By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Akeem Agbaje, a notable lawyer and Ibadan politician, is a grandson of the popular Agbajelola Salami of the old, the wealthiest man in Ibadan during his time, who was unlettered but became the first to do free education, as gathered. Son of Yekini Agbaje, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Akeem Agbaje is a Hope ’23 seeking office as APC Governorship Aspirant to govern Oyo State come 2023. He spoke with The DEFENDER in his Ibadan office, recently. Excerpts:
Let me start by letting you tell about you by yourself. Who is Akeem Agbaje?
My name is Akeem Agbaje. I’m a legal practitioner, an indigene of Oyo State from Salami Agbaje Compound, Ayeye in Ibadan.
Is it the because of the confidence of being an Ibadan son that is propelling you and making you belief that you can actually rule Oyo State?
It is a very sensitive issue, to be honest with you, because one must have a sense of belonging and sense of achievement that there is opportunity for him to be a governor, irrespective of where he is coming from.
Now, let me say that it is not where you come from, which determines your capacity to govern. There are a lot of other factors.
Realistically or general perception is that, it has to be an Ibadan person. If it is a benefit for me, I won’t run away from it. But it is not the reason why I want to be governor.
“Our problem is lack of consequences for action, people do things nothing happens to them.”
Ibadan used to be the largest commercial centre in Africa. What new thing will you do add value to both the city as capital and Oyo State in general, if you become governor?
Ibadan has always been the third largest, but for me it is not about being the largest. It is about how our people are benefiting from government. It is not about size, it is the impact you are making into the life of your people.
Look at Singapore, it is a city state. It is not particularly bigger than London, but today it is one of the top economies of the world. They have improved the lifestyle of their people, and that is why their people are enjoying the benefits of what their leaders have been able to do.
So, our focus as governor of Oyo State will not be on the size but on the quality of life that the people are living.
You belong to APC, a party that won election in 2015 and lost in 2019 in Oyo State. What did you see, from your own investigation, that worked for the party in 2015, that worked against it in 2019 and that would be worked upon inorder not to repeat the same mistake of 2019 in 2023?
The fact of our own political attitude is that, we don’t vote based on party in politics but we vote based on individuals.
Political success in Oyo State, to the best of my recollection, is not about the party we belong to, that is one. Then why am I in APC?
My thoughts, my philosophy, my belief are progressive in nature, which is maximum benefits for people and then you begin to ask yourself; how do I make their life meaningful? That is the question.
Now, we lost in 2019 and there are a number of factors responsible for it. From our past we can only learn one or two things, but we don’t dwell on it. If you dwell on your past, your future becomes endangered.
So, what is the future that I see? I see the future that is full of many opportunities. I see a lot of benefits for our people.
I have said this severally that, the current government in Oyo State lacks the capacity to address any of our problems. It does not even have the ability to understand what the problems are, to know solutions to those problems, not to talk of even to implement the solutions.
Like I told you we have sophisticated voting attitude here. People can say, “We don’t want you” and you are out. So it is not about the past so much. It is all about the realities of today, and the realities of today are that APC stands in a very strong position to take over government of Oyo State in 2023.
Akeem Agbaje.
Leadership is so polarized in Oyo APC, which is a pointer to danger ahead. So, what are you doing as a political family to correct this?
The polarisation you are referring to, one, is normal in politics. The risk is that, if you become too intense, too divisive like we have in 2019, then, it does not all go well for us. But with the situation that we have at hand now, we need to unite the party, that is in process, we are making tremendous progress about it and everybody in the party knows that only APC can rescue government from PDP, Peoples Democratic Party in Oyo State.
For me, what is most important is the unity of the party. It is only when the party is united that anybody that has ambition can even begin to dream of actualising that ambition.
Barrister, you are a successful lawyer, but what I have not seen is whether you are a SAN, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and if you are not, why are you not yet considering what you have out into the profession and the legal community in Nigeria?
I am not a SAN
As a lawyer, you know what rule of law means and you know exactly what rule of law should be. Government of the day at the Federal level, what would you say about its claim of rule of law, when you remove the toga of APC that you wear and speak like a patriotic Nigerian?
Let’s start with the government of today, we have had instances of excessive abitrariness, but predominantly, the government have observed the rules. This is the only government that opposition party will win election and the President would say, “I’m not interested, I am not going to rig for anybody.” This is the only government that you will see them going to court when they have issues with some states.
Nothing is perfect when we are still evolving democracy. The democracy we like to compare ourselves with are hundreds of years old, but when they were at our stage of development, they didn’t observe as much rule of law as we are observing now.
Go and check, when did slavery end in America, when did discrimination end there? Go to France, even in the colonial times, when they were colonizing us, which is less than a hundred years old, how much of the rule of law did they observe? So, it is an evolving thing.
When you experience disregard for the rule law, you will feel very bad. It is not that one is encouraging a situation, where government is selective in observance of the rule of law. No, but, we also have to be realistic and know that we are an evolving democracy, and things are better under this Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Federal Government than they were under the previous administrations.
