Your candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is rated as most difficult candidate to market among other major contenders. How would want to sell him to Nigerians?
I have said it on different fora that Asiwaju is the easiest candidate to market. On the surface people just thought like “is this guy joking? Is he insane? By the time we begin to role out the records, the facts and the figures, it will now become clear that nobody is close to Asiwaju.
Because really it is about what you have done. Governance is not for motivational speakers. Governance is not for smooth talkers. Most smooth talkers are the 419 people who talk their ways into power. I am sorry, governance is not about that. Governance is about records.
Motivational speaking is different from governance. What have they done? People say you can’t campaign for Asiwaju without looking stupid. I have such comment and I love that comment a lot. You know why I love that comment that you can’t look stupid? Because only geniuses look stupid.
The Newtons of this world looked stupid. The Alexander Bell looked stupid when he talked about inventing the telephone. When the Wright brothers said they needed to invent something that will fly on the air, they said they were sick. Then, these ideas were unthinkable to many. Is only geniuses that appear so stupid to ordinary people. So we are proud to look stupid. To campaign for a genius who appears stupid to everybody now.
Over the years before Asiwaju came, there was a Bar Beach in Lagos that became a living hell to every one living on Victoria Island every raining season. Before Asiwaju, government upon government bring down all kinds of stones and materials to stop the waters from taking over the area. But Asiwaju came and said I want to build a city on this water.
But he sounded stupid to everyone. That is the ingenuity of Asiwaju. He did not only contained the water, he turned it to the best city in Lagos and that is the Eko Atlantic City we have today. I am very proud to be associated with that kind of ‘stupid man’ as they described him. I am very proud.
Tinubu was the one who started the independent power project. When we are saying Atiku is not hundred miles near Asiwaju, you first of all think this it is a stupid statement that Keyamo is making. But on a second thought, this is true because Atiku has not been a position to make critical decisions. He has not! He was only given power to go and implement decisions already taken by his boss. And even that small task they gave to him, turned out to be a disaster. I am not trying to run him down. ASCON was sold at the most ridiculous price ever.
I am sorry, this is an issue based campaign, I am not using abusive words, I am addressing issues and I said Atiku cannot come close to Asiwaju. Asiwaju met one of the most chaotic traffic situation in Lagos State. And he approached Osinbajo to look at the law if heAsiwaju could have done the best universities around Lagos with the means and capacity, he refused to take private license to go and do an elite university just to make profit for himself.
Instead he expanded Lagos university to three. Lagos today has three public universities. Rather than taking advantage of that to go and establish one private university, he refused to, he rather expanded the existing Polytechnics in Lagos and upgraded existing technical college to degree awarding institute. And you said he is the most difficult candidate to market? Tinubu’s situation reminds me of the case of a blacksmith who toiled to train his child to the university. And the day the son graduated, he turns back and says, Daddy why is your hands so black and rough? I would rather have a father that has no rough hands. I am ashamed. I want a father with smooth hands. That’s the case. Asiwaju has used his time, energy and health to serve his people and the country. If anyone is saying Asiwaju is old, it’s one of the diservices we can do to him. Because of the man today, we don’t have one party state in the count That is the man that changed the equation of the political calculation of the entire country today. By today, it would have been a one party system, only the PDP.
I was privileged to travel with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during his presidential primary campaign tours across the country. The complaints by party members about the reward system in the APC dominated the conversations. With Asiwaju likely to emerge victorious come 2023, how would you address this anomaly.
The question is a very tricky question and is a two edge question; it has its positive sides on that edge and it has its negative side on that same edge. Let me tell you why it’s a two edge sword. As governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju went to search for a high competent technocrat to run his budget office. That is where the brain box in, budget and planning. They separated it from finance. Asiwaju had all the Lagosians who toyed for him, who voted for him to be governor, but he made up his mind that for the benefits of all of these people, let me develop Lagos very well so that they can eventually benefit more than giving them handouts.
He now went to Anambra State and picked an Igbo man, Akabueze and brought him to the budget office. He went to Ogun State and brought Wale Edun, same thing as Osinbajo and said to him, come and run my justice system because Osinbajo is one of the best brains we have in this country. Osinbajo turned Lagos judiciary to a model in the world and the whole of Africa. Even the federal government began to learn from Lagos. He brought in a lot of women and women began to run the Lagos judiciary because he believed that they were more committed to their jobs and have less responsibility to steal.
He reformed the civil procedure rules of Lagos judiciary and other people copied the procedure system in Lagos. He brought in the arbitration system in Lagos. That’s only one sector. In the finance sector, that was the beginning of the famous revolution you see today in Lagos and Lagos today has become the third largest economy in Africa.
Now coming back to your question, you can see that in a way, what part of that question is negative is in the sense that a critical sector of your administration, you don’t use it to compensate. Except you find someone within the party system, who is intelligent, you can compensate him with that role. You don’t just compensate people because they work for you and then you run down your government because it requires a technical knowledge in that area.
The other edge of the sword. The ability for leader to transmute from that local click he belongs and become a leader for all, is very difficult thing to do because you have that you click drawing you back to say you must compensate them because it’s time to chop. Was Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala part of PDP? No! They went to the World Bank to beg her. You can see in that situation, other stakeholders from the state she represented as a minister, would revolted, “who is this woman? Where was she when we were suffering for this party? But can you do what she is doing?.
The is only way you can balance it. You first of all look within yourselves and within the party circle, do we have competent people, if you do, there is no point going out look for someone else. On the other hand though, what party members are complaining about are genuine. I support them. I only support them to the extent that it’s not come and chop. I only support them to extent that there are competent hands within the party that can run certain MDAs.
You can give it to them and compensate them with it. could create a traffic agency in Lagos and that was how LASMA came to be. Edo has adopted it. Lagos State leads, everyone follows. I am proud to be associated with that kind of person. He did a special lane for molue buses that were causing trouble everywhere. Who did all that? The team he gathered, the Osinbajo and co. This is just a tip of the iceberg. Atiku should bring his record. Other than marrying plenty wives and go to Dubai and posing as former vice president. I am not being sarcastic but that’s the truth. Even the private sector they are talking about, drag them there.
They started TV stations together. GOTEL started a year before Asiwaju’s TVC. GOTEL today, is almost wiped out of existence. Poor content, bad management, owing salaries up to 18 months. GOTEL is in crisis in Adamawa, while Asiwaju’s TVC has become an international brand. That is private business. The Nation Newspaper started as a joke but it pushed itself up. Despite the fact that it was a title before but it pushed itself up and established itself in the market. Other governors found their newspapers at the same time, where are all those titles today?
