The senator representing Lagos West at the Senate, Senator Ganiyu Solomon has declared that zoning will not stop him from achieving his desire to govern Lagos State. He made this declaration in this interview with some member of the press recently. Enjoy the chat…

You’ve made known your intention to run in the APC governorship race in Lagos, what is your comment? 

Well, I am going to take that to be a comment and not a question. Nevertheless, I will try to respond to it. The business of governorship cannot be left in the hands of a few people. Let me quickly say that democracy translates to participatory governance, which means everybody gets involved; you participate. And that differentiates it from a dictatorial government. Dictatorial government is just about a few people, and that was what we had during the military era. So, when we are talking of democracy or, in this instance, governance in the state, it cannot be in the hands of a few, no matter how enlightened, no matter how ‘powerful’ they are. It has to be in the hands of everybody. I am sure nobody has come out to say we’re not looking in your direction; we’re looking in this other direction. We may have some perceptions, or interpret certain utterances, but the level we are now – for instance, in my party – we are in a new party, and the leadership of that party, from day one, in response to cynicism from some people, said, ‘look, we are guaranteeing internal democracy.’ Because there was the accusation that, ‘all these parties, you’re not allowing internal democracy.’ And they kept saying, ‘yes, we’re guaranteeing internal democracy.’ I remember when Chief Akande spoke on this, because he was the first person to give something close to a manifesto, of sorts, before the official launch of the party. And part of what he said, apart from fighting corruption, is that in this our party, we are going to make sure we imbibe the culture of internal democracy. So, anything that will make the party look at another direction, instead of a particular direction, will make it short on internal democracy. So, to me, it’s about perception. Some people may say the body language of the leadership is tilting towards this person; at the end of the day, it’s about perception. I say this because I relate with the leadership; none of the leaders have said, ‘I don’t think you can go,’ or ‘you’re not going,’ or has sent somebody to me to say ‘you’re going back to the senate.’ As far as  I am concerned, any way, the issue of the senate is closed; ‘am not going back to the Senate. Maybe we should start with that: ‘am not going back to the Senate; that is settled.

You said you’re not going back to the Senate, but a few days ago the Oba of Lagos practically shut the door on other aspirants when he endorsed a particular aspirant, in the person of Ambode. What effect do you think this would have on your ambition?  

Let me say that in making the pronouncement, Kabiyesi was expressing his preference. He has also expressed his personal opinion. We’re talking of a party now; I don’t know which part or provision of the constitution of the party says a traditional ruler endorses or can endorse. Whatever he says is his personal wish, which is not the same thing as the wish of the generality of the people. At the end of the day, we have a party structure. Let me also tell you that he made the pronouncement at a time when we had not even concluded putting party structures in place. So, it couldn’t have been in consultation, with who? Is it with the political leadership? Is it with the traditional leadership? We’ve had different opinions since then. We deliberately did not come out to say anything about it because we felt it was a political statement. And what do you do with political statements? You either respond or you leave it. In this case, we decided to leave it. It has happened a number of times when a traditional ruler in one state would say, ‘this is the person we want.’ At the end of the day, the man would not go anywhere. It has happened several times. I don’t want to cite instances. Even in Lagos, it has happened. In our own case, such statements would not deter us. It will not deter the party man. You go around, meet them. They are determined. This time around they want to have a say in who becomes their candidate, and who eventually rules their state, because we are all stakeholders, just like any other person. What is the weight of a vote? Every vote carries the same weight, regardless of the status of the individual. So, what anybody can do is to go behind his chosen, preferred, aspirant, mobilize people behind him, and provide a level playing field. It is not even for them to do that, that is the provision of the constitution; that is the tenet of democracy – providing a level playing field. And there must be transparency. Whoever wins becomes the party’s candidate, every other person queues behind him. It is not by pronouncement; it is not by proclamation; yes, they were using proclamation years ago to annex, to cede land, to cede society, to cede country, but not now. That is now out of vogue; this is democracy, you can’t do that. So, we’ll just leave it at that – it is political and we, politicians, take it as political, and consign it to its proper place.

Consensus or primaries, which would you recommend to your party?

