Asiwaju Kaoli Olusanya, was a former Commissioner for Agriculture, former Vice Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC) and one of its apex leaders in Ikorodu Division who has seen many political battles, lost many aspirations and also won some.
He was appointed as the chairman of the Chairmanship Aspirants’ Screening Committee. He spoke with THE IMPACT on the crisis which APC is battling in Igbogbo/Baiyeku LCDA in an attempt to pick a chairmanship candidate which has polarised the party.
In this interview with Kunle Adelabu, Publisher/Reporter – in – Chief, THE IMPACT during the week at his home in Owode – Ibeshe, Asipa Kaoli bore his mind on some of the factors that caused the crisis, impacts of leaders, the need to build a consensus and adherence to the agreement on the choice of the chairmanship candidate for the party. Excerpts:
THE IMPACT: There have been petitions, counter petitions and confrontation online in respect of the outcome of the screening by your committee and other contending issues in Igbogbo/Baiyeku LCDA, what can you say about all of these?
Asiwaju Kaoli: As a leader, my major concern is to manage conflicts and take note that lessons from the previous events should guide us.
I have the duty to ensure members of the party are all carried along in decision making and to make them committed to coming out to vote for the party. Going further, we would now mobilise the general electorate. So, if our goal is to increase and improve on our electoral efforts over the years, then we should know how to manage our crisis; our conflicts, so that it would not result in voters’ apathy or withdrawal. As a former Vice Chairman, I know that it has always been an issue at a time like this and whenever the crisis is not resolved before going into an election, what you see is voters’ apathy. You will see members of the party withdrawing or worse still, vote for another party. We have seen that a couple of times.
And, when such happens, after the elections, we usually do post – mortem; set up committees to find out what happened. I expect that lessons learnt in those periods will inform us on how to do better and to manage our crisis better. There will always be crises because there are interests and contending issues. There are many aspirants with each having their own supporters at the highest level. Therefore, it requires that we sit down together, look at the issues and try to talk to the aspirants and negotiate so that the result would now be an all – inclusive, where the interests of stakeholders are included in the basket. It can’t be the winner takes it all. It can’t be anyone gallivanting around saying I am the winner and you are the losers. We are in the same party, and if we are, you cannot say anybody is the winner and the other a loser and expect him to come and vote for you in the election. It’s not possible. It is not reasonable.
These are the problems that we have been having over time and I expect leaders to learn from that so that we do not start to paint an image of a super power or dominant authority and others seen as if they do not matter. If you tell them that they do not matter, they will tell you that they do. Even if you have your way, they will wait for you at the election. You cannot force them to come and vote for you.
The issue at Igbogbo specifically is as illustrated. Let me start from the directive at the Apex which is that we should go and talk with the aspirants. We were asked to share our experiences with them to see those that would see clearly that we have only just one position and they are all eminently qualified but as it is now, and considering one factor or the other, may be geographical spread, qualifications, former aspirations, or whatever, that some of them would see that their chances are slim for now. Of course, some people are in the race and boast that they are contenders when actually they just want to show their faces. Some others are there to negotiate for other positions, so for various reasons, they are all there. But in order to reduce the acrimony that would go into the primary elections which is why leaders should call aspirants together to talk to them because, it is not proper for leaders or elderly ones to see the younger ones that are struggling for positions and leave them on their own. If it goes on and on, they would cross each other’s paths and say things that might be injurious to one another. It is in order to reduce that type of bad blood in the party that such mechanisms were established. That was what we did.
Coming to Igbogbo/Baiyeku LCDA, a committee was set up and I was made the chairman. Unfortunately, before we got into the committee’s business, some unfortunate incidents happened that sent a wrong signal to the entire process and that is about the jumping the gun when Asiwaju Olorunfunmi Basorun conducted an in – house primary among the Justice Forum and caused a row among them. It was not acceptable to some people because they felt that some people were excluded because they did not have prior knowledge of it. But the leader went on maintaining his position which I don’t have any grouse about, but as a member of the Apex of Igbogbo, my expectations are that whatever happens…what is the purpose of Apex? Why are we holding meetings over the years as Apex? Even if it is a caucus that is supposed to produce a candidate, it should not be presented to the caucus but the Apex. It must be presented for deliberation and when you come to that, don’t expect 100% agreement with your position, there would be disagreement, particularly at this age with the generational gap that we have. There is a generational gap and there are differences in values and beliefs. This was the problem that we had and it showed in the last elections. The generation’s perspective and values are different and they must be included in the process of decision making. So that is one issue that erupted in Igbogbo/Baiyeku that has been causing some friction over time. I have conceded in my mind that Baba should take whatever he wants but it must be placed on the table and when we come there, people may disagree and have another view or the other, but he must try and convince us why he should be this person, that is it. Some people may want to disagree but for the fact that you say it openly in a meeting, we would be disarmed and agree that we should let Baba have his way. While it was happening, I contacted Baba to put his position on the table and carry everybody along, because his position is far beyond a caucus leadership but a national leader because of his experience over the years and positions he had held in government and party.
