By Sunday Ani
Former acting National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Charles Akitoye in this interview speaks on the outcome of the 2023 general election and challenges the party is facing in Lagos State, among other issues.
What do you make of the eight years of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari?
To me, Buhari’s administration was one that had its good and ugly sides. But I will say the ugly side was more than the good side but we should thank God that he has come and left. History will judge people more than actions and I will pray for Buhari in his retirement to have God’s blessings and live long. He has done whatever he can do. Whatever happened, it is the country that elected him. And it was a trust, especially since everybody thought it was going to be another era of him and Tunde Idiagbon, when there was sanity, discipline and things like that.
But like I always say, government goes, government comes and any government that goes would have laid a foundation for one thing or the other for the new government to build on. To me, Buhari’s regime was a lesson to us and we should learn from it rather than be annoyed or biased about it. It is a lesson to the whole country and we should let it be a teacher for our development.
On May 29, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu took over as president, what do you make of his administration in the last three weeks?
I will start by congratulating the new president; I am happy for him although I am a member of the PDP. I’m a bonafide Isale Eko indigene where he is from, so I’m happy that I have a brother who is now the president of Nigeria. Forget about party leaning, I’m talking about lineage and things like that because I’m a bonafide Isale Eko Lagos boy and he is a Lagos boy, who has done so well for Lagos. I said to some people that he has started very well and maybe this is the messiah God wants to use to improve Nigeria. So, let us wait and see what he intends to do and we should keep on praying that God should strengthen him to continue the good work he has started.
What do you have to say on the issue of subsidy removal, considering what Nigerians are going through?
The subsidy has been a disaster for the country. People like Tinubu and Buhari; the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele; the suspended chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa and former Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, know more than we know. And if Tinubu knows more than we know, he would have justification for making it a principal point in his speech and it is the first action he took. Let us all bear the pain for a while and see if he is going to improve our economy, improve our youths to have jobs and improve us to have sanity.
If you go to America today, they will tell you to move to a corner, so that they will look at your luggage very well. Tinubu may give us better recognition. Nobody said it is going to be easy and nobody said it is going to be painful for too long. So, to me, I don’t want to discuss the subsidy, I agree with him removing it. I think it is one thing Buhari should have done but he agreed to leave it for the incoming administration, let us give the administration time and see what kind of policies it will produce on subsidy removal.
Your party is still in court contesting the outcome of the presidential election, are you hopeful of winning at the court?
Anybody who is in court, especially as an appellant, would be hopeful and the respondent will be praying that God should not allow that hope to be fulfilled. So, let us leave it to the judiciary because it is a very dicey situation both for the country and the judiciary. My only prayer is that the judiciary should be honest enough to do justice and simultaneously ensure that the country is not inflamed because I see whichever way the judgement goes, there is going to be some inflammation. So, let PDP be hopeful and let the All Progressives Congress (APC) be praying that the hope does not come to fulfillment.
PDP governors have started reconciliation to rebuild the party. What really happened to PDP ahead of the 2023 general election?
Pride, misunderstanding, avarice, self-centredness and everything that shouldn’t be in a party that has a constitution and the consequence is what you are seeing today.
Do you see the governors as a force that can actually reunite the party?
To me, I will go traditional. In Yoruba culture, a wife may go away, marry another man, have children there but still come back to the first husband and have more children after reconciliation. So, let us see what this suggested reconciliation will bring about. It is a matter of time and the reconciliation to some people is temporarily tied to the outcome of the case at the tribunal.
Do you support the suggestion by some PDP chieftains that the former governors, who worked against the party should be sanctioned?
I don’t support the idea. I sat with somebody who is more political than me one day and I said that the ex-governors didn’t do well but she said: ‘Dr Akitoye, you are making a mistake because they are politicians. So, it is like Tinubu take your own and let me take my own. It doesn’t mean that they can’t come back to the party. But for political expediency, you take your own and I take my own regardless of the fact that we are in PDP and you are in APC.’ So, what they did was that they played politics. People will call it politricks but the woman told me that they played politics and our politics in Nigeria is still self-centred; my interest first even if I’m going to dine with my enemy to get my interest.
