My problems with ex-gov Adeleke —Bello, Omisore’s running mate

My problems with ex-gov Adeleke —Bello, Omisore’s running mate

Deputy governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the August 9 election in Osun State, Mr Adejare Bello, speaks with MOSES ALAO on his party’s chances at the poll, his relationship with his erstwhile political leader, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), among other things. Excerpts:

In the past one month, the PDP has moved from one local government to another, campaigning in even the innermost parts of the state. Are you doing this out of fear that your party might have difficulty winning the election?
I am happy that you said you have seen us go to the hinterlands. Journalists have followed us all this while as we ensure that we touch the nooks and crannies of Osun State. I have been in politics for 20 years. The kinds of campaigns, rallies and attempts to woo the people of Osun State to support the PDP, which we are currently doing, I have never done a quarter of them before. It is not because I have never contested an office that is as high as deputy governor, because I have joined a number of gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. But in this case, Senator Iyiola Omisore directed that the party must organise a campaign that will give us the opportunity to know the yearnings and aspirations of the people of the state. When the itinerary was rolled out by the party, Senator Omisore took it upon himself to go through it and added that we must go to each of the 332 wards. The reason is that we need to see for ourselves. If we want to plan for the people and we don’t know what their problems are, it will be difficult. If we don’t get ourselves intimated with the wishes and aspirations of Osun people, our planning will be as ineffective as that of Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s government, which is filled with people from Lagos, who do not know what our people want. 

Let me give you an example. At Ife North Local Government, from Akinlalu, we entered the road to Famia-Oyere-Aborisade at 7.00 p.m. and came out at 1.05 a.m. We spent over six hours in the bush. It registered in our minds that unless one is a devil incarnate, one must plan for the people in that place. We were in the bush for more than six hours where there is no electricity, potable water, good roads or even telecommunication network. For those of us that fasted on that day, we wanted to break the fast but there was no water to drink. And people there are human beings like us. Some of us broke down after that day and it took the grace of God for us to rise. 

The earliest time we got to the state capital every day is 12 midnight. That demonstrates that we are not only going from ward to ward, we are even going to polling units. For instance, in Ila-Orangun, Ajaba ward has about six units; there are two units at Ejigbo-Orangun, another two units at Edemosi and because of those four units, we were outside Ajaba for more than four hours. That is the kind of campaign we are doing and we mean business. We will not stop and we will not break down until we get our victory. As it was rumoured that Omisore broke down and was flown abroad, I am happy you saw him at Boluwaduro, Osogbo and Olorunda local governments last Tuesday and Wednesday. That is for you to know that we mean business and that we are already on ground in Osun State. I was in the House of Assembly for 12 years, out of which I was Speaker for eight years. I have left government three years and eight months now but I have not stayed out of Osun State for 50 days altogether either out of Nigeria or in Abuja. That is to tell you that the PDP is peopled by politicians who are on ground, who know where the shoes pinch the people and are ready to address those areas.

But the APC recently accused Omisore of lying to the people of the state, especially the rural people, about your party’s plans for them...There is a saying in Yoruba that ‘eekan ni atannido ntan ni mo,’ meaning you can only deceive a woman to sleep with her once. If we tell Osun people that we will do this and that and we say the grassroots people will receive attention in our government and at the end of four years, we fail to do them, our party will have to face the people again. We are not the kinds of people that will make promises to people and let them down, and we are saying boldly that our words are binding. Under former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, for seven and a half years, there was no strike by the labour for one day, because if the executive could not solve their problems, they would come to the House of Assembly and I know what I did back then and we will do the same thing now. Currently, what is bringing the workers in collision with the government is the issue of contributory pension; 7.5 per cent is deducted from their salaries and the government is supposed to add another 7.5 per cent to make it 15 per cent. But the government did not give its 7.5 per cent, neither can the 7.5 per cent it deducted from the workers’ salary be traced. The money has been stolen and that is the crux of the matter. That is why the tertiary institutions have gone on strike for five months. We will address all of this and we will handle matters the way we did under Oyinlola that there was no strike. We promise the labour and ours are not empty promises. We will do all we have promised the people.

You sound confident as if you are sure of victory at the election. I thank you for noticing the confidence that radiates in me. If you do your job well, you will not envisage any problem. If I campaign to units and wards, what else do I have to be afraid of? If our obas and chiefs and townspeople could be waiting for us up to 1.00 a.m. every day and they would have begun to expect us from 10.00 a.m. - some of them that were fasting would not even break their fast, and not because we were giving them money as the APC has been doing, but because of their love for Omisore, then I should have confidence. I am waiting for the 27th of November, 2014 to hold my Qur’an while Omisore holds the Bible to be sworn in as deputy governor and governor, respectively. Governor Aregbesola has not satisfied Osun people with his best that he has done. He has to leave.

But given the position of former Governor Isiaka Adeleke that everything you achieved in politics was through him, how convinced are you that Ede people will go with you instead of Adeleke whom they have always trusted but is now in the APC?If you go to Adeleke and he wants to be fair to me, he will tell you that I am the first among the people he has used to attain the fame he has politically, dating back to when he was in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and I was in the National Republican Convention (NRC) as its Public Relations Officer in the state. Back then, when he wanted to be governor, I supported him despite being in the NRC. He will tell you that I am the rallying point of whatever glory he has got from Ede people. Let me give you an example. Why did he make me the Director-General of his campaign organisation when I had not even joined him? I was in the Omisore caucus then. But when he called me and said that was what he wanted, I called Omisore and said he should allow me to work for my townspeople. I make bold to say that I am the one responsible for everything Adeleke has achieved in the last 15 years politically.

But he painted a different picture in a recent interview...He is my oga. When you make use of people under you and they work well, you can go to sleep as an oga. In one of the interviews he granted, he said people came to wake him up at 1.00 p.m; that I was losing one of the elections that took me to the House of Assembly; why would he sleep if not that he believed that with Adejare Bello and his people on ground, there was no problem for him? That could only be the reason a leader would be sleeping by 1.00 p.m., because that is barely three hours to the end of the election. That is for you to know that if it is about Adejare Bello, you can go and rest, because I am always dedicated to my cause and I don’t betray people. So, if Adeleke said that it was because of him that I had political fame, I will say yes, but it is a give-and-take thing. Adeleke assisted me a lot but I assisted him more than he assisted me. Think about it, how is it possible for a single person to win election four times consecutively into the same House of Assembly? 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2007. I read one of his interviews where he said he was imposing me on the people. That is a blatant lie. The people we contested in the primaries together such as Adisa Tajudeen, Ajagbe of the House of Representatives, Kamo Olagoke and others are alive. The only time that was done was in 2007 when Adeleke wanted to change me because he said I was becoming too powerful for him and he went to Oyinlola to say that Ede people were tired of me. But Oyinlola told him that ‘it was not because Ede was qualified to be speaker that it was given the slot but because of Bello, if you don’t want Bello, we will take it to another local government.’ And that was why Adeleke dropped everything on his agenda. I thank God that everything I have done politically, I have not soiled my reputation. If you ask me anything, I refer people to the records in the House of Assembly; that I am in the public court. Go and check my records, as the Minority Leader for four years and Speaker for eight years.