Plot against Oshiomhole will fail, says Lanre Rasak

But the most important thing is that I know that the leadership of the party at the appropriate time will apply the brakes, we have sufficient mechanism to ensure speedy resolution of these crises. At least there is a committee set up by President Muhammadu Buhari headed by the first interim national chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande, they are working.

The Edo State committed elders of the party are watching developments in the party and they will apply the brakes at the appropriate time. You see our members of the judiciary are doing their job so I don’t blame them. But at times when a judgment is to be delivered, I want to believe, I am not a lawyer, that some factors should be considered.

This judgment, I am going to deliver do I have sufficient facts and reasons to deliver it this way? I f I do, what other negative effects this my judgment will create for the stability and peace of this country? I believe it will not be out of place that our judges will consider certain factors beyond the law to give judgment because, in the party’s constitution, the national chairman has gone far beyond the ward chairman.

How many wards do we have in this country? We have 774 local governments and each council have not less than ten wards and multiply that by 774 only for ward chairman in one local government to just go on air to announce that ‘I suspend the national chairman’.

The constitution of the party does not allow that and is not an issue you should just grant an interlocutory injunction. He should have considered the effects that the judgment would have on the structure of the APC. Is the law created and meant to destroy or reform? I am worried so that should be for lawyers.

But, I know there is no problem for Oshiomhole. At the end of the day, APC will be stronger for it because there are a lot of good people who will be interested in getting the party out of the crises. Today, we don’t have an alternative to the party, except you want to create a crisis for the country.

Is it the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with its antecedent? Where is that party that will be established that will have the acceptance and the spread to replace APC within two years? It is impossible and if that is the case, we should be more careful when we are making decisions on structures that will determine the fate of the country.

Some observers have stated that the crises had come at the wrong time, months to the Edo and Ondo governorship elections. Don’t you think these crises portend bad omen for the APC, considering that the elections are months away?

I don’t see anything dangerous about it, it is about life, it is about reality, it is about people you mentor, people you grow, people you strengthened and suddenly turn around and say I want to be your boss. You can no longer continue to be our leader and leadership is not what you get out of the shelf.

Leadership is primarily the art of creating confidence, that is how Nikron defined leadership in his book, Dynamic Management, so let’s wait and see. Yesterday, so people had thought they would do it but failed.

The crisis in Nigeria in the First Republic emanated from the leadership crisis between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola and those who did the wrong thing paid dearly for it, they should learn from the past. Whether people like it or not and this is the truth, Lagos State has witnessed the uninterrupted development so far because leadership in Lagos has remained consistent in the last 20 years and that allows for growth.

Along the line, there are some people who thought the leader, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, should no longer lead, that they must get him out but they failed. They failed because Tinubu has a genuine commitment to the issue of developing Lagos.

Those who get into power and see themselves as personal developers taking over everything will fail. Don’t bother yourself, there is no alternative to APC for now, I am bold to say that.

Where is the structure of PDP in Edo? The people are wiser, they know fighting to lose power will make suffer, they know what it takes to be outside power, they will suffer seriously for it if that happens.

When Tinubu was creating additional local governments in Lagos, people didn’t understand what it all meant. Out of 20 local government areas, he created an additional 37 local council development areas giving us 57.

And when you come suddenly to boast of taking over Lagos like Chief Olabode George of the PDP who can hardly win a unit even in his house in Lagos, you just laugh. They are crossing the river on the map, let’s get to the bank of the river, put them in a canoe and give a paddle to cross, it is then they will know what it takes to get that done.

We hear that 13 of the APC governors are seriously agitating for the removal of Oshiomhole and it seems only a handful of the governors and few leaders like you in the Southwest geopolitical zone is really in support of the national chairman. What is your position on it?

I am not unmindful of the strength of governors, I know their strength and I appreciate their strength but God the Almighty Allah who all powers belong to, who ordains whoever He wants to ordain, let’s wait and see what happens.

If what they are doing is not right, they will be destabilized, they will fight among themselves. I know it is a power game of who becomes the president in 2023, they have not been able to identify how many of them are interested in the presidency and it is only one president and 13 people are fighting to destroy somebody because they want to be president.

I still strongly believe that there will be light at the end of the tunnel, and if that happens I will call you for a celebration. The Omnipotent, the Omnipresent, the One who will decide what happens will take a decision. Nature is God and nature is the best accountant, nature will balance its books without surplus or deficit and you may not need reconciliation.

You wait and see, sooner than expected, unfolding scenarios will tell you what power game is all about, it is about the acquisition of power, the people you want to lord yourself over we are all Nigerians watching. I know there is poverty in the land, but money can play a lot but divine intervention will be the best so let us cross our fingers and be prayerful.

