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OPC leader, Gani Adams on life at 44

‘I am grateful to God for keeping me alive’

+ Why I am participating in the ongoing Confab

ON Thursday, May 1, 2014, Otunba Gani Adams, the National Co-ordinator of Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), celebrated 44.  The event held at Sheba Event Centre, Ikeja, Lagos, and it was well attended.

ENCOMIUM Weekly took the Arigidi Akoko, Ondo born activist up on this, especially why his birthday has become an annual carnival and much more, including national issues, when we visited him in his Palm Groove, Lagos office on Thursday, May 8, 2014.

DSC_0104On May 1, 2014, you celebrated 44.  How does it feel clocking that age despite all you went through?

First, I give thanks to Almighty God for giving me the grace to clock 40 because any Nigerian that knows my history and followed the trend of things concerning my life should be happy with me that I am now 44.  I started facing governments on account of my ability to fight for justice in this country since I was 28.  And in the process, I faced a lot of troubles and impediments on my way.  But God helped me scale through.  For me clocking 44, I must be grateful to God.  I must give thanks to all my well wishers and my followers.  Also, I must give thanks to our ancestors and the media.  Sincerely, it’s a grace that I am still alive.

How would you describe the celebration?

It’s the best birthday party I ever had.  Although, we had a lot of activities for my 40th birthday, we celebrated it in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, South Africa and later in Ghana, apart from the one in Nigeria.  This year’s birthday was just a seven-day event.  We started with chieftaincy title by the Igbo traditional rulers.  All the Obas in Igboland conferred on me the title of Eze Iyingbo, meaning the friend of the Igbo.  The following day, we went to motherless babies home where we gave them some items, that is in Palm Groove, Lagos.  The third day, the Ikorodu chapter of Oodua People’s Congress held a party for me at Ita Oluwo, Ikorodu, Lagos.  They did that so that they can give outsiders a chance to also be part of the programme.  The party was very big with not less than 8,000 people in attendance.  It was a lavish bash for me and all my followers.  On Wednesday, there was a football match. They played the finals of Otunba Gani Adams Cup.  Then, on Thursday, May 1, that was the grand finale of the event.  On Friday, May 2, 2014, we went to the mosque for thanksgiving, that was Festac Central Mosque, Festac, Lagos.  Equally, on Sunday, we went to the Holy Michael Church of the Lord for thanksgiving as well.  So, this year’s birthday was one of the best, if not the best.  What you also witnessed that day was planned for 10 days.  It was made possible because of the structure we had on ground.

I must also give thanks to all the people that identified with me because the notice was so short.  And the reason was that I have been very busy.  I am a delegate at the ongoing National Confab and at the same time, on April 4, 2014, we organized Wealth Festival (Odun Aje).  So, most of our resources were spent on that festival before the birthday.  The festival was for 21 days.  We had its grand finale on April 24, 2014.  So, between that period and May 1, that was the time we prepared for the grand finale of my 44th birthday.  So, I have to give glory to God.  And I was so happy that everything was successful.

Why do you celebrate birthday elaborately every year, especially when it’s not a landmark age?

That’s the question some of my people asked me. I think that is what my guardian angels want because the beginning of my birthday celebration was when I was 30.  That was the time the former Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro was the Lagos State Commissioner of Police who declared me wanted. I was somewhere hiding.  The leadership of our organization made a proposal that they must organize birthday party for me in absentia.  And they organized it in Mapo Hall, Ibadan, Oyo State.  It was a very lavish bash.  They brought my cake to me where I was hiding. They also brought food for me which I ate satisfactorily.  Since then, I have never missed my birthday.  In 2006, I was in detention because I was opposed to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term ambition.  I was in detention when they organized my birthday party in my house.  Also, right inside the prison, they still celebrated it for me.  We had about 3,000 inmates and they all ate satisfactorily.  That shows you how God Himself made my birthday celebration an annual event.  It’s God’s design, and since then I never missed any of my birthday celebration.  People always rally round me if at all I don’t want to make it elaborate.  Even my organization is usually not left out in giving me her maximum support.

But the impression in some quarters is that you’re doing it to rake in money from the public.  What’s your reaction to this?

