An activist an public commentator, Comrade Razaq Olokoba, has described the call from the Lagos Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu should resign because of the way he handled the recent #EndSARS protest as playing petty politics with a serious national issue.
Olokoba, who is the National Convener of the Campaign for Dignity in Governance (CDG), in an interview in Lagos said, the governor deserves commendation for a job well done; admonishing the PDP to desist from needless petty politics at a time all hands should be on deck to salvage the country.
Can you comment on the recent call of the Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that Governor Sanwo-Olu should resign over the #EndSARS matter?
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have turned themselves to stage comedians and court jesters. Their manner of introducing comic interlude to serious arts of governance has turned them into a laughing stock and the whole world has been laughing at them. Funnily however, they are the only people taking themselves seriously.
It is interesting to note that these people have not realised till now that the pattern the 2015 election went was a verdict on them that their party has been rejected and told in clear term that it should not rear its ugly head on the Nigeria’s political landscape for ever! And Lagos electorate have applauded that verdict and working towards its implementation. The more reason the PDP has not won the state and will never win the state. And the way the PDP presidential candidate was sent packing throughout the country was a clear indication that the party can never be an alternative to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Are you saying this as a member of the APC?
No. We are saying this as a neutral body which has carried out an assessment of the situation on ground in Nigeria on both parties. So, we have arrived at a conclusion that, though APC is also battling with its own challenges particularly in Lagos, it is not however a party that can get a replacement for now. And if anything at all, it is not the PDP that could be weighing itself as an option or replacement to APC.
So, the call for Sanwo-Olu’s resignation, I know, is not acceptable to the people. The call, to say the least, is a comedy. And I advise the PDP to stop making such funny calls because this is not even the time for such needless calls. It in needless because this time, the country has been thrown into an unexpected turmoil out of which we are struggling to wriggle out and face nation rebuilding. And what we can only hear from the PDP is a call for a governor’s resignation! The call has clearly shown the real picture of the PDP as an irresponsive party.
When they were in control at the centre, we had several occasions of trauma which called for sober reflections. But during such periods, PDP would organize rallies where its members and top government functionaries would sing and dance not minding what has happened to the nation. It is in the same vein that when all well-meaning people are thinking about how all hands should be on deck to rebuild the nation after a turmoil that PDP is thinking about electoral exercise! So, people should be wary of such a political party and the characters therein.
The incident of COVID-19 and #EndSARS radicalism that turned to rascality gave an impression of who Sanwo-Olu is. We got the best out of him and it showed that he has a sophisticated mind for a sophisticated state like Lagos. So, I will encourage Lagos people to still remain committed to Sanwo-Olu’s way of governance to encourage him to remain focused as usual with the sole aim of moving the state more forward.
Any governor that was not competent like Sanwo-Olu to rule a Mega State like Lagos would have got himself exposed during the Coronavirus pandemic. He managed to get through. And that gave the United Nation and the World Health Organization (WHO), the yard stick to commend him for doing a marvellous job for the state and thus gave the whole country the opportunity to manage the pandemic very well. Against this backdrop, we should remain very committed and supportive of his administration.
We are enjoying the state government and we should support and cooperate with it now that it has set up an endowment fund where people of the like minds, who are also willing to take part in the repairs to have a platform to make their contributions. We should also be guided with our experience with the #EndSARS problem so we should not be dragged into such a situation in future.
What did you observe in the issue of security as thrown up by the protest?
Thank you very much. We observe the need for a decentralised police structure. Against this backdrop, we would enjoin Governor Sanwo-Olu to further analyse the gains in various layers of security to Mr. President and the people who may seemingly be having fears for State Police that imposition of the military structure on the police would not work. The military has a strait jacket command structure. And in policing a nation, such a structure cannot work.
So, Governor Sanwo-Olu and his other colleagues should endeavour to explain to the President, otherwise, the people would be holding them responsible for what they know nothing about. For instance, SARS being protested against was never under their control. But state governors are being held responsible for its activities. And that is the kind of outlook we are expecting from every Nigerian now like asking ourselves, what can we do now? What advice can we give them and what contributions can we make to return the country to normalcy? And not the time to start playing petty politics that can further aggravate the problem that can put the people under needless trauma!
We are now further convinced beyond reason doubt that Sanwo-Olu’s superlative performance that earned him international accolades during the COVID-19 pandemic was not accidental or coincidental. If his performance then was a fluke, he would have been found wanting during the #EndSARS protest. But, he rose to the occasion and handled the situation with maturity of an administrator with a sound mind.
Yes, people said the younger generation led the protest, but his approach as a governor could be likened to that of a father to his son who is angrily demanding for his right. He walked with them and even took their letter of grievances to the seat of power in Abuja. Unfortunately however, the event, in a supersonic manner took a dangerous turn and the carnage happened. And up till today, it is language of peace the governor is speaking.
Anybody that does not understand the peculiar situation the governor finds himself today, such a person is not likely to have taken a critical look at the situation on ground with analytical mind! Or that such a person is mischievous. Or that such a person does not use the correct yard stick to measure the peculiar situation the governor finds himself. Such a person can be forgiven. But those who are deliberately mischievous, well we should remind them that we do not have any other nation than Nigeria! And it would be unfair and unjust to continue in that mischievous line.
