Olumide Akpata, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), is the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the September 21 Edo State off-cycle gubernatorial election. In this interview, he spoke on his chances among several other issues ahead of the poll. INIOBONG IWOK brings the excerpts:
How is the campaign going so far?
The campaign is going well; I am new to the game; it is one year running as an aspirant and clinching the party ticket and then running round in Edo State. I have been moving round the whole state in the last one year. As an aspirant, I went round Edo State three times; as a candidate I have gone round Edo State two times. For me, it has been a blessing because it has given me a perspective to see my state from an angle I have never seen before. So, it’s been going extremely well; there are problems and issues in the campaign so far, but nobody ever tells us it is going to be easy. We can surmount the challenges and it has been an exciting outing and the people are accepting the messages and the people’s hope it has been rekindled across the state. As you can imagine after the experience of the 2023 general election, there is despondency in the land. There is despair and for some of them, it is very difficult to believe anything you say.
There are reports that you are working for Femi Gbajabiamila, the chief of staff to the president. How do you react?
For the other issue you raised working for Gbajabiamila, you know when we started, they said I was working for Governor Godwin Obaseki and I had to go to the media to debunk that and now, I am being touted to be a spoiler, brought into the race by the APC. This people had to resurrect pictures of me and Femi Gbajabiamila when I was the NBA president and we were working on police reforms, and they got the pictures to be showing around that I am working with the APC, but I have published statement to debunk that in the print and broadcast media; to say it is not true, they are both hand of leprosy.
In fact, we call them PDP/APC. They have ruled Edo State for twenty-five years, there is nothing to show; it is a continuous failure of leadership.
I would touch them with a bad pole; you just need to go round Edo State to see the people are left with a short end of the stick. But I don’t have any godfather, and I have only God and the people would push us into the Government House on the 21st of September.
There is skepticism that without the Peter Obi effect that existed in the 2023 general election, outlook for LP candidates in any election is shaky and that the party is like a bus that politicians get on when they don’t want to be associated with APC and PDP. What is your view?
I am not sure if the Peter Obi effect is absent because I know he is with me. He has come to Benin City to campaign with me and he is returning in September to join in the campaign. He has said time and again that he is fully in support of my candidacy and he asked the people of Edo State, who are supporting him to give their support to me. The Peter Obi effect is very much present, the only thing we can say is that the person on the ballot is not Peter Obi and the people are daring to believe again. From Uromi to Auchi when we go out, they come out in their numbers to receive us and they are receiving the messages.
How are you going to win with the division in LP; is Abure with you?
Division in parties is normal, every party does have disagreements. I can point to the division in other parties in Edo, but that is not my business because there are issues in my party. The Labour Party has problems at the national level just like you know and Julius Abure has issues to sort out; we as party members are trying to resolve issues. You know the issue with NLC at the national level, it has moved down to the state level and there are court cases and I don’t want to speak on them because of that.
But Abure has not come to lift your hand up as the LP’s candidate. How do you react to that?
I don’t really like to speak on the issue, but there is still contention, if he is still chairman, between INEC and Labour Party, the convention that was held in Nnewi, INEC did not monitor it. I am busy with my campaign, but what I am hearing is that the convention was not properly conducted and his tenure has ended. The NLC has put their submission forward and these issues have yet been resolved internally and it is very difficult for him to come to Benin and join the campaign when these issues are on ground.
You said Edo is the worst place to do business. How are you going to address that and fix the water problem in the state?
The Presidential committee on Ease of Doing Business ranked us 37 state out of 37; the current government in the state likes to carry numbers around, they say Edo does not come last in anything but in this one we are last. What we are going to do is to inspire confidence in the people, put things that are needed to be in place, so that local and international investors can come in.
Be people-focused, inspire confidence, and spend the N16 billion that you get every month on the issues that are for the people; security, water, those things that would inspire investors to come. It is not rocket science. About water provision, I don’t have the numbers of how much it would cost, but it is doable. My father was born in Edo State in 1940, he came to see public pipe borne water in Benin and we are talking about 90 years ago. There are things that need to be done about water supply, there are areas that topography would not allow, you still need a borehole in Edo Central, but generally, you can get water for the people. The dams that have been abandoned can be reactivated to get water for the people.
Where I take my start off point is that, I look at the income profile, and I say when we start work, apportion what you need to apportion. You are not going to solve the water problem one day, but you have to apportion the resources that are required to reactivate this moribund water project. There is a cholera outbreak now in Edo State as we speak and it is because our public water system is impaired. I may not be able to completely speak on the amount but I have spoken with experts and they said Edo has the income profile that can take care of these things. The problem we have is that people are not doing their job.
What challenge so far have you encountered moving from law to politics?
Lesson that has been reinforced is that everything rises and falls on leadership; it is the absence of leadership that has put us where we are. We have been victims of irresponsible leadership. The reason why I joined the Labour Party was because of the logo of the party; father, mother and child. A classic definition of democracy, people mentioned three times for good reason. And you have government overtime that has totally taken the people out of the equation. For me leadership is the issue; for me, we need to take charge. A leader must take charge. A leader must understand you are there to serve the people. I have gone round Edo State five times and it is the same story across the state. Our leaders are abdicated. I went to a school, founded in 1970; it looks like a war zone. What I have learned is that our government is wicked and irresponsible. It is very disappointing because the individual who is running Edo state came from the private sector like I did. I am surprised with the neglect, and I watched the PDP candidate trying to exonerate himself from a PDP government he has served as economic adviser for eight years, it is unbelievable. I have learned the lesson that it is all that good leadership can show up like we have seen in Abia State with Alex Otti, just like Anambra State. There is good leadership in some PDP states. On the 29th of May, I watched Governor Fintiri launch a phenomenal project, which was commissioned by Olusegun Obasanjo, what used to be a roundabout was modernised into a spectacle of road.
