New Telegraph

Nigerians’ve decided to elect people of integrity, transparency –Shogunle

Kehinde Shogunle is the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Ogun State. In this interview with BIYI ADEGOROYE, he speaks on the crisis in the party in the state and his chances in the coming elections

 

With all the crisis in your state, do you think it can win an election in the state?

I don’t agree that there is a serious crisis as you think. The challenge in Ogun State LP is a reflection of the disparity in the cultures of the stakeholders that fused to form the new Labour Party that we have now.

This usually happens when organisations with perhaps the same objectives come together but have differences in methods, strategies and styles.

Around May last year, 40 entities came together to form the current Labour Party 2022, as a political expression of the progressive tendencies of the – Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigerian Consultative Forum (NCF) with the Labour Party being the convenient and appropriate registered political vehicle.

This is expected to be the third force response to the existing traditional parties of APC and PDP. Meanwhile, the Labour Party had been operating as a fringe refugee party before now as a convenient vehicle for people who have lost elections and frustrated in the other bigger parties and have not built the right structure for critical activities and capacities for robust political action.

With this fusion and the emergence of Peter Obi as the presidential candidate, a lot of interest and flurry of activities was stimulated at the various levels of the party and in the polity.

The idea is to have a party that is peopledriven and that provides an alternative to the two dominant parties, however the internal dynamics could not be developed over time to make it cohesive and effective. There are centripetal and centrifugal forces that are at play that will eventually lead to a state of balance and equilibrium.

The existing traditional culture in the party saw an opportunity for the usual cashing out and horse-trading in the electoral process whilst the change and progressive oriented culture see it as a development vehicle for engaging on a new political phenomenon that would birth a new Nigeria through the ideals and values around unity, excellence, creativity, integrity and equity.

So, what you termed as crisis, which is not that serious, is the interplay of different orientations at this point in time, which has been managed carefully and delicately till now to push for enthusiastic acceptance of the populace and the wide acceptance of the candidates, particularly the Presidential Candidate, HE Peter Obi.

The good thing is that, it has not disturbed the winning chances of the flagbearers as they have been playing a somewhat independent and different political game, leveraging on social media, international connections, principles and values and promoting expectations that attend to the realities and hope of Nigerians. People identify more with the Obidient movement than LP. The Party is clearly seen as a vehicle for Peter Obi and others of like minds to contest the elections.

How did you feel when you heard that Ogun LP purportedly expelled the Director General (DG) of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Doyin Okupe and the national chairman of the party?

That’s what I am talking about. It is a needless absurdity! This is a party that has a constitution and how can a state chapter of a political party pass severe disciplinary actions on the then Director General of the Presidential Campaigns or even the National Chairman? What are the excuses or issues raised? Spurious, flimsy grounds such as the non-payment of N100 monthly subscriptions for six months, when most people joined the party around May and December!. The Constitution they referred to actually states that “failure to pay subscription shall lead to forfeiture of membership…’

This implies that a process has to be in place…that process cannot be started and completed at the state level of the party! Besides, the membership registration and card of the party was actually launched at the leadership retreat of the party held in October this year.

So, how can within three months, a group of people will say because somebody has not paid for six months, is even considered for expulsion. The constitution of the party also states that critical decisions like expulsion can only be decided at the National level after due process, it is not even the ward, the only thing they can do is to suspend.

These former members of Ogun exco have over reached themselves, misinterpreting and misapplying the Constitution or executing a clandestine and nefarious plan to destablised the party or bring it into disrepute which are clear violations of the members obligations as contained in the same constitution of the party.

Besides, The Director General of the Campaigns, Dr Okupe stepped down as a fellow presidential aspirant of PDP along with Peter Obi to join Labour Party making significant personal and financial contributions to the Party.

The other point is that the position of the DG is not a party position, it is the candidate’s prerogative and then, as a DG, he may not even be a party member, so, these people are just playing a funny game.

On the purported vote of no confidence decision on the chairman, it is another element of over-reaction. How can a state chapter do that, it is absurd to say that they passed a vote of no confidence in him, what information do they have about the activities of the chairman?

