The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Dr. Abdul-Azeez Adeniran, also known as Jandor, claimed to be the leader of the chapter, but party chieftains have challenged that claim. In an interview by Assistant Editor EMMANUEL BADEJO with Dr. Seye O’Dairo, the candidate’s former director-general, says the claim shows a lack of understanding and that Jandor is a mole in the party.
*Few days ago, your last governorship candidate claimed to be the leader of the party in the state. What’s your reaction to this?
It is a laughable claim to say the least. Well, it is very likely that he doesn’t really understand what leadership is all about and what it entails. It appears to me that with such a claim, Jandor doesn’t understand the details of our party’s constitution. He failed to realise that under whatever circumstance, party members and leaders must abide by the constitution. How can you make such a decision just because you were the governorship candidate in the last election? Our constitution is clear on who is and not the leader of the party and this provision is clear to all party men and women. In section 17 of the PDP’s constitution as amended, it’s clearly stated that you cannot be a leader when you are not a live Board of Trustees members in a state. In Lagos, we have that already. The BOT members still have their tenure running. Chief Bode George is a live BOT member; he is one of the caucus members at the national level. We also have state executives. In addition, we also have Southwest leaders and national officials that are constitutionally recognised as leaders.
*If you say his statement should not be taken seriously, being your governorship, does he wield enormous influence on the Lagos PDP?
What influence? I can tell you that his time has come and gone. He has done his own and the Lagos PDP is now retooling itself to chart a new path for future elections. Let Jandor not whim up unwarranted and unsolicited sentiment. I urge our party leaders to ignore him. We know his antics and where he is driving and what he wants.
*Is it not surprising after serving as his campaign DG and made frantic efforts to sell his candidature, you now castigate him?
Yes, I was his campaign DG. I accepted to serve simply because I’m a core PDP loyalist and the party comes first to me; in all situations, the party comes first. You can’t know people until you move so close to them. In the course of my relationship with him, I came to understand that Jandor never really wanted to win that election. It was clear that he didn’t want to win that election hence, as our governorship candidate, he dumped the party’s campaign structure of over 1000 die-hard party men and women and constituted about 20 loyalists of his as campaign structure.
*But didn’t you see all this, yet you kept marketing him?
When we started as the DG, the party had minor issues but as we moved closer to the election, for the sake of the party, we dropped all of our issues and decided to work for the party. I can confirm to you that when we took off, Jandor offered to go by the tenet of the party, but as the election drew closer, he decided to show his true colour by dumping the party’s structure for his.
*But you said all party chieftains decided to let go of their differences. How come that the likes of Chief Bode George didn’t support his candidature?
Despite my efforts to make him see reason with many of these leaders, Jandor did everything to frustrate those initiatives. He never for once sat down with many of our party leaders, even when someone like Chief Bode George gave him a property to use as one of his campaign offices. Shockingly, Jandor didn’t use it. All through the electioneering period, he confined himself to his personal office. Could that be a candidate that wanted to win the election?
*Could it be that he didn’t use some of the offices donated for him for campaign due to paucity of funds?
At a time, I actually thought he was short of funds. So, I spearheaded an initiative to raise funds for his campaign. Surprisingly, when that move came to his knowledge, he opposed it. He actually thought he could win the election independently. How serious can such a candidate be? We, however, heard from the grapevine that some party bigwigs outside the state supported him.
*You said Jandor didn’t intend to win the election, but he campaigned vigorously throughout the state
As the election moved closer, it was getting clearer to me and some others that we would lose because our candidate’s carriage showed it. Honestly, some of us started to think that he was out to undermine the PDP. It will surprise you that our candidate during the presidential election didn’t make expected efforts that would have brightened the chances of our candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubarka. For instance, he did not work with the Atiku’s campaign organisations in the state. It got to a point that he stylishly excluded from his plans, though his DG. How would such a candidate have won?
Can a candidate that wanted to win an election be deliberately avoiding peace meetings? I’m aware of at least two attempts when some key leaders in the party sat waiting for him and he didn’t show up though he had earlier agreed to honour the meetings. The meetings were to resolve our differences. But Jandor didn’t show up.
*But how come that Chief Bode George still went ahead to support a candidate of another party?
After our efforts of reconciliation were not yielding expected results, a group called Omo Eko Pataki, which Chief George and other notable Lagosians across party lines belong, came to a conclusion that the Labour Party candidate stood a better chance than the PDP in the governorship election. Then, the party leaders in their wisdom, came together to forge a partnership between the LP and ours. Unfortunately, for two times, Jandor didn’t show up at those meetings.
*Wasn’t the action of these PDP leaders anti-party for trying to force Jandor to relinquish his ambition for the LP?
No. Nobody said he should relinquish his ambition. All that the elders said was that both of them should work together to defeat the incumbent.
*But we understood that Jandor decided to ignore some of the leaders simply because they were becoming overbearing
I am not aware of any leader making demands of him. The last election was the worst for the PDP in Lagos. Since 1998, we have never recorded such a poor performance. For example, it was the first in the history of Lagos PDP that a governorship candidate will be renting buses for campaign. That has never happened. Did he expect members of his campaign council to be spending their personal money for his campaign activities? We had such a situation in the last governorship election. How could we have won the election when we were confronting a formidable and ruling party?
*Why didn’t you raise an alarm much earlier when you were already sensing the failure?
I wanted to save my party. But when it became more loud that Jandor was not out to win the election, I had to quit because I didn’t want to be part of any disaster. In fact, Jandor only did everything to scuttle the party’s chances in the last governorship election. Look at his deputy governorship candidate, though a very pleasant woman, but a weak peer in politics. To be honest, I felt for Funke Akindele, who came with a pure heart. I don’t think she knew her principal well enough. Yes, she might be a new participant in politics but she has a pure heart. She was called to serve but the other man has his own plans.
*But we heard that some of the agents you engaged for the election were not paid. How true is this?
Apart from the failure of our candidate to sit with the party elders to resolve issues, he didn’t pay the party agents that worked for him on the day of the election. He picked some leaders from Lagos for the Lagos group and assigned them to be his agents. We heard that even the N5,000 he promised to pay the agents were not paid till today. That also underscores the point that he intentionally did all this to whittle the party’s chances of winning.
*So, if Jandor presents himself for the 2027 governorship election contest, won’t the party give him the chance to get the ticket?
Like I said, soldiers come, soldiers go, PDP remains. We have seen so many candidates that have come and gone. Take from me, Jandor can’t get the ticket for the party in 2027 even if he wishes to run. How can the party give the ticket to someone who could not manage his campaign council, somebody who didn’t and still does not see eyeball to eyeball with all the party’s structures? And if he thinks that he can probably go ahead and bribe someone in Abuja, Abuja cannot tell us how to take care of our state. Will Abuja politicians win Lagos for us? No, they can’t. Will any serious party give his ticket to someone whose actions and inactions were that of a mole? He came to destabilise our party and whatever ambition he has for 2027 is a ruse.
*Culled from The Nation.