This is what has been trending over the time, unfortunately, some other leaders are not helpful. They are not trying to reconcile issues in their utterances. In the process, such leaders uttered some words that are personal that should not go into issues and once you say something that goes beyond respect for elders in the community, it goes into record. You have said it, you can’t say that you did not say it again. So also it is from the elders to the young ones. There are some bad seeds that you do not sow; you don’t injure people’s feelings to the extent that they would be unforgiving. So, theses are the crises that have been going on. But me being who I am, I have contested five times in my political life and per chance I did not win but still remained with my party without undermining it. Resolutely, I am a bonafide, committed and steadfast member of my party and I vote for my party all the time either my candidate wins or not, even my own aspirations, I lost but still go out to mobilise for votes and putting in all my efforts to make sure that my party wins. I have always said it is better to be a member of a successful ship than to be a captain in a wrecked ship. During aspiration, you show good efforts, sell your candidate, give a good fight, and you push and when you get to a level and see authorities that you respect and people that you know have integrity now call you, you concede and give it up. After all, the time you yourself win some people are unfortunate not to be taken. If you consider yourself in that position that many others were not successful the time you or your candidate won. It can’t be you all the time. You win some and lose some but life continues.
Back to Igbogbo/Bayeku, I can say that there has been some reasonable intervention at a very high level trying to mediate, negotiate and reconcile which of course, I go along with because at the end of the day, you have to if you have the love for our party and to increase our votes so that what happened in 2023 does not happen again.
In 2023, Mr President lost in Lagos and these are the types of factor all over the place that contributed to the failure. Thank God Ikorodu has never lost but we must not go in that direction that leads to failure. Any leader that is so recalcitrant, stubbornly arrogant, dominating and bragging all over the place could be an agent of failure. For us who always concede, it is because of the love for the party that my party must win. If a party registers 6 6million voters truly and at election we are getting 600, 000, is it because we have fake registered voters or an internal crisis which happens a lot.
Thank God as of today, things are settling down and temperature is cooling down. We thank those who mediate and broker the peace even though there are still some people who think that they would not even agree and whoever that does not agree is not a good member of the party. Whoever that does not agree to the negotiated settlement is not a good party member no matter the person because, it,’s give and take. It’s about consensus building and our ultimate goal is to increase the number of votes and our party must win and for that to be achieved, there must be a united effort to do that. So, that is my position in gbogbo and thank God there has been reasonable, very reasonable intervention. It could be painful to concede but you have to concede. You have to give and take and I hope that the agreement we have reached will be allowed to be implemented and acceptable to all. If we do that, all groups and caucuses would be happy because everyone would see himself in the agreement. That is the agreement that I am part of and of course, I hope it would fly.
THE IMPACT: If I get you right sir, you said that major stakeholders in Igbogbo/Baiyeku LCDA have agreed on a particular aspirant going forward in the next election?
Asiwaju Kaoli Olusanya: Yes.
THE IMPACT: Now that you have said that the stakeholders have agreed, what would now be your message to the followers…. (cuts in)…?
Asiwaju Kaoli: it is the tail that wags the dog and not the dog that wags the tail. Leaders are supposed to have better knowledge, experience, connections and information which is power. Knowledge and experience are what you have acquired and your facts and information that your followers may not have, so, if you are truly a shepherd keeping his sheep, you must keep their interests and their interests is that you must not be a loser; explain to them the information that you have as much as you can give because you may not be able to give all the information and convince them why they must go the way you want to go. That has been the practice all the time. When I was aspiring and I was to give up, I called my people and I told them even though some people disagreed with me. I told them that I am sorry, that’s the way I am going. But all the while, I have never felt that I am a loser in the party. I am still in this party, very relevant, connected and my views and name anywhere it is mentioned they know that that’s a bonafide and true party man. That’s the experience we share with the followers with the information that we have and why we have to take the decision that we took. It must go one way or the other. A leader must not allow their followers to go with poor information and without the knowledge and experience which can push them to make wrong decisions that can push everything into a ditch and if this happens, they would back out and go another way.
One thing that we enjoyed with Mr President when he was the governor was the debate over issues. There were many wars that we fought with the federal government and some local ones which are very hot issues and cabinet would debate over the night and we may not be able to take a decision and we would be asked to come back the next day We would go back home to sleep over it and come back the next day to resume the debate but you would give it to Mr President (Governor at that time) that he had visionary power because by the time that we navigated and came to a conclusion at the end of the day what he predicted and the decision that we made were always very beneficial to the people of Lagos State and the party. We have always owned it. Things we don’t see at that time, he has seen it and with those benefits of hindsight and the vision going forward, he was able to guide us and that is why we have never lost. That is what we should copy from him and bring to our own level here to reconcile people’s differences and make them united and inclusive and we will continue to increase our votes. By the time Mr President left office as governor of Lagos State, Fashola scored 1.5 million votes, since then, we have never gotten anything near that all, what is the problem? We should look at all that and try to improve. The number of population and registered voters are increasing but our winning votes are declining. We should learn lessons from that rather than going into the ditch.
THE IMPACT: Thank you sir.
Asiwaju Kaoli: You are welcome.
