Bayelsa 2019 elections is going to be more complex than before –Ekiyor-Welson

Dr. Konrad Ekiyor-Welson is a university don and Executive Director, Campaign for Development and Democracy in Bayelsa, (CDDB), an NGO fighting for the political emancipation of Bayelsa people. In this interview with our Correspondent, CHRIS EZE in Yenagoa, he says CDDB has raised the bar of political awareness among Bayelsans such that politicians are scared to make any ‘noise’ about their ambitions come 2019.

The Campaign for Development and Democracy in Bayelsa, (CDDB) sounds trite. Reason being that we are already in a democracy for about 18 years and counting. So why the campaign for democracy when we are already in a democracy?
There is a very simple and easy misconception. Nigeria is not yet a democratic country. If you study the tenets of democracy and look at the principles of democracy, you know that Nigeria is very far from democracy.

What Nigeria is having now is a civil rule, you know. So we have moved from the military era to the civil era; we are still in transition. Nigeria is still in transition.

It will get to a point where we can say we are in a democracy. But the truth is this; there is no democracy without development. There is no democracy without development.

Democracy is an outcome of development. What do I mean by development? I am not talking about bridges and schools and hospitals, no.

I am simply talking about the individuals. When an individual is developed, it means the individual has assumed freedom.

Freedom to be whatever he wants to be, freedom to achieve his life goals, freedom to achieve his ambition. That is the essence of society – to give people freedom.

So the freer the society is, the more developed it is. So today, the most developed nations on earth are not America and China. It is those Scandinavian countries where the level of freedom for their citizens is very high.

So for Nigeria, we are still far, really, really far. That is why in spite of the kind of money we make from oil, the kind of money we make from gas, the kind of money we make from agric, Nigeria is still categorised as a poor country.

It is because the level of freedom for an individual to be whatever they want to be, we don’t even have freedom to eat what we want to eat.

A man wakes up in the morning he wants to eat rice, but he can’t eat it because of the level of his poverty.

So we are not in development yet. So what we are doing is to push that process, intellectual process of letting the society know that there is something called development.

It is the kind of society that we will create through our government that will give us the freedom we need to now become democratic.

The after effect and the outcome of lack of development is a fact that Bayelsa people still play the politics of the belly. They are led; they are motivated by their belly.

They don’t work for society, they work for themselves. Another outcome is the fact that the citizens are basically selfish.

They think more of their self interest than the society. So when you give governor money to do work, he thinks of himself, and doesn’t think of the society. It is because he is very, very under developed.

So we are pursuing this because we are telling people that there is something called development, beyond building bridges and building roads, but about government helping you to achieve your life goals.

Every individual has a life goal, and the ability for you to achieve that life goal is a function of freedom. So the more freedom you have, the better you are developed. And once you are developed like that, you can choose your leader.

So how have you been going about this task?
It has not been easy, because it is a new concept. It’s a new idea. So you can imagine how Nigerians resist change, not to talk about Bayelsa resisting change!

It is a herculean task. Even when we meet some of our political friends, when we visit them in our political intercourse; they tell us that this task we have taken upon ourselves, the task is huge.

And we know it is huge because we are changing mindsets; you are changing mentality. You are changing the way people think, and you are giving them a new ideology, a new philosophy to think of society first before they think of themselves.

You know, the message is there. The people are now grappling with it. At the end of the day, we will see the effect of the message. And a people deserve the government they get.

Invariably they deserve the kind of society they get. If Bayelsa wants to remain a primitive society, there is nothing we can do.

But if they want to free themselves and extricate themselves from those primordial tendencies or primitivism, collecting money for you to play politics and all that, there is nothing anybody can do.

They will suffer the consequences. But what we have done now is to take the message to all the nooks and crannies in Bayelsa.

There is hardly any enlightened person now that will say he is not aware of the message of CDDB. It is people first, you understand and the people can create the kind of society they want.

So it’s been mixed bag. On one hand, we see enthusiasm of the people accepting what we are saying.

In each place we go to see traditional rulers, we see young men; they are all enthusiastic about the whole process.

On the other hand, you cannot know the taste of the pudding until you eat it. So our experiment will bring out results in the next election.

You have also been visiting some personalities who may be presenting themselves as aspirants in the next election. What has been your message to them?
The message to them was very outstanding. What we told them was if you depend on an endorsement from somebody out there, in 2019, you will fail.

And if you are depending on your political class to make you what you want to be, you will fail.

The message we are telling you now is that you must reconnect with your people because this time around, the people are being sensitised and the people are being mobilised to have a different style;

to have a different mindset and a different mind game which they are accepting. So if the people are already changing the way they see politics, then you the politicians must also change.

And a few of them are, in fact all of them have accepted our message, that there is need to reconnect with the people and that’s why now nobody has been able to say he wants to be anything because the old system has not presented itself.

There is nobody to endorse anybody in Abuja. This is the first time that an election in Bayelsa State is going to be by the people.

In 1999, Alamieyeseigha was chosen in Abuja, 2003, his second term, was decided in Abuja. In 2007, Jonathan was decided in Abuja, even though he left the ticket and went up to Abuja.

