Lagos — Akinrogun Tunde Odanye is a legal practitioner and former governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Osun State. In this interview with Omololu Ogunmade, Odanye explains the rationale behind his movement to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his perception of the Action Congress (AC) and how AD was killed

There has been this perception or perhaps a speculation that you have moved over to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Is it true?

Yes. I was reading in one newspaper that 'I understand that Akinrogun Tunde Odanye has secretly moved over to the PDP with the intention to realize his gubernatorial ambition in 2011.' I smiled and said there was nothing secret about it. This process took off a long time ago. There were issues that I had to resolve personally. There were issues I had to resolve with my group. There were issues I had to resolve with the party. I went to discuss with AD leaders on what I was going to do. And of course, there were issues I had to sort out with PDP itself.

Well, I think what has been the cause of confusion is that there has not been an elaborate rally, whereby I formally declare for PDP. That one will come. It is in progress. That one is in the hands of the PDP. They are the ones looking for a suitable date in the calendar where the governor and who is who in the party and possibly some friends, well wishers and associates in PDP from other states may want to come and give me moral support. There will be a formal declaration. We all know that there is a lot ongoing at the moment. There is the 2007 election petition in Osun State that has to go back for a retrial which wasn't in the vogue before. There is the financial meltdown which is of course, taking more out of the governor than it was anticipated. There is also the Niger Delta crisis that is taking its toll on the government and so many other things that are keeping the governor busy and by extension the party. But I can say it loud and clear that I am now a member of the PDP.

The Akinrogun Tunde Odanye that I knew was a man of integrity, a principled man, who would not have imagined joining the PDP. What prompted you into this action?

Thank you very much for these very kind of compliments. I actually do appreciate them. The truth is that if somebody had told me in 1999 that he saw a vision that in 2009, I would be in PDP, I would have told that person that he was seeing a fake or false vision. But the truth is that things have gone round full circle. They have changed significantly, so that life is dynamic and we all just find ourselves going round the circles. Life itself is a recycle and we find ourselves moving on. In 1998/99, I was a foundation member of AD. My name went to Abuja as one of those who wished to work for the party and when we lost in 2003, I was sure that if we waited for the next election, the electorate might have had the opportunity of deciding which was better of the two parties. But as it turned out, shortly after 2003, quite a few people in the AD crossed to another party, the PDP. Then the AD was being killed by fellow AD members from the inside with the intention of forming another party, which its own financier then was Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to pursue his own vice presidential ambition.

So, we had a situation where the only sitting governor we had was at logger head with the bulk of the party and at the end of the day, we had AC which moved out of AD. Despite all this, some of us still remained truthful and loyal to AD because I felt that I saw nothing wrong with AD. I like what it stood for. I liked its image, but I did not reckon with other people's ambitions. So, they made sure that AD was needless and so made it relevant and less and less viable. And you would agree with me that if you open the newspapers today, the impression you get is that the AC is the official opposition. But between you and I, you have a choice to make between AC and PDP, especially as regards the helmsman who is in charge of PDP in Osun State. I am talking of the incumbent governor and in fact, the chairman of the party and who is in charge of AC in Osun State, I am talking of their gubernatorial candidate. I am also talking of Bola Ahmed Tinubu that we all know owns the party.

I think the choice was easy. So, I had to either remain in AD, which I knew was in serious coma and might probably not survive the next election. It is not that I wish it dead, but the truth is that those of us who ran on the platform of AD in 2007, knew that we were more or less running like independent candidates. We had no party support. I mean we had no huge party structures to rely on. There was no financial assistance. We were financing the party. We were financing other candidates. In fact, we were financing other candidates. So, we were at a major disadvantage. So, coming to 2011 affairs, I had thought that I was retiring from politics. I had given up that I would continue to contribute to social issues like in philanthropy and what have you. But I discovered that the PDP especially led by Governor Oyinlola felt that I had something to contribute and would not just let me be; they would not let me retire. That was all. Some people convinced me to take the decision after consultations with different people including my supporters and people from my state and other people who were non-partisan observers.

It boiled down to you having two choices and if you move, it is between AD and PDP. And I felt that the difference was clear. PDP belongs to its members, while AC belongs to one person. So, I couldn't have been fighting one dictatorship, only for me to find myself in another dictatorship. So, here I am in PDP. But the good thing is that PDP that I met was actually full of a number of people that we were in AD together. So, I seem to be quite at home with the majority of them. Of course, that is not to say that it is perfect, but you see that it has regenerated itself by taking in new people with new ideas and it is trying to make the best use of it coupled with the fact that you have a gentle man at the helms of affairs in my state. I'm talking of my governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola. It will make PDP a more workable environment. So, it is a more conducive place to be.

Are you trying to say that your newly found associates are far better than those in AC?

No. That is a very trickish question. What I have found out is that among a good number of people in PDP today, you discover that there is a lot of hiding behind nomenclature. You have some people who say that in one party, they are progressives, the other ones are conservatives. But there are so many progressives that you cannot contest their identities in PDP in Osun State, just as you have a number of them who belong to the conservative group, but majority of the people in PDP in Osun State today, beginning from the governor, belong to the progressive camp and so practise progressive politics. Whereas, in AC, we have the remnant of those of us in AD who were progressives. But again, you would agree that AC, when they wanted to come up, invited quite a number of people disenchanted people with the PDP as it was then and most of these disenchanted in PDP who they brought aboard AC, were the most conservative persons in the country. You find in AC persons like Dalhatu, Ikimi, you name them.

