Bola Ige, before he was killed, had written to President Olusegun Obasanjo that he wanted to leave his government to come home and rebuild the Alliance for Democracy ahead of the 2007 governorship elections in the Southwest. But Agunloye joined that government and he was appointed as the Minister of State for Navy and later became the Minister of Power and Steel. The question we should ask Agunloye is that with such positions, what development has he brought to the state, particularly, his community? Did he bring a PHCN power station to the area? Did he bring a naval base to Ondo State even as minister of state for navy? Just like the way Dr. Bode Olajumoke now has brought a Navy School to his home town in Imeri. He did not do any of those things, but he crawled back, that he wanted to use the ACN as a ladder to become the governor of Ondo State. I want to ask Agunloye if he knows how ACN was formed. What was his contribution to the formation of ACN? How many people did he bring when he joined ACN? He came to ACN like a General without troops. I want to also ask Agunloye why he did not complain of lack of internal democracy in ACN in 2011 when he was given the ticket?  

So, why really did he lose the ticket?

One main reason why Agunloye lost the ticket was because Chief Bisi Akande, the National Chairman of the party, knew from day one that he was a mole planted in ACN by Mimiko and others to destroy the party. He pretended as if he was one of us by rolling his campaign in line with that of Omoluabi of Aregbesola in Osun in order to use it to deceive us, but ACN is the master of political strategy when it comes to the politics and procedure of choosing candidates. Go and check it from all the governors produced by the party, the quality of leadership is always in them. Starting from Governor Babatunde Fashola, who has now become an iconic governor for progressive ideas, who is transforming Lagos,  building the Lagos-Badagry Expressways of 10 lanes, the first of its kind in sub-Sahara West Africa, like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo brought the first television station to Africa, building the first sky scrapper in the Cocoa House and many other things. We have Dr. Kayode Fayemi, an iconic political activist of international repute, transforming Ekiti State. As I am talking to you now, there are about 56 km road dualisation projects in Ekiti and this is regarded as one of the best in the Southwest. Talking about Rauf Aregbesola, who is turning Osun around, you can see Osogbo that used to be very dirty but today has been transformed to a glittering city, ditto, Oyo, Ogun and we also have Adams Oshiomhole, an iconic labour activist who is now regarded as one of the best governors in the country. 

Are you suggesting that the ACN has its way of handling its choice of candidates and that it has paid off?

Exactly. You can see that we always give our ticket to the best ones and if you look at these things, you will know that Akeredolu is another sound person with a sound mind that will come back to Ondo to replicate what we are doing in the South West. 

Agunloye and Akeredolu are not in the same category. Akeredolu was the former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), the first Nigerian to hold that position twice in the history of this country. Akeredolu was also a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of this state, Agunloye has never held any position in this state before. So Akeredolu is a legal icon, man of note, a man who has fought against  injustice  and deserves the ticket. 

Agunloye alleged that Justice Ayo Isa Salami influenced the candidature of Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN); is it true? 

It is not only untrue but  pure fallacy by Agunloye. Justice Salami has always stood on the side of the people, on the side of justice. I hope he is aware that Justice Nabaruma nullified the election of Ondo State because Mike Tyson, late Ayo Babalola and others all came to vote during the election in 2007. Was it Ayo Salami who asked the PDP to rig in Osun, Ekiti and Edo? And another question for Agunloye is, was it Salami who won the election for ACN in Ogun and Oyo where the incumbent governors were still in power? ACN defeated Alao Akala, who had Federal Government might behind him. Was it Ayo Salami who influenced the results that defeated the candidates of Gbenga Daniel, Mr Gboyega Isiaka, and others? The answer is that ACN won the elections legitimately in the South West. As I am talking to you now, nobody has ever made any allegation that is tangible to knock out Justice Salami. So, Agunloye is just lying, finding faults where there is none. If he had been given the ticket of ACN, would he be shouting? In ACN, we choose our candidates based on merit, integrity and ideas. For these reasons, Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is fit for the position.