And some of us who witnessed the civil war in Nigeria can tell you that war is the worst thing that could happen in any given country. No father will be able to look after his children and his wife and I know we lost many people during the Biafran war.

Nobody should be beating the drum of war and those who know what the end result will be telling them, don’t go that way, it is destructive. You want to rule, don’t destroy those you want to rule over.

Has the president not been quiet on the crisis?

I will want to disagree. All you have said is based on assumption, you don’t have any fact to back it up. The president disposition, I want to appreciate is good. If you are leaving office and those who believe are coming in are struggling, you can’t be partisan or support anybody, mere supporting could aggravate the crises.

I love his stand, like I said, after the storm, there will be sunshine, there will be peace and APC will come out the better. I want to thank the president for taking that stand. It is best decision a father would take; he is the leader of the party.

Media was created to direct the government’s action, guide them on what they should do. Mr. President has remained focused and showed that he is such a person you cannot stampede into taking action. His remaining calm is not the result of cowardice, his calmness is as a result of being careful not to be labelled a name that does not belong to him.

Pray with us for one Nigeria; pray for APC, there will be peace, progress, happiness and this country will be stable. The next president will emerge in APC.

Do you regret not being governor of Lagos State after three attempts?

No. I don’t regret anything about it, the only thing I think happened is that I didn’t have an opportunity to deliver what I believe I can do being as governor of Lagos State. I didn’t miss anything out of it because all my plans I try to impact it on those in office. Some of them took these pieces of advice and some didn’t and I don’t regret that.

You offer service and for one reason or the other, you don’t get there so you don’t regret that unless you have a hidden agenda. Even when I had an opportunity to serve as local government chairman, I left my footprints on the sand of time for people to see.

I was able to build housing estate 250 units within one year and it is still there. It is the only project I feel happy about because it was during the military era and the federal government when they saw the advertorials, they thought it was a gimmick and they set up a seven-man committee to come and look at what I claimed I was doing.

The Minister of National Planning came with them and they were surprised when they saw the estate. They also saw what the council was doing about farming and they were surprised. We have a particular area in Epe that has fertile soil for rice cultivation and when I toured the place they told me that they can do more if only they got N10,000 loan for each of the farmers to grow rice.

And I asked them through their community to have a census of the people who were real farmers and they were about 150 people in three communities, Obada, Ise and Igbogun and my council could not afford it. The total budget of the council was N3.9million so I then met Mrs. Maria Sokenu, the Managing Director of the Peoples Bank of Nigeria through late now and told her my story.

I told her if you can give these people the N10,000 they asked for, my council will sign the relevant documents to guarantee the loans, that you recover your money from the Federal Allocation to the council. Apart from that, I promised to sign a personal guarantee that if the council fails to pay, I will pay. She was amazed and we went into an agreement.

You can’t believe it, before two weeks the money was available to the farmers. I then used the council fund to buy rice mill one for the three communities and set it up at Ise and set up a committee to manage it. At the harvest period, what was produced was unbelievable, the rice brought glut and more than what we can consume in Epe Division.

I said since you are having a problem selling your rice, the council will buy. I bought it from them and set up the agriculture unit of the council, take it to Lagos markets and behold we were able to make a profit out of the sales.

We bought the rice from them at a very good price, we asked them to dictate the price and they did and I said add 20percent and we bought it. We now asked our department of agriculture to take it to the Lagos secretariat, to the markets at Oyingbo in Lagos Mainland and Ijebu Ode in Ogun State and within two weeks they sold off all the rice.

From the sales, we paid the Peoples Bank loans and the farmers were happy for it. Up till now wherever I visit the communities they are very happy with me. Agriculture can be successful if we develop a model of giving loans to real farmers, those who take substantial agricultural loans are not farmers in this country.

It is the easiest way of getting a loan because the conditions are less stringent and they use the loans for other businesses that they find it difficult for the banks to give them loans for. And until such a time that we monitor agriculture loan and ensure the real farmers get the loans, we may not be able to maximize government efforts and contribution towards agricultural development.

So continuity, policy somersault, and not being able to allow growth in this country are some of the challenges. The Peoples Bank very useful to the people then for one reason or the other went into extinction but very good community banking system that helped people to grow economically. We should allow continuity in government policy to allow Nigeria to move forward.

You will clock 74 on March 20. How has the life journey been and what do you consider as the major factors that have shaped your life?

Well, only those who work hard to sweat have happy days. And the Yoruba adage says that a lazy man doesn’t deserve to eat. For me, when I look back, I started my life in a wonderful way from a humble family.

