Former Lagos State Governor and Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola is the Director of Election Planning and Monitoring of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council. He spoke on Channels Television’s, Sunday Politics recently, where he revealed why Asiwaju Bola Tinubu won the 2023 election. Assistant Editor EMMANUEL BADEJO, who monitored the interview, reports
it’s been almost eight years of this administration and how has it been?
We are winding down. We are now sending a performance report to the Transition Planning Committee. Yes, the burden is getting lighter and we are looking for the finishing line.
Are you like your principal, who said he can’t wait to leave the office by May 29?
After 21 years of active public service, I must say, hey, peace at last! And, indeed, we need younger minds to run this race.
You are not younger than when you were the governor of Lagos State…
Before becoming the governor of Lagos State, I was the Chief of Staff. I was 39 years old when I started and I’m going to be 60 this year. I tell young people, it’s time to push us away.
You were instrumental in Bola Tinubu winning the presidential election. Some said you were so sure because the APC had a rigging plan. Is that correct?
I challenge our opponents to show me what they did with regard to preparation. I think the Nigerian public is a source of snippets of what our situation room looked like. Which other party had that kind of situation room? We had it in 2015 and 2019. I was head of the situation room in 2019 and again in 2023. But, a lot of young people were also involved. These young people used data, maps, calling agents, training agents and the like.
What do you mean by preparation?
Let me say that we had intensive and extensive preparation. One of the preparations was the training of 2000 agents. These were sent back to the states to train other agents. That was just part of it. The people who trained them showed them the difference between the 2010 Electoral Act and what they would see in 2023. These people acted as agents to senators, House of Representative aspirants, to the presidential candidate himself.
How long did it take you to train them?
It was a two-day exercise. Essentially, it was a detailed and intensive programme. They went back with training materials translated into different languages. Some of the agents left their work in the United States to join our campaign. That was the beginning. As they went back to their various states, governors, senators and others took ownership. These people were able to give us accurate information about what was happening at different polling units on election days. They also sent us the results from their polling units. So, when I was in the situation room, a photograph came out and at that time we already knew our results. We did similar things in 2019.
You’ll also see that there was a report by YIAGA. That was because ahead of the election, there was a BVAS simulation to which all parties were invited. So, if you look at the YIAGA report, you’ll see that the report was consistent with the way the parties turned out in the election. The APC had the largest representation at that mock exercise and it was part of the preparation by INEC for the election. An election is big a business, hence there is a need for extensive work because the business of election takes a huge process. In the United States, there are certified election managers and I know one man in Nigeria who is also qualified for that. That man is Fuad Oki and he was also involved in our campaign.
But the feeling out there is that your party has not done enough to deserve a win. What do you say?
Let me also tell you that I was optimistic and those were the words I used. I did not underrate any opponent. This is a competitive engagement. I am a sportsman and I would not underrate any of my opponents. Rather, I’ll prepare very well. The party was also prepared. The candidate and his running mate, members of the national executive of the party were at that session too. That tells you how seriously they took it. The woman leader was there. States chairmen and some governors were there also. Aside from that, I made assertions on this show then and I said politics is a game of numbers and numbers have equations – addition and multiplication. The APC was adding and multiplying.
What do you mean by that?
For instance, some governors elected on the platform of the PDP, such as those of Cross River, Ebonyi and Zamfara, at different times defected to the APC; reducing the numbers of their foot soldiers. The major contenders against us in this election, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), the PDP and the Labour Party (LP) were together as a party in 2019. Yet, they lost as a party by almost four million votes then. Breaking into three parties in 2023, how would that add up to an electoral victory for them? Not only that they divided, but they also subtracted through the G-5 governors’ factor. So, it was bad Mathematics.
We got information that you did internal polling and most of it showed that you were going to lose the election. Is that true?
Yes, we did. I have been polling elections since 2002 when I was Chief of Staff to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was then the governor of Lagos State. Asiwaju introduced me to polling when he was running his re-election. Not only did we poll elections, but we also voted for policy decisions in governance. I used this strategy when I was the governor. I remember I said on this programme that all of the polls that had a sample size of 1,000 people that showed 55 or 50 per cent undecided voters at the time they did the polling were either badly conducted polls or they were self-serving polls; something was wrong with the methodology. More importantly, I said then that people had decided. So, our polls in January showed that we were 10 points ahead. Our polls in January showed that we were good in 23 out of the 25 states we were targeting. It also showed us states that were considered battlegrounds. In the end, I think we got 29 states.
Opposition parties are also alleging that because you knew you were going to lose, you introduced intimidation. Isn’t that true?
