Hon. Moshood Adegoke Salvador is Lagos state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a former House of Representatives member on the platform of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD). In this interview with TOPE MUSOWO, Salvador explains how governors Ayodele Fayose and Nyesom Wike are fueling the lingering crisis in the party, and sundry national issues. Excerpts;
Sir, you recently accused governors Wike of Rivers state and Fayose of fuelling the present crisis in your party, what do you really mean?
Fayose and Wike were the people that brought Ali Modu Sherrif to our party based on inordinate ambition of theirs.Sheriff promised them if they can make him the chairman of the party, he shall turn himself to president, I dont know how they think, because they don’t have brain, they are not experienced that is why they thought Sherif that comes from minority ethnic group in the North can become president in this country and those that are from the minute minority, they want to become vice president, because of that they disorganised the whole system of the party.
Fayose is now regretting bringing him in into the party. What power has Fayose to have brought him in the first place, what experience has he in politics, is it because he is a governor? They relegated everybody that has the experience of managing a political party to the background because they are governors, and somebody was telling me they are the ones funding the party, they are financing PDP and I repeat they are not funding the party
The issue of funding might just be the reason they brought in Sherif who we heard was able to pay salary arrears of PDP staff, pay the outstanding rent of Wadata Plaza and other debts of the party while he started out building the party before they got threatened with his rising popularity in the party and change the goal post in the midst of the game.
If in a political party you can be that greedy and you can be looking at somebody’s pocket before you appoint your leader then you have succeeded in selling the party to him, after selling the party to him you cannot eat your cake and have it.
If the way Sherif has been moving up and down to bring people back to the party is what threatens them then they are thinking about themselves alone not the party, because what the party wants is actually more members, mobilisation of people into the party, so if somebody is working at that why should you feel threatened, that is what I am talking about. These are no leaders as far as I am concerned. I dont even subscribe to the idea of you looking for someone to bring his own money to come and finance the party because he who pays the piper dictates the tune Look at the P.H convention, they were blabbing they funded the convention ,EFCC should go and arrest them and question them how much they put into the convention.
How about the cost of the logistics for the convention, who was responsible for that?
I expect people like you to think effectively not as a stooge of governors, what logistic cost is more than the cost of accommodating 4500 people which they did not do, that is where money is needed, we are talking of a convention where we were to transport about 4500 delegate from different parts of the country to PH and how to accommodate them. That is where the huge amount of money is needed.
You are talking of security not paying tax, do we need to pay 10k for the police to come and do their work, and are we supposed to pay for the use of the stadium a public property in Port- Harcourt?
But sir the convention did not hold eventually (cuts in)
With all these expenses I am telling you, you are still saying the convention did not hold. Are we here for the convention not to hold? We were all in Port-Harcourt to hold our convention, if one thing or the other came up and we couldn’t hold it as scheduled, does that change the fact that we paid transportation to PH from different parts of the country, does that change the fact that we paid for accommodation.
Sir ,I’m here for you to educate me since I wasn’t part of the convention committee
I am not a teacher. Why are you talking as if you are defending the governors. We are saying they should stop saying they fundede the convention (shouting at top of his voice) we deedp our hands into our pockets and paid for ourselves you are now saying convention did not hold ,is it the convention day they are supposed to put money down for the convention or before the convention. The truth is they did not fund convention(still shouting).
We also heard about the controversy that trailed the issue of delegates ,can should tell me about this sir?
All the states were short changed about the number of delegates including Lagos state,only Ekiti and Ondo got there full numbers of delegate because they have sitting governor,Oyo came with only 3 delegates ,Osun had only 5,Lagos went with 61 when Ekiti went with 80 something and Ondo 82 or so ,they will say they are the governors, they can’t even manage human resources, what I expect of them is to remain as leaders as they are regarded, they should stand on the part of truth and honesty but this is not the case with them.
So unfortunate these governors have no regard for anybody including the leadership of the party,they disrespect everybody,they can call a meeting for 10 ‘o clock they will not show up until 1 pm,all of you sit down waiting for them and when they come they don’t even owe you any apology,it happened in Akure.
We sat down for more than three hours before the likes of Fayose and Mimiko came in, chief Adeojo was there ,chief Ebenezer Babatope other leaders were there, chief Bode George ,we were all there sitting down waiting for them, if those elderly people did not talk who am I in their reckoning but this is rubbish, they should stop it.
Talking about zoning of the party national chairmanship to the south west, we heard that you people are trying to micro zone the position to the Lagos and Ogun state to favour chief Bode George, is that correct?
I was even the one that suggested it should be zoned to Lagos and Ogun, and my reason is that, we always pair states when we are sharing things in the south west,we usually pair Osun and Oyo together, Lagos always go with Ogun, while we usually pair Ondo and Ekiti together. Ondo and Ekiti already have governors ,therefore they are powerful enough, they are comfortable, so the chairmanship should be between Oyo, Osun, Lagos and Ogun, in the last dispensation, the biggest position that came to the South West ,the secretary of the party went to Osun,therefore Osun and Oyo should leave it for Lagos and Ogun, that was how we arrived at zoning it to Lagos and Ogun.
Some of your party men have said chief Bode George is old enough to leave the political scene for young actors to come in given the number of years he had been holding sway in Nigeria polity.
I agree with them in a way but in a situation like this we need someone who has the experience, because it is inexperience that makes Fayose and Wike bring in Wike to be causing problem in the party, because if we continue like this the future of the party is not certain, so in a serious and difficult situation like this we need someone who has the experience.
One of the honourable members in the Lagos State house of Assembly told me after coming back from Port-Harcourt that if the convention had held chief Bode George would have cried back home because he won’t get any vote.
On the state party chairmanship we heard that Segun Adewale is still in contention with you on the position?
Well he is claiming Sheriff gave him a letter as the state chairman, I didn’t have any contention with anybody, I was not given letter by anybody, I was elected, we had a congress at the party secretariat ,Segun Adewale did not even come for the congress, if you see the list of delegates we sent to Abuja as our national delegate to Port-Harcourt convention ,his name was here so I am not in any contention with him.
How best do you think the leadership crisis in your party at the national level can be resolved?
Look I have been disappointed in all of them, both Makarfi and Sheriff ,what I know is that PDP you call baba Kola Balogun,Segun Adewale or Chief Bode George,we are one and that is my concern, my is to put Lagos PDP in order without allowing any intruder from the outside to come and scatter our house for us. We shared the delegate list between the two groups in 60/ 40 basis.
When you say the two groups do you mean Bode George and Obanikoro factions of Lagos PDP?
Where is Obanikoro? I mean chief Kola Balogun group because Segun Adewale said that is the group he belongs so we had a successful harmonisation and I can assure you we shall continue to do it that way for the sake of peace.
What do you make of PMB proposed bill on emergency power concerning the economy
What extra power does he need apart from the one he already has. The constitution has already arrogated so much powers to him, it’s all rubbish, I can tell you same people just sat down somewhere and packaged what will benefit them and gave it to Mr President because they know he doesn’t know much. What emergency power is he looking for what does he want to use it for.
What do you make of the present economic policy of the Buhari administration?
What do I make of an economic policy that is not working, when our Foreign Reserves is going down everyday, our GDP is nothing again, the dollar is rising against the naira everyday, the British Pounds used to be 250 naira under the last administration its now 520,what are we talking about, rate of unemployment is increasing everyday.