My father is from Ajayi family in Epe and Ijebu Ode; my mother from Fagbayi family, the Balo family in Otto, Lagos Mainland. I thank God, I only started life with a strong belief that  I must work hard to place myself in a position that will be better than the way I started; that is the life journey.

And I set goals for myself and when I am lucky to achieve the set goals, I thank God for it and look at the factors responsible for this success and use as a data for the next effort. And when the result is negative, I sit down to look at the factors responsible for the negative ending of the plan, and that has been my guide.

I must mention a few people who made good contributions to my life. The first is my mother because I am from a polygamous home setting and the belief is the mother has the child because the father had several children from several women and it is only your own that people will ask you: how far have you been able to cater for your own children?

There was nothing she could not do to ensure a good education for me, good training for me and ensure I jealously guide the family values and I have to thank her for that. Next is my father who did wonderful things to make my life what it is today.

Please help me pray for one Alhaji Akintunde who was then the general sales manager of RT Briscoe when I left the village in search of a job. Somebody introduced me to him, he is from Abeokuta in Ogun State and not Epe my area and he took a special interest in me.

He ensured that I became a freelance sales representative of RT Briscoe in those days between 1968 and 1970 and I left to join British-American Insurance where I rose to the level of a district manager and I thank God for all that has happened.

I was in the Ijora branch and from then I moved to Ikeja district office as a district manager and it is still the same house. At a stage even before getting to British-America Insurance Company, something happened and I needed a job frantically.

The Nigerian Breweries were to set up the Gulder section for the production of Gulder beer and Drake and Skull was a British firm (specialists in the installation of plants, equipment and plumbing job) that was to assist them in the installation of the Gulder beer section.

Wonderfully, the job I wanted was not available and they advertised they needed a pipe fitter. Luckily I have a friend in Benson Transport Services; they have a workshop in Yaba area of Ebute Metta.

I met him and I said look, there is a job I wanted which deals with pipe fitting but I am not a trained pipe fitter I just needed to be trained since I was I never trained as pipe fitter or on apprenticeship on pipe fitting.

He said to me don’t worry, let’s go-to CMS Bookshop in Lagos and there are books on pipe fitting that have about four volumes, let’s buy it, and by the time you take your time to read each of the volumes more than five times and you will go to our workshop and that is where you will acquire the practical experience.

You still have a month before the interview and you will be a very good pipe fitter. So we went and luckily on the date of interview, those who trained as pipefitter were those who never finished their primary education. So with the knowledge that I could read the drawings they gave to us and implement, I became the best pipe fitter.

But those local pipe fitters who trained under their masters knew that I am only smart and I was made their foreman. I work there for a year before I got the job with British-American Insurance Company. I want to thank God for that.

And because of these happenings to me, I decided that whatever I can make in life, not less than 40percent will go for charity. But my prayer is that no other person should go through the kind of hard-line I went through to stabilize myself in life.

And I thank God that I have been doing that successfully, at times I did more than that. This is because I believe that whatever material wealth you acquire when you leave too much wealth and property behind, it could be a source of problem for your children.

When you leave too much wealth, property for them to be shared, they will not concentrate on their own personal development, because they have nothing to worry about how they live their lives because something is there.

That informed my decision to devote a reasonable percentage of my wealth to the needy who will appreciate and who I strongly believe that God will continue to bless me because I am doing that and I thank God for that today.

I left British-American Insurance Company and met a great gentleman who is the current Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd). I met him when I was in the insurance business and I insured him and his family, I met him as a second lieutenant. He was at various times in Ikeja Cantonment, in Epe Barracks, in Owode Idi Iroko Cantonment before coming to Ojo Military Cantonment.

And while in service, there was this crisis between civilians and soldiers in Epe and the same thing I think happened in the Southsouth geo-political zone and they were trying to move the soldiers in Epe to somewhere else and move those in the Southsouth to another location.

Along the line, they were to build houses for the soldiers in Ojo and Gen Magashir been a good friend of mine, recommended me to build some of the houses for the Nigerian Army. That was when things were done rightly. Because I paid the proceeds of that business into my salary account, quickly the bank alerted them that there is a strange lodgment in the salary account of your manager in Ikeja and my company got worried.

They brought in internal auditors to check the branch and they found nothing missing; they brought external auditors to check again, nothing missing and they called me to an interview.

They asked: where is the source of my additional income, I told them one of my brothers was doing construction with the Army in Ojo Cantonment, Lagos and he has not opened an account but he got the cheque and brought it for me and that is the cheque I paid into my salary account.

