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Nigeria: Agagu - Labour Party's the Underdog in Ondo

Ademola Adeyemo

3 December 2008

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Lagos — Ondo State Governor Segun Agagu came out of his shell last week to speak with some journalists in Lagos. The interview came as judgement in his appeal against the declaration of the Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, as the winner of the April 14, 2007 election in the state, is being awaited. Ademola Adeyemo was part of the interview session. Below are excerpts

The confounding thing about the Ondo State situation is that both you and the leadership of the Labour Party (LP), which is in opposition in the state, are from the same tendency so to say. So, how did you get to this pass?

The core of the leadership of the Labour Party in Ondo State today is made up of members of my own party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP). Dr. Olusegun Mimiko was my Secretary to the State Government (SSG); Alhaji Ali Olanusi, his running mate, was the state chairman of PDP and notable leaders of PDP like Boluwaji, who was the secretary of the party, are now in LP. We also had Omoguwa and you can go down the line. Only a few people from the Action Congress, AC, and the Alliance for Democracy, AD, joined them later.

Where did we split? There have been complaints since I got on board in 2003 from a few leadership level people in the party - Otunba Oyewole Fasawe and co - as to how I was running the government; that I was too strict instead of making people 'happy' and all that. But I have always insisted on probity. That is what I believe in and that is what I practise and I always tell them when they complain that if you want to benefit from government, you can benefit from the government. But if you want a contract, the price must be right and it must follow some process of fairness. Before we came, a Sharp photocopier used to be bought by government for N480, 000. But we shopped around and found out that if we gave the contract out for N280, 000 people would still make profit and for the price of one I can buy two and use the rest of the money to tar roads or build schools. So we cut down prices. Some people didn't like that. And I will give you an example, Igbokoda-Ayetoro road, which is a monumental road project linking up Ilaje people for the first time in their history was awarded before we came.

So it wasn't started by me. The 24-kilometre road contract was awarded for N17.6 billion. In that terrain, construction is usually very expensive and mobilisation was paid to the contractor. He went there with some hired equipment for a few weeks and he abandoned site. When we came on board, I called him and begged him that this road is very important for my people. I told him to go and do it and we would pay you. After six months of begging and the man did not agree, we cancelled the contract. The original contract was awarded in February 2002, we cancelled it in December 2003 and took it through our own procurement process and re-awarded the contract in November 2004; that was two years and nine months after the original contract. But the price fell from N17.6billion to N10.5billion.

Are these figures correct; because two years after, the cost should have gone up?

It is deflation not inflation. And we awarded the contract to a reputable contractor, Setraco. They have done over 90 per cent of work on that road. Of course, some people will not be happy about that because that is about N7billion to play with which could be spread among the boys. But that N7billion would do many other roads for the good of the people. That is an example. We've had the problem but I keep explaining that we've come here to work for posterity. I thought that they would understand me but apparently they were boiling deep inside until it was time for election in 2007 and they moved out of PDP because Dr. Mimiko who was my SSG who had sung my praise to high heavens wanted to contest. In fact, he had described me as the best thing to have happened to Nigerian politics and that if there were three governors like me Nigeria would be like Europe within 10 years. Mimiko left; we didn't worry too much because we were sure that the problem we had with them was not about performance. We didn't have an issue with them on performance, it was on probity and we were not prepared to negotiate that and I said let them go. If they are the people Ondo State voters want let them be there and I would carry my bag and go. I lost election in 1999 and carried my bag and went back. Then in 2003, to God be the glory, I won again and they left.

So, how did the matter become one of disputation?

We started having problems in Ondo State as soon as the Labour Party was formed - violence and all of the intrigues. They went on campaign train with guns. They even alleged that my deputy carried away ballot boxes and he said nothing like happened, that he was at home when he heard the news on television. If it is true that the deputy governor carried ballot boxes, policemen ought to have seen him and somebody would have taken the photograph. It is falsehood that has taken place and perpetrated by Labour Party. A day after the governorship election, Labour Party hired several buses that brought people to the front of INEC office in Akure, chanting that they had won whereas 50 per cent of the result of the election had not been returned. What they did was illegal. You are not supposed to go to INEC office only your agent should be there and the police. This was the situation and they went to the newspapers that they had won and that the results changed. The Oba of Ondo left his kingdom, he called the Deji of Akure and they went to the place when all this demonstration was going on and INEC officials showed them that not all the results had come but based on what is here this is what is happening. The Osemawe of Ondo returned to his palace while the Deji of Akure came to the Governor's Lodge to congratulate me that based on what we have seen it is clear that you are the winner. So we won the election. We are the one that ought to have complained about violence, about disruption of election. A night before the election, two lorry loads of thugs from Lagos were on their way to disrupt the election - they were arrested by the police and soldiers at the entrance into Irele town. They were led by a Labour Party leader. To God be the glory, two days after the election we were declared the winner. We couldn't go and be complaining again that yes I've won the election but I want to write petition that some of my votes were stolen. Labour Party went to the tribunal, we said no problem. We hired lawyers to go and pursue the case while we were busy doing our job.

They said election didn't take place in some areas?

There was a claim that election didn't take place. If election didn't take place, you must have a witness who will say I went to the polling booth that day this is my voter's card they didn't allow me to vote. We didn't have one person to say so. They also claimed that they saw the name of Mike Tyson in the voters register, that they saw people who look like Kutigi and so on. Who are the people who sat down and identified those people? They didn't bring them to court. Even if they saw Tyson on the voters' register, who says that, that Tyson didn't vote for Labour Party, AC or AD? At any rate when the voters register was compiled all of us were still together in PDP. Mimiko was in PDP; his running mate was the state chairman of PDP. So if anybody put Tyson's name there it is they that must have put it.

But the forensic expert said?

Yes, they also came with Adrian Forty, a so called forensic expert that would detect whether there was multiple thumb-printing and many of my people were getting worried. When they got to the court there was one fellow who went to INEC and counted about 40000 ballot papers alone, he cropped the section where you have PDP and sent it electronically to England for somebody to look at the finger print and then the result was that many of the finger prints looked alike. He was the only person who scanned the ballot papers, he was the only person who sent it electronically to England and he was the only person who hired the person and he brought the result to court. Of course, when they presented it in court the court threw it away. The judges said it was all nonsense. And we thought that was the end of the matter until we saw the judgement.

But you have challenged the judgement?

For instance, we found out when we read the judgement that during the course of the case, Labour Party called their 29 witnesses and closed their case. Then PDP called 44 witnesses. Everywhere they called a witness, we called two. Just as we were going to close our case, they said they wanted ballot recount in the 10 local governments that we won out of 18. But because of what INEC said was violence they cancelled election in one local government - Ifedore local government. That is why we have 17 local governments left and we won 10 while Labour Party won seven. After some arguments we went for the recount and we found out that the ballot papers were in canvass bags because the governorship election took place on April 14, 2007 while the presidential election took place on April 21. But they used the same ballot boxes used on the 14th on the 21st. So they had packed all the ballot papers and lumped them together in different bags. When we opened the first bag and Labour Party said let us sort out the ballot papers into wards and units and we disagreed, saying the court's order was to count the ballot papers. They disagreed and the court ruled that we should just count bag to bag and we did that for 163 bags and everybody signed and the lawyers signed. After that we rested our case.

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