That’s not true.  Unfortunately, I don’t make money from my birthday, I always spend my money.  Even though, they give me money on that day, I will finish spending it before leaving the venue. I will give you a very good example. Some people gave me almost N1.2m at the venue on May 1, 2014, but I can tell you authoritatively I spent the whole money in that same place. I left the venue with just N5,000.  And it happens like that every year.  So, I don’t celebrate my birthday because of money.  How much can the people give me because I am celebrating birthday?  You can see the gift Nigeria’s First Lady sent to me that day.  It was a card, not money.  It was presented openly.  If I want to organize a fund raiser, I know how I can do it but I am not used to it.  Even now I am writing another book, I have decided not to include the monetary aspect of it when launching it.  If I can be running about 25 programmes in a year without including my fund raising, is it in a birthday party that I will be doing such a thing?  If you invite people for a book launch, hardly will they donate up to N5m.  And out of the N5m, you may not go home with N1m.  The rest will be promise, promise and promise.  Some will even give you bounced cheques.  When we launched my book, Leadership Challenge in 2007, we raised about N15m.  The cash we realized there wasn’t up to N1.2m, the cheques we got at the venue amounted to about N5m but most of them bounced. At the end of it all, out of the N15m, the only amount realized wasn’t up to N2.8m.  It almost caused a problem between me and the publisher of the book.  That was when I made up my mind that I will no longer get myself involved in anything like fund raising again because people will help you calculate the money as they mention the amounts as they may not know most of them are fake.  But left to me, if I pledge any amount at any function, I always make sure I redeem it.

DSC_0101One thing I am sure of is that I won’t go beyond my limit.  I normally pledge my support at movie premiere, and I will write the amount somewhere so that I won’t forget.  And when I am okay, I pay whatever I pledged.  But some Nigerians won’t give you anything again after leaving the venue.  And left to me, I don’t have the time to be pursuing people up and down.  So far you don’t redeem your pledge, I won’t call and ask you about it again.  I believe it’s just a promise, I didn’t work for it.  So, there is no reason for me to be disturbing anybody because of that.  Even the government of Lagos State promised us N5m when Bola Tinubu was the governor, the money was not paid till date.  That was at the book launch in 2007.  And when I told his successor, I was told to write a letter. I now said to myself that since the man had left office, I don’t need to give him any stress again.  That’s how we forgot it.  It was the then Commissioner for Home Affairs that represented Lagos State government that day.  Also, the incumbent governor pledged N1m, he didn’t pay the money.  Since then, I have stopped organizing fund raising.  If I want to do anything, I always get myself prepared. But if people now contribute, I will see it as a gift.  I won’t ask people to donate anything.  Even in my wife’s organization, OASIS, I always tell her not to invite me to their event for fund raising because I have a name to protect.   I always advise her that we should plan anything we want to do based on the available resources.

Let’s talk on national issues.  You are a delegate at the ongoing National Confab, do you see it working the way things are going?

The thing is that the outcome of the committees is giving us sleepless nights.  We thought we agitated for a change but unfortunately, some of the reports coming from the committees are saying the status quo remains.  A good example is devolution of power.  We said 66 items in the exclusive list are too much, and we opined they should be reduced to about 35 or 40. But in their report a couple of days ago, they just removed only five remaining 61 in the list.  And out of 50 something per cent of sharing the resources to the federal, they just removed 8 or 10.  Now, from the recommendation, I don’t see any tangible thing that can change.

What of security aspect of your deliberation?

In terms of security, we said power will be devolved from the federal to the state.  We proposed region, the committee said it doesn’t want region, it wants the states to be federating units.  The committee now said the states shouldn’t have their own police.  I am one of the members of the National Security Committee, the sub-committee under the national security of police also said they don’t want state police.  Although, the committee I belong that’s also a sub-committee which I am the vice chairman, is a national crisis management committee on national security.  They didn’t give us the task to bring a proposal about the state police issue.  But I have made up my mind that if we don’t have the state police, I won’t sign the committee’s report because there is no way power will be devolved to the states and they won’t have their own police: Even, in the restructuring, the restructuring committee members also said they don’t want it.  There is no way they will devolve power to the states that Yoruba will have unity.  And it will be extremely difficult to get unity if we don’t get regionalism from the conference.  It will be difficult to have regional integration.  The All Progressives Congress (APC), as a party bought the idea of regional integration but not all the governors that co-operated with the party leadership on that.  The party called every governor to donate just N50m to the pool to have a common project but most of the governors didn’t heed the call, not to talk of having one opposition out of the six governors in the region.

