A former Secretary to the Lagos State Government and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun, speaks to AYOOLA OLASUPO about the political issues in Lagos State, and other matters of national interest
You recently said that the intervention of President Bola Tinubu in the political crisis between Nyesom Wike and Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, was constitutional. Can you throw more light on this?
President Tinubu is the number one citizen of Nigeria which is the first qualification being the President. The second one is that if he knows his honour and job, he is the father of all. He is the father of all governors, council chairmen, and all the citizens. If there is a problem in any unit constituting Nigeria, it is his headache and his interest to look at it. The latest is what is happening in Plateau State, where people are being slaughtered like sheep; even sheep are not cheap and are not slaughtered the way it is done to humans in Plateau State. He has ordered the military and the police to go in there and stop it. So, in the case of Rivers State, his intervention became necessary.
But some senior lawyers have said that his role on the matter can only be advisory and that he has no constitutional role to intervene in states’ political affairs. How will you react to this?
Well, they are senior lawyers, SANs, and I am not. When I qualified in 1993, I practised for seven years, and with the little I gathered from my practice, I set up my chambers. You’re not practising now but the little I gathered and little I know in law, not all lawyers know the law. Some are practising and because they carry big names does not make their views to be superior to the other senior citizens of the country. What is the experience of some of them? Let them continue to say it and let them give opinions. On what is happening in Plateau State now, everywhere is on fire, burnt and the President has intervened. Insecurity is everywhere. Go to Kaduna, Katsina, Kano states, etc. So, I will not agree with them. They may be senior lawyers 100 times but that does not make them know better every time. They may know better most of the time but not every time.
You said that the Ikorodu part of Lagos State had been murdered politically when Governor Sanwo-Olu released his list of commissioner-nominees. Why did you say so?
My colleagues refused that the letter we were sending should carry that heading but I stood by it because they felt we were asking for favour. We should not use harsh language. Have we not been murdered? But we voted for him; we scored 65,000 here and when you take it into percentage, we scored more. The only local government that beat us was Epe and what is the quantum of votes? Very small! Not only that, we have six local governments here. Each time you ask them, they say one over twenty. It’s two over 48 now. One over 20 is five percent. Ours is now 20, but the matter has been put to rest. The party has ruled that that is how it should be, but for the future, we must learn. We were in government before. There is an issue which those who are now ruling disputed and I’ve advised them several times to follow what is on the ground.
How will you describe the general politics in Lagos State?
Lagos politics is like any other politics in which you have opponents, but what I have found out is that we have to work very hard. People are not coming out to vote. The excuse is that the Igbo voted more than us; no! In my booth, I used to score 200, I scored 95 during the governorship and it was won during the presidential election. This is what happened all over the state.
So, we want to work hard and probably change the perception of people that whoever is going to govern you, you have to make up your mind to support a particular political party. So, come out and vote; it is not when you are given N5 or N10; but some people think they are not getting anything from it. I went from house to house after sitting with the canvassers that we employed, but it was still the same thing. The politics of Lagos State requires us to improve the voter interest in elections.
If not for voter apathy, why should 762,000 be the number of votes for our governor in 2023 when in 2013, 1,500,000 voted for BRF (Babatunde Fashola)? Even in 1983, (Alhaji Lateef) Jakande’s second term was roughly 83,000 votes as the governor. We have to work harder. I am part of the blame; so, all of us have to sit together and work out a way. People show interest but why are they not coming out to vote? What made it to be so? I don’t think they hate our political party. We will try and do our best to improve.
The issue of who originally owns Lagos State went viral a few weeks ago and there have been a lot of controversies about that. What is your reservation on the issue?
Some of them who say they are indigenes of Lagos said they came from Benin. Others say they should settle it, but what is the importance of that? Are they claiming Lagos to take it to Benin or do they want to lay a hand upon what they cannot? I don’t know why there is this controversy.
Since 1999 till now, from Action for Democracy, Action Congress, Action Congress of Nigeria to the All Progressives Congress, it has been the same party in government. What do you think gave the ‘progressives’ so much hold on Lagos State that other parties don’t even come near?
We call ourselves ‘the progressives’ and the people of Lagos State are enlightened in my opinion, and we believe that anybody who says he is progressive is pro-(Obafemi) Awolowo’s policy because Awo had a very deep root in Lagos State at that time when Jakande became the governor. So, the progressive platform issue will continue to come up. That is the reason and it’s because of the antecedent and you find out that the leaders of the party either old or young are products of this progressiveness. I have always been on that side. Many of us believe progressiveness is the answer for Lagos State. There was no time we were able to win elections as PDP in Lagos. I mean I have seen the two sides now and I can tell you that the preference of Lagos State is the progressives. That is why in PDP, we just tried and never won anything.
Do you think Tinubu’s government will consider restructuring anytime soon?
Restructuring cannot be done overnight. There are many things that the government can do, but what some of them are saying is that they use the word restructure. Ask Mr A, his notion is different from that of Mr B. If they want better governance, the way most of them are saying it is that we should dissolve Nigeria and start again. Some are saying we should go back to regent or create more states. I think if we have specific areas and whatever restructuring that we want, we should demolish what we have; government of the rich by the rich and for the rich. That is our concept of democracy, the way I see it. How do we demolish that we will make governance so easy and close to the people?
Restructuring in my own opinion has to be a gradual thing. Those who say we should create more states; I don’t know what they have in their minds. The states we have created are always in debt here and there and not making anything. We should go back to the regional system where before independence, we were making progress.
