Chief Ayiri Emami, a businessman, philanthropist and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Delta state, in an interview with Pulse.ng, speaks on why Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari and why some party leaders from South-South and South-East were absent at the unveiling of running mate, Kashim Shettima.
The Asiwaju Bola Tinubu ticket, how sellable is it in the South-south where you come from?
Well, to some of us, he is good to go. When a product is good, you don’t need a lot of advertisement to sell it. Asiwaju is a very good product and in Delta state, I don’t see any difference in other parts of Nigeria, if Asiwaju can get it in other parts, he can equally get it in the South South because he is a very good product to market on his own. It is easier for us to sell Asiwaju than some other persons that you will struggle and struggle to sell in the South-south. Asiwaju is a household name in the South-south. In my state, he is part of my state. To me, I will tell you that Asiwaju is from Delta state because in Itsekiri, they will tell you that the in-law is the third family member. So, after my father, mother, brother, the other person is in-law. Itsekiri or people from Delta don’t disenfranchise their in-law. Asiwaju equally has the same right as I do to partake in anything, to be part of any meeting and have his own fair share in anything. I can boldly tell you Asiwaju is from Delta state. Being that he is from Delta, Asiwaju is from South-south.
Do you think South-East people will prefer Asiwaju to Okowa who is a son of the soil?
I don’t know what you mean by our son, I have told you that Asiwaju too is from the region by any means you see it. Okowa is vying for the Vice President while Asiwaju is going for president, so, you can compare.
For instance, if they are to pair the two who do you think will win?
If they are to go for real election and we have to be fair, it is Asiwaju.
At the recent unveiling of Shettima as the Vice-Presidential candidate of APC, some key members from the South-South and South-East were absent, is that not a sign of a crack in the party?
Even me, I was not there, because to us, Shettima has been unveiled before then by Asiwaju himself. So, I was sleeping at home that day, when they called me. What did I need to go and do there? So, I don’t see any political undertone in that. We have been told that it is Shettima and we have been talking. Everybody has congratulated him and working towards Shettima. The unveiling was just a ceremonial thing. I assumed other leaders not in attendance were very tired and couldn’t attend. So, it is not an issue for me.
Don’t you think issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket will be a minus for Asiwaju in the South-south?
Some of us even supported the candidacy of Shettima. We advised Asiwaju to go and look for good person that will give you support, whether Muslim or anything. Religion has not brought anything to our table. For example, Niger Delta Development Commission is an agency that is supposed to be taking care of the Niger Delta and so much money has come into the NDDC but the people monitoring those affairs are all Christians, no Muslim. Go and see whether you will see any development. Governors running those region are all Christians. So, if Asiwaju has a partner that will make him succeed, will give us protection, good roads, good schools, I don’t care because not everybody are even Christians. How many people are even Christians in the South South? This Christianity of a thing, if a man wakes up in the morning and he doesn’t even love his neighbour and he goes up to the pulpit to preach, I know a lot of them, who don’t have the fear of God because things they do are not what is being written in the Bible. For example, you arranged us to go and rig an election, you rig the election and you go and do thanksgiving. I won’t come to Church that day because it means you don’t have the fear of God. So, whatever that can work for us, that is what we need at this time and Shettima is going to be a very good pair with Asiwaju. I know some people who are Christians, who will donate huge money in the church, built schools but members of that your church cannot attend the schools. In my house, my wife is a Deaconess, I used to tell her, I said look, if Asiwaju pick Muslim, that is who we are going to vote for. To me, I have very little and I am very grateful to God. I share the little with people but those that are preaching are not doing so. When it comes to politics, they are complaining of Muslim-Muslim ticket. To some of us, a lot of majority of people that are going to vote don’t understand what they are saying about Muslim-Muslim ticket. What we are saying at the moment is Asiwaju for transformation. We are not seeing the religion aspect of it because to some of us, the Vice President is a Christian under Buhari, what is the difference. Some Christians because of politics will go to the North to go and turban, if you know you forbid something so much, don’t even go to their palace to turban. Why are you going there, don’t you know it is a different faith?
South-South is a stronghold of the PDP. How would you sell Tinubu there?
