Q: They said you stepped down ahead of today’s governorship primary?
Yes. That is true because we are getting to a precarious situation and we are trying as much as possible to avoid primary. We are three; Senator Ayo Adeseun; Seyi Makinde and myself. But the leaders of our party came to meet me in my house to talk to me and I said okay no problem.
And the three of us later met and held a meeting but Seyi and Adeseun are hellbent on their ambition.
Q: What informed the meeting and can we know the outcome?
We were thinking we could agree just on one person so that we could save the money we would have spent on primary and direct it to the general election. Because we are not in government, we will use our individual money to fund the election; we need to conserve our funds and plan for the election proper. Delegates are expecting the money. So if we can avoid primary, the money that the three of us could have used for it, would have been saved for the election. And we think we should agree on consensus, then pull resources together to fund the election proper. The three of us can fund the election.
Q: So that position made you to step down for a consensus arrangement?
I decided to make the sacrifice. Among the three of us, the PDP is my baby. Others just came and I don’t want us to lose the baby. That’s why I made the sacrifice. The sacrifice has been recognised in Abuja and they have written letter to me to congratulate me because I had already made the draft for the gubernatorial nomination form but they returned it.
Q: Hopefully, the people will appreciate your sacrifice in return… (Cuts in)
The elders have done so well because we set up an Elders committee and I have been made a member as a mark of honour because they didn’t expect I could make such great sacrifice.
Q: So what do you foresee in the primary?
There is no way the outcome won’t affect the party because we don’t have that person that can control it; a person who can whip any aggrieved into the line. We don’t have anybody that can provide that leadership. It is unfortunate that their ambition becloud them. I just pray it ends well. We will see.