They said fine but, to them, they felt there is a divided interest because then I remained the best manager in Nigeria operations of the company consecutively for three years and they didn’t want me to start going down in my performance.

They now transferred me to Kano branch and gave me a promotion and I discussed with my friends what happened and they told me, look, if you move to Kano, one, you won’t be able to look after your mother that you have to, that she was getting old and while in Kano you will lose contacts of the business that has opened to you.

‘Think of it, if you work and retire in the British-American Insurance Company, what will be your severance package and how much will you be taking as a pension? Don’t go to Kano, it will displace a lot of things in your life, resign your appointment and concentrate in your business’.

I prayed over it and I have confidence that I won’t regret the action, I resigned but there was a lot of pressure on me to come back, and my employer was not ready to accept my resignation. But I personally moved to meet my then immediate boss to please accept the resignation in good fate.

There is a gentleman who was then the director of finance, a very straight forward, nice person and he asked for me to come and see him and I went and he asked why I must resign and I made it clear to him.

You are the one sending auditors to come and check the accounts of the branch and luckily nothing missing and that I just need time to concentrate on something else and that was how I left the British American Insurance on the 21st of January 1977 and I did not regret doing that up till today.

My major concentration in life is how do I fully develop my children, how do I give back to society, and how do I live a peaceful life. I don’t compete with anybody, I compete with myself. In my effort to serve, I have attempted to be governor of Lagos State thrice but failed.

Failing an election is not the end of life. Whenever I fail, I consider that there are factors responsible for failure in election. One, elections are won not by the ballot alone, there are other factors responsible. In my little way, I intend to serve and if I miss service to my people at that level, I must support whoever is there and give whatever plans I have, my thinking, my blueprint, how I feel Lagos could be better and develop to the person in office as governor and that is what I have been doing.

And there is always that need to create more confidence and peace to the man who is in charge because the more relaxed he is, the more untroubled you allow him, the better for him to think and provide a better service to the people and that is why out of my way, most of the time, I ensure I go to the media, talk of achievements of the government in power and always appeal to the citizenry to support and pray for his success and I am happy it has happened several times.

When Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was there as governor, I always pray and give him my advice not on the pages of newspapers, at times I wrote letters to him because good advice is not meant to be displayed in the public, chastising him but you can have an opportunity to meet and discuss issues in your mind with him that could be beneficial to the state.

That I have done for long. One of the governors that served Lagos very well apart from Asiwaju is Babatunde Raji Fashola, (SAN). He is very meticulous, has eyes for details and he does a lot of a good job for Lagos State. During his eight years tenure, he had landmark projects that are of immense benefits to the public of Lagos and I am happy for him.

Next is our man from Epe, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and probably because of his background, age, he refused to listen to advice most of the time and that is why it is very painful that he is a governor from Epe that did not have a second time like others before him.

And that will teach those who believe once they have power, they can ignore the source of power and there is no way you ignore your source of energy that you can survive. It is very painful, Epe lost in the power game and we are not too comfortable there.

Go to Epe today, all the roads that will lead you to Epe are not passable, they are in terrible shape. In fact, between Ibeju and Epe, the road has completely failed that at times vehicles get stuck there, trailers get stuck there, you spend between two and four hours.

Those are the gains that we have but none the less he has tried his best and I will always pray God to guide him in all his future endeavours.

Such is life and the people of Epe will have to move on. Today at 74, I am a little confident that as a human being, I have come, saw and I have conquered, it’s a successful life, is a success story because I have been able to train most of my children.

Today I am a happy person, I am very happy and what remains and interest me is what are the contributions that I can make to be listed as one of the leaders of Epe. More importantly, I hold the traditional title of Balogun General of Epe.

What are the duties of Balogun? I have stated that in a book that was launched to mark my 70th birthday. In time past they fought wars and expanded territories for their communities but today there are no communal wars to fight but we must still be relevant to attract development to our area.

And that is why I am equally committed to politics and to the government in power, to be supportive and they can use that to attract positive development to our areas. I became Balogun General when something happened 25 years ago.

There was an Oba from Agbowa Ikosi, A.K. Hassan, he was so passionate and committed to the development of his people. He has always seen me as an instrument of peace because when I was the chairman of Epe Local Government Area in 1994, I played my role.

I built a housing estate, I empowered farmers and he saw me as a partner in progress. He was doing his 70th birthday and the Obas in Epe Division were there and he pleaded with the chairman of Obas in the Division that this Balogun of Epe should not be Balogun of Epe alone but Balogun General of Epe Division because he has been working hard on the line of development for the entire communities in Epe Division and we should not restrict him.

