Defection won’t affect APC chances in Edo –Ojezua

The Edo State Chairman, All Progressives Congress, Anselm Ojezua, in this interview with ALEXANDER OKERE, speaks on the chances of the party in the 2015 general elections, among other issues.

Why does it seem like the APC is exercising a delay in its preparation for the House of Assembly and National Assembly elections which are just seven months away?

The Edo State Chairman, All Progressives Congress, Anselm Ojezua

Every party has its own programme and I think the PDP is playing its own script. We have our plans but do not forget that the APC, essentially, is a new party even though it is a product of the merger of old parties. We have just succeeded in establishing our structures. We are now in the process of breathing life into the structures. Once that is assured, the structures will facilitate our tour. So, that will be our next move. We will also go on a tour. In our own case, it will be a ‘thank you’ tour because we are a new executive. We want to go round and thank those who had the confidence to give us the mandate to run the party. In the process, we will do an assessment on the state of the party in the local governments. Again, we will take that as an opportunity to showcase what the APC is capable of. I am happy that the PDP has gone round and the people can see what they have. When we also go round, the people can then draw their conclusions. A lot has been said about the positive or negative effects of the congresses. Some are said to have left the party. Now, the effect of that move will be seen when we go round; whether it has depleted or it has enhanced our ranks.

With the level of defection recorded against the APC in the state, what do you think will be the chances of the party in the House of Assembly election?

Our chances are still very bright. I do not think that the exit of some members is sufficient to affect those chances principally because those who voted for the party will still vote for the party for the same reasons. They voted not because of those who left but because of the comrade governor who has brought fresh air to the state, compared to the days of the locust. When PDP was in charge for 10 years, the impression we were given was that there was not enough money to pay salaries let alone engage in capital projects. But Oshiomhole’s administration has put a big lie to that myth. One can see developments across the state; in our schools and roads, with streetlights and walkways and that is the minimum you can expect from any road that Oshiomhole is building. So, he has come to show that one can make a difference in administration. Once it is positive, the people key in. Those who have left us are essentially politicians, who feel they have not benefited materially from the governor. But a governor cannot satisfy a greedy set of politicians as well as the people at the same time; he must choose one over the other. You are either working for the people or you are working for a set of greedy politicians. Oshiomhole prefers to work for the people and the people will reward him for it.

What about the claim by the PDP that the governor engaged in misguided spending of tax payers’ money?

There was a time when the PDP said that we did not have resources. Today they are accusing somebody of embezzling those resources. But the evidence on the ground shows that the resources are on the street; on the roads, in the schools and the hospitals. One can see what money is being used for. The PDP has not said that the governor has made any extra budgetary expenditure. Whatever the governor spends is within the confines of the budgetary allocation as approved by the House of Assembly and that is what is constitutional.

Is it true that the party is moving against council chairmen who appear to be loyal to the opposition party?

No, I do not agree. I am the party’s chairman and we are in the process of building our structures. The council chairmen are essential elements in that process and they have been very cooperative with us. What we find is that there are localised discrepancies amongst the people in our ranks over issues pertaining to their local environment. Those are the issues we are dealing with. I even heard of chairmen dissolving the cabinet and some of us are of the opinion that the constitution and dissolution of cabinet are political processes that should necessarily involve political leaders; we have council chairmen not sole administrators. There are sponsored by the party. Therefore, the way they administer their councils has implications for us as a party. Our duty is to guide them and that is what we are going to offer them. We do not intend to fight them because they are our products. We’ll engage them. For instance, in every local government, there is a forum of leaders who guide the council chairmen, sometimes, through their councilors who identify projects that should be executed in their various wards. Once the projects are identified, we put a tab on them to ensure that they are executed in line with our policy and plan. That way, we are able to guide them because when we go for elections, we make promises. We want to ensure that those promises are kept so that when we go back, we will have the confidence to show the electorate that their mandate was not misplaced.

With the way ‘stomach infrastructure’ syndrome is spreading from Ekiti to other states, does the APC in Edo intend to adopt that policy to draw greater attention from the electorate in the forthcoming elections?

Well, drawing from our experience in the 2012 election, I do not think we have that kind of situation here. I think every state has its peculiarity in terms of what is expected from candidates. In Edo State, I think people are more interested in the performance of the government, in terms of how it has affected their lives. One of the first things this government did, which some can refer to as “stomach infrastructure” was human resource development through the establishment of the youth employment scheme.

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Defection won’t affect APC chances in Edo –Ojezua