We are a cosmopolitan society, but we have a situation where we are told a particular tribe is the problem of the rest. What exactly would you say, from your experience, is the problem of Nigeria?
The general problem for me is greed. Everybody wants to own everything. We like to look at the national picture, but, if we look at each local picture, you will still see the same thing we are complaining about at the national level happening at the local.
Here in Oyo State, people believe that Ibadan wants to dominate everything, so, until we have a different mindset, that look is collective, everyone must have a sense of belonging.
If you don’t tackle the local one and you try for convenience to tackle the national one, whereas people at your local level already feel excluded, they feel deprived and we know all of that, and we are happy to say it is happening at the national level.
So, I am likely to look at things from a bigger picture, so they might say one ethnic group is dominating everybody, but if you go to different states, you will see resemblance of that.
Particularly in Oyo State, some people believe Ibadan is too dominant. Of course, Ibadan people would not say they are dominating everybody. Until, as a nation we have a sense of fairness, a sense of unity, this problem will persist.
You talk about lack of effective local government administration as one of the problems, so what comment would you like to make in a government that doesn’t recognize power for local administration, that believes in sacking local government cabinet at will?
The legal system has tried to give direction that they lack power to do it, but because this thing will become impunity also, the sense of “I can do whatever I like because I’m a governor or we are in government.”
But if they transfer the penal consequences of such abuse of power on the individual, then they will be more conscious.
You sack local government officials, in a situation where they were elected, in a situation where local government are barely struggling to have a revenue, but because of your irresponsible action, it will cost this local government billions of naira to pay people what they did not do.
Whoever is the governor, in any state, knows that the consequence will be visited upon him. If they make it an impeachable offence, he will be more careful, because what he or she that is the governor has done, is to remove elected local government officials, which he does not have powers to do.
But the moment they understand that there are consequences that are likely to be visited on them, and came make their impeachment happen, just as they have made the salaries of those suspended or removed officials to be payable in arrears. Whoever does that must refund even his own salaries too in arrears.
Our problem is lack of consequences for action, people do things nothing happens to them.
What exactly is the pedigree that is putting you on line?
Pedigree is a very good thing to have, in fact, it is a plus anywhere. The most important thing is what value are you bringing to the table? what is your experience? What can you do?
I come from one of the foremost families in Ibadan by any definition, the Agbaje Salami family. But what we are taught is that, we need to protect the name. It is not yours.
The man did very well for Ibadan and we are duty-bound to emulate what he did. He had a lot of resources to do that. It is not like I have, but the same values I think I have imbibed them and it is an incumbent upon me to serve like he did.
Agbajelola Salami, in his time, was the wealthiest man in the town. He was the first to start free education in the whole of Western Nigeria. His son was the first doctor of Ibadan origin. His son was the first lawyer of Ibadan origin. His son was the first Supreme Court Justice of Ibadan origin. So, there is a pedigree that is there. He was renowned to have valued education.
He rose as high as the Balogun of Ibadan at that time, with all sense of humility, it was a very rich pedigree that has stood the test of time.
Was he a lawyer?
No, he didn’t have education. This was a man that was born in 18 something and died in 1953.
What did he tell you, that really made you interested in politics?
I never met him. Like I said, he died in 1953, I’m a grandchild.
It is easy to flaunt pedigree, but how many people with good pedigree have measured up to the legacy they are linking to? Not many people.
What is the name of your immediate father who was son to Agbajelola Salami?
His name is Yekini Agbaje. He was a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
You know some people will like to know if their governor to-be is a youth or an elderly person. Are you a youth or an adult?
Just like pedigree, I have seen states where their governors are young but they didn’t deliver. Youth is good, it suggests that you have energy or you have ambition to do better than the elderly people.
But the way our youths flaunt lifestyle today, sometimes it makes me scared. And if you look at most of the South-South governors, even some in the North, they are always relatively young.
But you see youth has not been a shining light for us, you know it is all about lifestyle, lifestyle. Youth is good, it is a plus, in terms of when you look around, you see people that have high opportunities or position.
Even look at ordinary local government, it is young people that are mostly local government chairmen. You can barely point to what they have achieved. We can blame the overbearing influence of the state on them.
But when you look at their life style, the issue of overbearing influence of the state becomes doubtful. You see a local government chairman owning houses, shopping malls, petrol stations and you wonder where the money has come from.
Our youth basically need orientation reorientation because they are too dominated by lifestyle. That is the unfortunate part of today’s generation of the youth.
Papa Obafemi Awolowo would qualify for a youth. When he was a premier of Western Region, he was not 50 and he had legacies that we are all still trying to meet today.
How old was Sir Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister of Nigeria? How old was Sardauna Ahmadu Bello as Premier of Northern Region, and almost 60 years after, we are still trying today to measure up to what they achieved that time.