And behold before he finished his statement everybody there, all the Obas agreed and there and then they asked me to come forward for the installation ceremony of the Balogun General of Epe Division.

I know it is a lot of challenges but it has placed me in a position that whenever there is disagreement in any part of the Division I moved down on my own, invite all the stakeholders on the issue and we have always been resolving it amicably. I remember vividly in 1994 when there was to be a land tussle between some communities in Epe.

My attention was drawn to it and even the Oba called me saying Balogun, your people are not happy with each other and for them not to be fighting over land, you must intervene. An elder of one of the communities, Alugbin, I called him and others and I set up a committee within one week to address the issue and we resolved it. I made it clear to them; you met the land; your great grandfather came and met the land; you too will live and leave the land so why must you fight each other over it?

You know the natural boundary and the river but because your predecessors were very strong they took over their neighbour’s land, that does not mean you should not revert to the natural boundary to have lasting peace. You have been fighting over this land, you took over this property illegally 20 years ago, leave it for them.

As if I was talking with special powers, they left the land for them and today harmony and peace reign supreme in that area.

These are the duties left for whoever is the Balogun to do because you don’t wage that physical war again, you advise the government, your communities, you attract projects and industries to your area if you can and that has been my special duties in the last 30 years and I thank God for giving me the blessings and wisdom to do it creditably and doing this much.

 

To me, as a Muslim and even Christians too, believe that you are entitled to only 70 years and any additional years after that is a blessing, a grace and an extension. And how do you use this extended opportunity and that is the time you are more committed to quality life so that you can leave the world better than you met it because none of us humans can escape death.

We come empty-handed and leave in biological sequence so my advice to people is according to a Yoruba proverb, if there are elders in a community, that community should not know problem or crisis because elders should be able to see it and do the right it to resolve. So elders should be committed to peace, development, the core values of family and ensure that they question the source of sudden wealth.

It is now you don’t ask people the source of their money. I remember over 30 years ago, a member of a family in Epe left and they didn’t see him for about 20 years.

He came back with a lot of money and he wanted to develop family land, he said he wanted to build a house for the entire family to live and the family met and said look this is our son, he stole somebody’s money and was sentenced one year, went to prison but shame didn’t allow him to return home after serving his jail term and went away for 20 years.

He came back and had plans to develop a family house, a two-storey building and give a flat to members of the family and his people were saying no, we don’t want because we don’t know the source of your wealth. He cannot do that but rather he should go and buy his land elsewhere, develop it for himself and his children not for the family because we don’t know the source of your income.

Those are the values that will make a family great, a community great and a nation great. But somebody will because of an opportunity in government steal billions of naira that he may not even need and may not be able to finish in his lifetime, and people will be clapping for him instead of telling him that it is wrong to do that.

That is the only way to fight corruption when we go back to the core values of the way we should live, respect each other and that is why again, we should embrace Community Policing. It is only through that we can reduce banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities because all the communities will know each other and the State Police is also there.

They will know who is who and if any outsider comes to commit a crime in any given community, he will easily be identified and arrested. We must develop the community, the family, the towns and villages so that migrating from rural areas to urban centres every day will reduce since people are willing to stay where they have a job to do within their community and in peace for that matter.

Life is about being born, seeing life and leave life better than you meant it. That is the only thing that they can remember you for and that is why I want after my passage in this world, for some people to openly declare that he made me. Yesterday, I was happy to the point that I almost shed tears.

I met somebody who I was talking to and after ten minutes, he said sir, do you remember me, I said yes, I used to see this face. He said you don’t, he said when the Lagos State University (LASU) was established, I was in the second set of students and you took me physically to LASU, Ojo, I got admitted, you paid my school fees throughout the time.

Now, I am a PhD holder and I am teaching at the University of Ibadan. He only decided to come to Epe to see me and thank me for all I have done to him. I told him, I didn’t train you to come and see me, I trained you so that you can train others. Now that you are this much of what you are telling me, take somebody and used your resources to lift up that person educationally.

Get him admitted into a university, train him to be what you are or close to what you are, that is, multiply my effort and I will be too happy. But what I will plead with you is go back, you too should go and train somebody.

And I remember, I didn’t publish names, I have given scholarship to over 1000 students who have finished their university education and graduated. Today I am appealing to all of them, don’t come back to me and say you want to give anything back to me, ensure you equally pick somebody to assist and that person you have assisted will in the future assist someone else and they will know the value of the assistance.

They will know that they wouldn’t have been where they are if somebody had not assisted them and that is the way you give back to the society by picking the needy and assist him. Those are the things that make me happy and I thank God for that.  (The Nation)