So, I think that some people just try to give a name to a particular party that it does not deserve, specifically with the purpose of hanging it. I think if you look at the policies being carried out by PDP in Osun State, they are progressive policies - free education, free health, it's life more abundant all over again.

But there are allegations that the PDP-controlled Osun State sponsors the killings of many opposition members.

You know I said it is a question of trying to give the dog a bad name just to hang it. They talk of these killings, but you ask them, where are the bodies? Olajokun's killing was the only one that I think I am aware of and Olajokun, the day he was killed, the majority leader of Lagos State House of Assembly then, Jide Omoworare, who ran for the Senate of Osun East in 2007 was equally adopted by these people who turned out to be armed robbers. They drove Omoworare to as far as Iseyin, before they let him go in his shorts after stripping him off other wears. So, everything pointed to the fact that it was robbery. Many people were robbed at that particular scene. The car of the person who was killed was taken, so why will anybody who is not mischievous, claim that it was the governor who wanted him killed.

That itself is part of the issues I have with AC especially in Osun State as per the way they do their politics. It is all about lies and propaganda. They don't have any idea. They haven't said anything new, but they come up with far fetched stories that have no foundation, all with a view to vilifying and casting aspersion and giving the opponents a bad name. That is not my knowledge about the way politics should be played. Founding fathers of AD, have still rather remained in AD, or they go to PDP because we know that AC is not a reincarnation of AD. AC is only a contraption set up by somebody to fulfil his vice presidential ambition.

When you were in AD, the people who are in AC were the same people in AD and you were comfortable with them. But now, giving your submissions, these people that you can no longer associate with are still the same. How do you reconcile that?

You will recall that some people including my humble self never left AD in spite of the fact that AD had been badly decimated by AC. Had AC allowed us to build our AD, I am sure that most of us would still have remained where we were in AD.

You will remember that when Bola Tinubu and co. pulled out some members of AD to form AC in conjunction with some people from PDP that they pulled out, they refused to let the party be and those of us who did not want to follow them to AC. They refused to allow us to rebuild our party. What did they do? They left us as pigeons among fowls. They let Chief Michael Koleosho who we all know as an AC elder and leader, to continue to vie for the chairmanship of AD, which they were trying to sabotage.

We all know that between 2003 and the time they formed AC until 2007 election, there was no peace in AD because having gone with Chief Bisi Akande who was another contender for the AD chairmanship with Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa, they refused to let AD be. The reason Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA) came into existence, was because up till the eleventh hour, we did not know whether those of us who remained in AD, had a platform on which to run and that was the reason we set up DPA as a back-up.

Now tell me, how easy is it for you to remain with people who not only decimated your party, but now were out to smash it, destroy it, sabotage it?

Now at that time, a good number of our members who were deceived into AC, started pulling out when they saw that they were deceived because what they thought was not what they meant. People like Obafemi Adewale, who was Attorney General in the government of Adeniyi Adebayo of Ekiti State moved to PDP long before other 14 governorship aspirants decamped to PDP, when (Kayode) Fayemi was unilaterally imposed on them as the governorship candidate. The same thing happened in Osun State, where Niyi Owolade, who was a commissioner under Chief Bisi Akande and a host of them crossed over to PDP.

Now, you have a situation where about half of Chief Bisi Akande's cabinet then remained in AD. They had not moved anywhere; three-quarter of the remaining have moved over to PDP, while you have a quarter of them in AC. Many of them made the mistake of going to AC, only to discover that they were leaving a democratic setting for a dictatorship. They were leaving a party that belonged to all of us for a one man party. By the time I moved to PDP, I met a large chunk of our former AD members. There are two parties in the South-west - PDP and AC. Some of us believe that AD is beyond transformation, yet we believe that PDP can be continuously improved and transformed and instead of being out of politics entirely, you might just be in PDP and hope to bring it up to be what you believe is ideal and I believe that the governor has continuously worked for the improvement of the party and likewise the progressives in the party in Osun State.

You have moved to PDP at the time Nigeria appears to have been shut down. There are no roads, no power supply, nothing appears to be working, whereas PDP controls almost the entire country. What inspired you to join such a party?

It boils down to one overall philosophy of life - if you don't like something, you have a choice - change it, in other words, do something about it or accept it, if you know that you can't change it. The whole idea is that if you don't like something, you either change it or you accept it. Now, some of us believe that Nigeria can be better and that is why we have left our comfort zones to do something about it. What you find is that we are in a country where we have the majority sitting back, doing nothing, expecting miracles and yet when you read the scriptures, the Bible says 'work and pray.' It doesn't say, pray and pray and an axiom says heavens help those who help themselves, not that heavens will come down to do something for you.

Should we then agree that you have joined the PDP to effect a change by your intention to realize your hitherto governorship ambition in the party?

No. I don't know in what capacity I have to serve in Osun State. I say this for public consumption. I am ready to serve in any capacity. I think even if it will be in the position of a councillor, I may be able to do better because I think my honest heart felt desire is not to go there because of the position or because of the money I can make, but because of the changes I can make.