That is the way I see it. Now that they have played politics, they will come back to the party like prodigal sons. But to me, life must continue. My biggest concern is the nation because we are not even a nation yet. My biggest concern is the country. We all should look at Zimbabwe where one million dollars would buy one loaf of bread. Do we want to end up like that? Zimbabwe doesn’t sell oil but we sell oil and we are still importing the same oil.
The government was able to help an individual to set up a refinery but didn’t fix the ones that belong to the government. Let us wait and see and let God give us life but let everybody concerned see the country as number one before self, my village, my relatives and things like that. Maybe, if we have that orientation, we will help the present regime to guide us right.
What measures do you think the new administration should take to build the much talked about unity in Nigeria?
To me, fair play, justice and honesty of purpose. Let this administration be totally inclusive. Everybody cannot be in the cabinet or be advisers, ambassadors but there is a way that we all can work for the progress of Nigeria. And it is not too much for the administration to set up structures that will accommodate everybody inclusive.
How can we solve this unending insecurity across the country?
I don’t mention names and I don’t even recognise names, I discuss issues, somebody once said that the 2014 Constitutional Conference they had during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration is an encyclopedia for this country to move forward. If Jonathan and Buhari didn’t implement it, let this present administration have the courage to implement it. At least, let it be a referendum purpose for the country to read and say we agree or disagree on any chapter or unit of the report. If the country is in pain, honesty will heal the pain.
Fairness will heal it and people are saying for those 30 days or more that these eggheads sat down to prepare this report to progress all the states, the country, to restructure in a way that we will still have unity, let that report be exposed and let the government implement it. It was a government institution that established it, so let Nigerians know about the report. The delegates were paid with Nigeria’s money, so let Nigerians know what they have done, either they went there for pepper soup alone or whether they did good work. For me, I think it is a starting point for addressing insecurity in the country because people who attended the conference have severally asked the government to bring out the report.
What actually happened to PDP Lagos State in the 2023 general election?
There is a saying that you cannot fight the government. General Ibrahim Babangida said ‘I am not only in power, but I am also in government.’ You can’t fight government and APC has been in government for almost 24 years or so in the state. They are entrenched in the issues and they know the nooks and crannies of the politics of Lagos and part of it is the destabilization of your enemy. It is part of politics because if PDP gets there tomorrow, part of what they will do would be to destabilize the opponent, so as to ensure that you entrench yourself.
So, that is what I would say is the problem of PDP in Lagos State. Some people are neither here nor there in both parties. There are important people in APC today, who still relate politically with the PDP, so also in PDP. They say a house divided against itself can never stand.
You recently celebrated your 78th birthday, how do you feel clocking this new age?
I don’t normally celebrate birthdays; I mark them because when my children reminded me that I will be 78, I told them it is a day drawing me nearer to my grave. Every birthday takes you one year near your grave. Even if it is 70 years that God gave us or He is taking you to 80 years or 90 years, every year takes you nearer to your grave. Apart from that, I want to thank God for the beginning of my life to May 29, when I became 78 years. That is two more years to 80 years. After 80 years, you are not totally useful to yourself as such or even to the country. You may give advice and do other things but not to serve in offices especially if you are fable.
But I want to thank God for my parents. They brought us up properly, especially my mother, who was a Margaret Thatcher in our lives. She was a strict disciplinarian and no-nonsense woman. And I keep saying that is part of why her children both the step-children and biological children that she brought up are in good positions and should celebrate God for where they are individually. I got educated very well because my father believes in education. Before he died, he had over 14 other children not born by him not even stepchildren and he was paying their school fees.
He believed that if they succeed tomorrow, they will remember him in their prayers even if they are not feeding him. I worked with the government, I established a business on my own and I eventually joined politics. Along these three things that I have done in my life, I want to thank God for life itself because we Christians and Muslims as well believe that if you are alive, you have hope, especially when you have faith and I want to thank God. I will do a memoir that would be more explanatory about my journey in life. I want to thank God that at 78, I’m still alive although fable but I’m still alert in my brain and I still believe in Yoruba mythology.