Now we have a much bigger party; that means it has also increased our stakeholders. And let me also remind you: recently, we had a very aggressive membership mobilization drive which brought a lot of people into this political party. These people now are interested; how do you do consensus? Do you do consultation down to the grassroots level? Do you do consultation up to various sectors of the political parties? Because you need to do that. Then, how do you now aggregate their opinions? If you meet a particular group, they would have somebody. If you meet another group, they would have a different person. So, you have to meet various groups at different levels, up to the lowest rung of the ladder, from the top to the bottom. How do you now aggregate their preferences? You have to do it; it has to be very scientific. Whatever you do, you must make sure it can stand the test of time. What is that test of time? The election. So, you don’t take things for granted. What I will recommend is to have primaries. It will put everybody’s mind at rest. What we’re saying now – maybe I should let you know the thinking of party members: they are not talking of gubernatorial election alone; they are saying, at every election, presidential, governorship, national and states’ assembly, let there be primaries. We’ve done it before; we did it in 1998/99, the heavens did not fall. Nothing happened, and that was how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged. It was direct primaries, everybody voted in his or her ward, and they collated everything and he emerged. At the end of the day, everybody else queued behind him. So, that’s my recommendation any day, and it is in line with what the party has already started doing.  They’ve done it in three states: They did in Anambra, they did in Osun, they did it in Ekiti. Even in the cases of Osun and Ekiti, it is very instructive. There were unopposed candidates, but because the party insisted that whether you are half or one, there must be direct primaries, they still went ahead and did the primaries. That is how it is supposed to be. That is how we can groom this democracy; 16 years after, we can’t be stagnant. We must grow it. If we compare ourselves with the old democracies, England, the US, and even India, we must try to imbibe what they do, do it the way they do it. The recent election in India, we all know the outcome. That is how it should be. Everybody took it; because it was transparent, everybody accepted it. That is what we must do. If we’ve not been doing it, we must pardon our past lapses and begin to do it now. It is the duty of this generation to start doing it so that we’ll hand it over to the next generation.

We believe you’ve been consulting with political leaders in the state. Have you consulted with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and what did he tell you?

Yes, I’ve consulted with him. There’s no way you’d want to run for governorship, or any serious political office and you don’t meet your leaders. I met him and he said, ‘well, you can go ahead with your ambition; at the right time we’ll roll out the party programmes and so on, but right now, we are busy putting up the party structures.’ We agreed that putting up party structures will not stop me from meeting people, going ahead with my plans. That is it.

Have you met him since the (Oba Akiolu’s endorsement) controversy?

No, because he (Tinubu) came out to say the party had not endorsed anybody. That was an open statement. The party itself came out to say, ‘no, we’ve not endorsed anybody. So, whatever Kabiyesi said was his personal opinion. So, I saw no need meeting him again on the same issue. I’d take whatever he said openly. He’s been the leader of the movement, our party, from AD to AC to ACN, and so on. He knows what is right to do and what is not right to do. Even if, and where, he has a preference, he cannot now say he has a preference. He cannot say that, he cannot. I trust he would not say that.

There are some issues that may shape the primaries – people are mentioning zoning, they are mentioning religion; we want your opinion on these issues, zoning and religion.

I always try not to go into discussing religion, because people can be very emotional about religion and, given what is also going on round the country, it is a very sensitive issue. In this particular part of the country, we don’t discuss religion when it comes to governance. This is the very first time some people are bringing it up. And I can tell you that they are bringing it up because of their own selfish interests. I don’t want to go further, but look at the average family here, you have them muslims, you have them Christians. I have a cousin who is a reverend; my sister is a deaconess; go to Methodist Church, Palm Avenue, that is the church our grandparents attended. That is where they had their burial. So, how will I do anything against a Christian community, for instance? It has never been an issue. Some people have come out to say governance is not about religion. Religion will not put food on your table. You’d have to look at people you believe have integrity, who have what it takes to govern. And I will not also want to go into comparison, as some people would want to do. The moment they succeed in bringing this, and somebody comes on board, and the only credential he’s waving is ‘I am a Christian,’ or ‘I am a muslim,’ his royalty, whether we like it or not, will go to that group, first and foremost. And it will now exert a big influence on his policies, on his roles, on anything he does, because he would now think he’s obliged to that community. That is about religion – like I said, it is very sensitive, people can be very emotional about it. Now, about zoning. Again, in the history of Lagos – I challenge anybody to prove me wrong – this would be the first time that anybody would sit down and say ‘we’re zoning to this particular person’, and they made a mistake of it. Those people that were doing it made a mistake of saying they were zoning to a particular town. You can only zone to a senatorial district, because that particular town does not constitute the whole district. And when eventually they said, ‘Ok, Epe.’ It’s part of the East. We have some other towns, some other divisions, as part of the East. The other divisions rose up and said, ‘no, it’s our turn, because Epe has done it before.’ These are things that are avoidable, if we ourselves had not inadvertently brought it up. Let me tell you, it had never been an issue; people would think it may go this way or that, but it had never been the position of a political party; like our party now, has no provision for zoning in its constitution, no provision, whatsoever. In 1998/99, let me give you the candidates: Tawa Williams, she was from the Central; Dapo Durotimi-Etti, he contested for the senate, from the Central; Wahab Dosumu, he was from the Central. Wahab Dosumu later moved to the West because they said, okay, go to the Senate, the only one available – and that started the fluid movement from one district to another. He was from the central. Funso Williams, he was from the Central. The only person that was not from the Central was Bola Tinubu. He registered, he came back, as from the West – he made everybody believe that he was from the West, and because there were primaries, he won the primaries, regardless of the fact that all other aspirants were from the Central. Anybody would have concluded that it was zoned to the Central; alas! he emerged because a level playing field was there. However, in my own case, if they think that would be a deterrent, no. I also have a roof in the East. And also because they’ve made it possible to move from one senatorial district to another, or even move across, i.e. jump over from one senatorial district to another senatorial district. So, it’s all well and good. Whatever I am saying is not new to Lagos politics; there are precedents. It is accepted, it has become a norm, so we do it.