So, until we have a structure of region that we can co-ordinate ourselves, we can’t co-rdinate a very viable agricultural programme.  Go to Ekiti, there is a very fertile land but Ekiti doesn’t have enough resources to go into serious mechanized farming. But Lagos and Ondo States have the resources to fund the project.  If Ekiti and Ondo States are given the opportunity to embark on mechanized farming, I am sure the products from that can feed about half of the population of this country.  And prices of food stuffs and other agricultural products will be reduced.  DSC_0085Before now, Nigeria was the fourth largest producer of cocoa in the whole world but now Cote d’Ivoire has taken over.  We’re also the largest producer of kolanut but now the situation is not the same again.  Also, we’re once one of the largest producers of coffee in the whole world but now there is nothing like coffee again, and the land is there.  All we need is just to inject some money in agriculture and tap all the abandoned potential resources we have, then we employ some of our youths that are jobless, that have turned to area boys.  We now concentrate on getting allocation from the Federal Government, paying salaries and using the little amount of the money to run projects.  So, without region, there is no way we can co-ordinate and tap our agricultural potentials.  For instance, the Cocoa Research Centre, the International Tropical Agricultural Research Centre in Ibadan, Oyo State is dying, and we’re not doing anything about this.  And Lagos, Ondo and even Ogun States have the resources to bring back the glory of agriculture to the region but they are not doing anything about it.

Also, all the cow, rams that we eat in this country are not from the South-South, South-East or South-West, they are all from the North, at least about 90 per cent.  Even goats, at least, about 95 per cent of the goats we eat are from the North.  Lagos as a state doesn’t have land, it is acquiring land in Ogun, Osun, Oyo and even in the North to plant rice.  There is a place in Ekiti called Ilumoba, the land is very good for rice.  Also, there is a place in Ogun State which is also good for rice cultivation.  So, the way things are going, most of the agenda we brought to the national conference as Yoruba race won’t be achieved if our governors don’t coordinate us very well.  If there is no unity within the Yoruba, if the Yoruba leaders who are not part of the conference do not sit with us, we can’t get what we want.  The South-South want resource control, already the devolution of power has availed them 50 per cent on onshore, and there is a lot of oil in Lagos in offshore, but they said they agreed with them that the offshore should be Federal Government property.  And we have large oil deposit in our offshore in Lagos that is even more than what they have in the Niger Delta.  Definitely, the offshore in Lagos will be given to the federal but it’s the only the offshore in Ondo State that will be given to Ondo.  Now, are we losing or winning?  So, definitely, I am highly concerned about the outcome of the conference.

DSC_0001Some said you as a person shouldn’t have participated in the confab, what’s your reaction to this?

Being a delegate in the ongoing confab has made a lot of impact, especially within the Yoruba because I know the role I had played.  Even in the aspect of mobilizing people to the Yoruba caucus.  I have mobilized more than 15 per cent of the delegates to join us in the Yoruba group.

Are they not Yoruba?

No, they are.  But they didn’t come to the confab on the platform of Yoruba, they came through different organizations, and my input can’t be underrated in making sure most of these people are drawn to our side.  If I am not part of the delegates, how would I have the opportunity of explaining all these things to you?  We have some respected people among us who’re human right activists, and they are also Yoruba but they said they don’t believe in Yoruba agenda.  They said it openly.  I was even surprised when the former governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba canvassed strongly for Yoruba agenda.  We’re also surprised to see a delegate from Lagos State canvassing that the power should devolve to the state, not region because he doesn’t believe in parliamentary or regional government.  Now, how do you give power to the states without giving them their own police?  How do you give power to states that you’re giving them less than 40 per cent of the resources?  So, that has been my stand.

– TADE ASIFAT

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