A state chapter operates at a level of a state and also some of the issues they are raising are beyond their reach, there are appropriate structures at the National levels to deal with accusations and allegations they have made.

It is just one recalcitrant member from Ogun State, who was an acting member of national executive that is using his position to fight an unnecessary internal squabble at the national level, apparently about his non-inclusion in the Presidential campaign Committee

The mutepoint is that this person is raising this dust to befuddle people of his failure on some of his assigned national responsibilities to the party. We have a state party that only last week got the order of the court to participate in the elections, despite the fact that we completed the party primaries process in June.

Up until last week, their gubernatorial candidate and all other candidates have not been cleared by INEC, which is due to the negligence or the dereliction of the duty of this particular person.

So, when the national chairman actually acted, saying enough is enough, let’s know what is going on, the reaction or the fallback happens to be pushing a state chairman and some executive members to take some rash decisions.

So, you can see infantile politics at play, it’s like a fish in a small pond that finds itself in a big pond, trying to use old tricks to survive in the big pond. What they have said was just an embarrassment to the party and the party has taken the right decision by suspending all of them. And they have put the party in the right path of probity and sanity.

The NWC also met recently and passed a vote of confidence on the National Chairman. Their action was a just a little fly in a hot tea pot. What is the implication of all these crises to your aspiration?

It doesn’t have that much significant implication on my aspiration, other than delaying our campaign traction as the gubernatorial candidate of the state.

We have shown a measure of resistance, resilience and robustness, we are in the mind of the people, with high expectations and the party and candidate to beat in Ogun State. People are contending that these recalcitrant former executive members that have taken all these unfortunate actions are actually working for the incumbent state government and what they are doing is to find a way of delaying our traction.

We have noticed all of that because this is not the first time they are doing it. We are adept in the politics of Ogun State. In the past four elections, these characters have thwarted the efforts of candidates on the platform of the party. So, we have been quite open, circumspect and observant about what they are doing.

We have developed what they called complex redundancies, supportive mechanisms to boost and build our traction despite the fact that our candidature has not been confirmed.

And we know that will happen in the few coming days. We are leveraging more, not strongly on the party but on the supplementary structures we have created. We have known this because the time was too short to form a formidable party and we needed the vehicle, so we allowed that to go on.

The NCF, TUC, NLC and many civil society, youth and faith-based organisations had already created what we called the Big Tent, which is a coalition of the stakeholders that may not even be ready to join the party but they are ready to work for our mandate. And all hands are on deck to mobilise and ensure that LP is the party to beat in Ogun State.

What are those things you think are not properly done in Ogun State that you want to do differently?

We have been in politics and governance for some time. And we have been part of the development and strategy agenda for the state.

What has happened is that we lack continuity of government programmes and policies. I was in Otunba Gbenga Daniel administration for eight years and I was in charge of the implementation of the regional master plan. My first issue is that the scale and rate of the economic growth in the state is not as anticipated.

This is a state with a very huge potential with the right context and people but it appears we are focused more on distractive perspectives, the last government led by Senator Ibikunle Amosun was vindictive and too sectional and the current one concentrates more on optics and cosmetic projects that are not critically essential for our sustained development.

Our agenda is captured by the acronym SHIELD which revolves around building social, economic and physical protection and sustainable living for our people. First ‘S’ is about security, ‘H’ human capital development, ‘I’ infrastructure; ‘L’ for leadership development, ‘D’ digital transformation which is to explore the opportunities of the digital age to transform government, the economy and living in the state.

So, SHIELD is our agenda is what we want to use to protect the state and the citizens for sustainable development. For the APC, the past eight years have been a disaster.

And anybody that is in Nigeria today will accept the fact that what is going on should not be allowed to continue. We have the worst economic record during their era, most Nigerians particularly Ogun youths are moving abroad, because there are low opportunities for sustainable living here. Nigerians and indeed, Ogun people have determined to try people with integrity, transparency and accountability.

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