We knew, for example, that we were going to lose in some states. Again, as our democracy gets tighter, there are states where you know that you are not going to win. You have never won there; why then would you be wasting your time in those states? This happens in developed democracies. So, we knew the states where we were going to flip; we knew the states where we would not flip; and we knew the states that had never voted for us. We also knew the states where we were loved but the challenge was getting out the votes in those states. Those were the states we call ‘Get Out The Votes’ (GOTV) states. So, we concentrated on GOTV states. In the end, it turned out to be exactly what we predicted.
Your candidate lost in Lagos. Would you say Bola Tinubu was not loved in his home?
Yes, again, in some cases, you get blind-sighted. We got blind-sighted in Lagos because the opposition turned out their votes there. You also saw that a party that has been competitive for 24 years, the umbrella party (PDP), suddenly disappeared. That showed that their support base had shifted.
So, the Labour Party’s victory in Lagos surprised the APC?
Yes, there is no doubt about that. We were blind-sighted about that.
But the Labour Party is claiming that it won Lagos with a wider margin. Is that correct?
That is a matter that I believe has been submitted to the election tribunal and I am not going to make any comment on that. However, the point is that that party was able to turn out their voters during the presidential election, but in the subsequent governorship election, you saw that we turned out our votes.
On allegations of violence, unfortunately, one incident of violence wherever it happened does not give us any credit. That said, when you look at the incidence of violence, and the number of polling units that were disrupted, they were too insignificant compared to what you have seen in elections in the past. This was the election that recorded the least cases of violence. I am talking about data and not about me.
With your party’s performance, do you think it deserved to win?
People who drive through our roads and they have seen differences in those roads will vote for us. Contractors and construction companies and their workers, the sub-contractors, the people impacted by the Buhari agric programme, and the people impacted by the digital economy programme will vote for us. On the question of ethics, there is a global trend in politics that we call identity politics. People vote based on several identified stimuli. So, many things influence the voters.
Mr Fashola, are you worried that in Lagos you governed for eight years, some people were tagged as aliens? How disappointed are you about that scenario?
I have told you before that the elections that I love to see are elections that are carnival-like, festival-like. We saw some of them in the primaries of some of the parties. I wanted to see more of that. I wanted to see more intellectualism, and more people-focused about what I have and what you offer. That is why the campaign I was making was based on what Asiwaju had done in Lagos and how many states had copied it. You found that about 14 states had copied LASTMA. You found that about 10 states had copied the office of the Public Defender. You find that about 15 states had copied LASAA. I made the argument that if states, even in opposition, are copying this man’s idea, why should he not be allowed to run?
In Lagos, are you disappointed about what happened during the governorship election when there was a disruption of polling units?
There were some reports about such unsavoury developments here and there, but I wasn’t at those places. Therefore, I can’t comment. On the day of the election, you can only comment on what you see. I think that some of the comments on ethnicity went the wrong way and everyone should wear the trouser of adults now that the elections are over. Sometimes, we can be extreme when competition is on.
Where is Mr Tinubu at the moment?
He is outside the country. I spoke to him about a week ago. He is in France.
Is he medically alright?
Come on, he is. Since 2002 when he hurt his back, almost every time he travels and the opposition always makes an issue out of it.
Is he on vacation?
I believe he needs it. He ran the longest, and the fiercest campaign. His primary was the most contested. After that, he went around the country campaigning and began planning for the election. So, I think he deserves to rest. However, the Bola Tinubu that I know is doing some networking and there’s no idle moment in his life.
You were his Chief of Staff. Are you likely to play the same role in the incoming government?
That is very unlikely. I think that it is extremely ridiculous to begin to choose offices for a nation like Nigeria, the largest black race. It ridicules us and we should stop it. We have elected a president. Let us wait for him to be sworn in and respect his prerogative to make his choices. No serious nation does what some of these rascals do on social media.
Why does Asiwaju have so many controversies around him?
I think those issues people call controversies have been sufficiently dealt with and Nigerians have decided. With Asiwaju’s emergence, Nigerians have spoken that there are no issues. A person like Tinubu keeps getting stronger when things are more difficult. I remember when he wanted to be governor after the primary, for three days, we could not find the party chairman, or the returning officer for the election and Lagos was in suspense for three days. The more difficulty he gets, the more he brings out the best in him. For me, now that all these hurdles have been surmounted, maybe there is a Divine purpose to it. Government is not about sainthood; it is about efficiency, performance and delivery.
So, Bola Tinubu is not a saint?
I am not, and I believe you are not one too. Governance is about getting results. Yes, there are some lines that must not be crossed because they have to deal with values, but again, we should not be looking for a saint. All of the allegations that were levelled against him have been either unproven or no evidence offered in support of them.
What about the issue of his dual citizenship?
I know he carries a Nigerian passport; I don’t know about dual citizenship. I know he resided abroad when he went into exile. But, I don’t know whether they gave him American citizenship. By the way, what has that got to do with the election?
(The Nation)