To me, I will not hide my feeling about the current government. As much as people have different feeling or perception about Buhari, some of us could bring very good votes for Buhari from my state on the table despite the way APC rewarded those that worked. Their reward system is very poor but to some of us, we know that Asiwaju, if you look at his pedigree and people around him, you will know that he is a good product to sell. Even when we have a difficult product, we still moved in and we still sold him and people bought him. So, the way people are defecting from APC, people are moving massively into APC, I don’t want to mention names. Somebody moved from PDP to APC for a purpose, somebody is also moving out of APC to another party for another mission but when he is moving out, did he tell you he will not support Asiwaju? So someone asked me, why did I not move to another party, I asked him too why did you move to APC. So, these movements and a lot of people don’t have ideology and belief. In Nigerian politics, a lot of them move with their stomach. So, I call them stomach infrastructure politicians. Someone like me, I have been in opposition in my state for almost 7 going to 8 years, I don’t care, I don’t go close to the Government House, despite all my associates, my friends are in that state. But you will see some people, they will tell you we are APC in federal, we are PDP in Delta state and they will even benefit more than us. But in Asiwaju’s government, I don’t think such thing will happen. If you want to work, you work for APC so that this ideology will remain. Like one of my mentors and late boss will say that why he decided to retire from politics was because his political party didn’t follow ideology, people just cross carpet from one political party to another just to contest. Some people just believe that since Asiwaju is contesting, this is their government, and wherever they are, they leave their comfort zone and come, no. No matter how difficult it is, I have told myself, I don’t pray APC lose national elections, I will just quit the game and go and face my business. That is me for you. I believe in anything I am doing, look at the justification before taking any action. I am well known from home on that character. It is very difficult to see people like that. When you see people with no character transiting from one end to another, it is not an issue. If they are defecting, everybody has their reasons and purpose and if this place does not suit them, they go to another place, some people will want to be guided to see that their objectives can be achieved there. I told my people, one of the problems in Delta is to ensure that the ports in Warri are working, some of us thought that Buhari was going to fix it, the shores in our place is actually being affected by the ocean. The gas project that the foundation was laid by Jonathan, some of us thought that Buhari will complete it. The Warri refinery, our belief was that with Buhari, it is going to be fixed and a lot of money have been budgeted for these projects. I don’t want to give him 100 percent blame on this issue but knowing Asiwaju and his antecedent in Lagos and seeing Nigeria as a bigger picture and we want more money into Nigeria and not Lagos. There are various investments that Asiwaju is going to create so that money will come into Nigeria and there is no way you want to design that that Warri is going to be out of it, Port-Harcourt will be out of it, Bayelsa will be out of it, Calabar will be out of it, because it is going to be a bigger picture. He will want to attract more investors because he is a business-like person and he is a politician. So, they are two different ball games. With the little he has, there is no difference between Lagos, Warri and Port-Harcourt. With these three cities, you look at what will be coming into Nigeria. That will not make us forget what Buhari promised but because of the trouble that happened, when Buhari got into government, they were breaking pipes, because Jonathan lost. They were aiding and abetting those people that were doing those things as an avenger and as at that time, it affected the economy so much and was part of what frustrated the government and it was very sad. That was in 2015, so, what we were supposed to produce came down because every part of the Niger Delta was being affected by the vandals because we lost an election and some of us came out to say, look you are saying they will abandon Niger Delta and the way they are raising this Muslim-Muslim ticket and we told them we had six years and we couldn’t see one significant thing on ground. We were in support of Buhari to fight that. For like two years, everything was stagnant. After that, we got into an election year, before you know it, Covid-19 came, oil price went down. So, Buhari on his own too was being frustrated by our people. But as it is today, a lot of people are seeing the reality. The APC, Buhari did not come and kill anybody the way they thought that Buhari was going to Islamise Nigeria and all of that. The essence of this Muslim-Muslim ticket is this insurgent in the North. In the Niger Delta, yes, we must agitate but my own way of agitation is different from yours. Don’t burst the pipe, if they agree with what we want to start so that the Federal Government will not say they are budgeting money to do repairs. People are facing the reality now and if Asiwaju comes on board, he is going to be the brand new face of that and that is what affected APC hugely. The Niger Delta avenger as at when Buhari assumed office, if he has to believe and start killing people, you know what people will say. For those supporting the Boko Haram then, I tell people once they finished with the churches they will go to the mosques because if you support them, one day you will be in the mosque and they will come. In our own region, when Niger Delta was experiencing kidnapping of white men, some of us were going against it, so when there were no whitemen to kidnap, they started kidnapping their own people. But some people were supporting them then because of political reasons. So, most of the problems we have is caused by politicians, not religion. So, I know if Asiwaju assumes office and promises I am going to fix all these things, the Ports, the roads, schools, etc. If the Ports are working, you can see what they will generate around those areas. There are lots of lands along the coast from Warri to Escravos where you can have various fabrications. I know with Asiwaju, he will say whatever you want to do, come and do it in Nigeria. I have looked at his profile, I have a good relationship with him for a very long time. He is not just somebody you can go and lie to, he will ask somebody to go and check and verify if it’s true. So, he is somebody who understands in and out of Nigeria as it is today. So, what we want is somebody that will transform Nigeria.