The protest gave the nation what a real war situation could be, ….
(Cuts in), Yes. We have learnt a lesson about what a war looks like with the #EndSARS saga. It is a situation where there would be no water, no electricity and where all the basic needs of life would be absent and truncated. So, the war mongers should magnify in their mind, the #EndSARS episode to have the picture of what the real war would look like.
So, war mongers should be careful. It is the duty of every Nigerian to start to document the activities of those who want the country to be at war at all times. They should be documented because the story of this country would be told one day. And the roles of everybody would be read by our children. We must be cautious of the role everybody is playing now. People who are striving to prevent the country from falling into the precipice, history would also be there to judge them. So, we need to know that a continent as big as Africa needs a bigger brother like Nigeria to pilot it just like in Europe where France, Germany, Britain are the captains of that continent. And you see the size and capacity of what they can do. Such posture fits Nigeria too.
So, if you are wishing Nigeria bad, you are not wishing only the 250 million Nigerians bad, rather, you are wishing the whole of Africa bad because the prosperity of Africa is tied to Nigeria economically. So, we must at all times have capacity to look at the larger picture in anything we do. And, the #EndSARS protest, if we document it very well, it is a huge loss.
It is however worthy of mention that, Governor Sanwo-Olu, in our last quarter Integrity Test conducted that lasted till October, scored an excellent mark. As we have been saying, he should be encouraged to keep on doing what he has been doing that moves the state forward. And we want him to advise the Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum (NGF) to reach out to the President to think of another layer of security structure and tell him the one way police structure cannot solve the security problem of Nigeria.
Were you confortable with how the protest was organised?
When the poor people took over the process they never started, I laughed. When General Sani Abacha died, some people were laughing and we cautioned them Abacha was not killed by poor people. We said benefits of his death would not come to the poor people. The government that emerged after Abacha was not friendly to the poor people! So, the younger people should not be under any illusion that the recent agitation was managed by them. No, there were hidden forces that disrupted certain things. Anybody that said that the leader should hide under the bed and should not be known, for strategic and tactical move, is an enemy of that process. And it has come to play. How can someone tell us that out of about 120 million Nigerian youths, we cannot have a single one we trust that can lead the process, is a big dent on the entire process!
What then would that portend for the youth towards 2023?
Ah! If you want to enter 2023 in context and character, with this pattern, the youth should not be excited that, we are going to have the leadership of this country, I say so because that is not how to take over. The way to take over is to be ready to lead. And you cannot be leading through an invisible means. You can’t be leading by James Bond style. If you must lead, you must be seen to be leading. The method adopted has never been adopted anywhere in the world. And that was why it was easy for the youth to transform from radicalism to rascality because there was no guide! As much as Muslims may not like each other, they would not say there would not be an Imam in the mosque. As much as Christians may hate one another, they would not say there wouldn’t be a Pastor in the church. There must be that outstanding personality that the Muslims would say he can be their Imam. Same thing goes for the Christians.
The protesters gave way for mob to take over. It means that, if they gather to take over in 2023, that is how the mob would take over from them! They are going to produce a President that would be controlled by the mob! I don’t know anywhere in the world where the President is produced by the mob and the mob would not take over the government. Mob takes over organizations, mob takes over protests and that was what happened to the #EndSARS protest. It has been taken over by mob and there is no strong hope to take over Nigeria except they change their pattern. Protest all over the world has a universal character. There must be a leader. You must constantly review your stance to the extent that you must be able to determine if the demands are met. If they are met, what do you do next? If they are not, what do you do? If they are met by half, what do you do next?! All those things are missing.
I argue with some people who said there was a leader and I ask them, how do we have a President that we would not know?! What kind of government we would be running? Or are we going to run a Banana Republic? So, it was a Banana protest they have just run. If we continue in that pattern, it is Banana Political Party we are going to have.
By and large, it is our tomorrow we are talking about here and we must take control of whatever we are doing properly from now.
What would now be your advice to the PDP that called for Sanwo-Olu’s resignation?
First and foremost, it is an acceptable moral ground for people to say, do as I do and not do as I say. This is a party on which the Nigerian people have passed a rejection verdict that they must not smell power again. And Lagos has been there since 1999. Challenges come, challenges go, and the city is still standing. So, we cannot leave the known for the unknown. We cannot say that on the basis of the PDP incitement, we should judge the APC government on the current issue on ground and thus abandon certainty for uncertainty.
The National Secretariat, which is the highest institution of the PDP in Abuja has been deserted and in disarray as I am talking to you now. Is that the kind of party which advice is to be heeded? And in Lagos, the #End SARS protest is what the PDP wants to use as the ladder to climb to relevance and limelight again but it is too late. The people would not allow it.
We remember clearly what we went through during the 16 years of the PDP misrule in this country. We would not forget and it would always guide us in any political decision we would like to take.
So, we should rally round Sanwo-Olu, support him, cooperate with his government and encourage him to keep on moving the state forward to the world acceptable standard.