Sylva was decided by Jonathan who had moved to Abuja. 2011, Jonathan decided from Abuja. 2015, he decided PDP ticket to Dickson from Abuja.

This is going to be 2019, there is nobody in Abuja that is going to decide for them. So they now know they need to go to the people. And that is what they must do.

And because of how unpopular they are with the people, they are finding it difficult. That is why you see the lull in activities.

I know that four years ago, Andy Uba, Ifeanyi Uba, Stella Odua all indicated interests to be governor of Anambra State, and the election was held last week. They indicated interest four years ago.

They didn’t wait till one month to the primary, you understand. Look at Bayelsa, it is effectively two years from now that the general election will take place,

and a year, six months or thereabout, for the next set of primaries and a year for you to prepare yourself, because you will use one year to prepare yourself, use another three months to prepare for the primary,

and use another three months to prepare for the general elections, nobody is showing interest, nobody has a group anywhere. Nobody is preparing simply because the politics of 2019 is going to be more complex for them.

The bar has been raised by CDDB. We have raised the bar, we have created a consciousness and we have conscientised our people to raise the bar. So today no illiterate can come and contest election in Bayelsa again.

You must have an ideology, you must have principles, and you must have character. You must have competence because we will not allow any idiot to be imposed on us again.

So it’s been collectively interesting between the political class and us representing the masses.

The interactions have been going well, the interface is going well, they are buying our vision, and they are buying our idea.

Three of them actually asked for our endorsement. Three of them so far we have visited actually asked us to endorse them which we did not commit ourselves to.

Who and who have you visited?
Okay. We started with Turner; A.J. Turner by all standards is one of the most prominent politicians in Bayelsa State.

Even as a traditional ruler?
Even as traditional ruler, he is more of a politician than a traditional ruler. You also know he was a public servant who rose to the position of permanent Secretary before he retired.

While he was in that position, he was very politically active. As a traditional ruler, he is very politically active.

And now as a political leader, he is very, very active. We had this interface with him and it was very exhilarating and very eye opening. We had a very good time with him.

We also met with T.O., one of the political machines. We call him T.O., but his name is Abel Ebifomewei. He was Alamieyeseigha’s cousin who held the politics of this state from 1999 to 2005.

He held it like a colossus. And for you to become anything then, you must see him. He was the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of Bayelsa politics.

We saw him and he indicated interest to want to be the next governor and asked for our endorsement.

Then we saw Igali, Godknows Igali is a very bright mind who also wants to be the governor of this state, but somehow he is yet to set up the necessary structure.

We met him, very intelligent young man, very cerebral and we had a good interaction with him. He is one of the people we are praying will come out and indicate interest.

We also saw a man called Architect Reuben Okoya who is one of the brightest in the land, worked in Abuja for sometime managing the Abuja city.

We met him, and he quite told us that what we were doing was very, very tough. But, we told him that we knew from the beginning it was a very serious task.

He said at the appropriate time, he would decide his political future. So we are meeting them. We saw Warman Ogoriba, those you know are of lesser category. And we keep on going.

We tried to see Timi Alaibe, our letter is with him, and we are expecting that anytime he invites us we will have the courtesy of having a chat with him.
We met the APC chairman in the state, (Joseph) Fafi. A very disciplined and upright man, we had a good time with him.

He likes our idea, he buys the idea. He has said he is even going to set up a committee of we and them to see how we could work for the collective interest of Bayelsans. So we are meeting them.

What has been the major challenge of this campaign?
Ordinarily, if you ask me some persons will think I should say finance. But I have never seen finance as an obstacle anywhere. No. I see money as a messenger. You send money, it goes. You send for money, it comes.

The greatest challenge I face in this our task is to find Bayelsans that are selfless. What we doing is basically pure charity, pure selfless service.

I spend money to do what I am doing. All I need are Bayelsans that are committed.

I bring students together, to see how they can mobilise students for me, they need money, I bring any young man to see how they can work, you know within their category, you know mobilising young men like them, they ask for money.

I go to the elderly and more mature people, I meet people in the middle class, they want money.

Then you want to talk about the elders, a lot of them are unemployed and they are in the political class, but they are not in government, so they are unemployed and for them to buy the vision and work with the vision, they need money.

So the greatest challenge today is to find a Bayelsa man who is going to do charity. People see that the rich in Bayelsa do not do charity.

It is a culture that is alien to our people. Our people have the culture of taking, of grabbing by all means possible. They don’t have the culture of giving and assisting each other.

So my greatest challenge is to find those activists in the rural areas, in the communities at the ward level, at the local government level that will carry this vision whole heartedly.

We are blessed that we have a few, and we are working with that few.

We are believing that as time goes on, because we have a long time to do what we are doing, with what we have to do on radio, what we will do in the media, what to do on ground,

we are hoping that more and more people will identify with our vision selflessly and achieve our purpose.

So in summary, the greatest challenge we have now is to find Bayelsans who are ready to serve Bayelsa.

Those you call altruistic who are ready to work for society than for themselves. That is the greatest challenge.

One other thing we foresee, because we witnessed it in the last election in Bayelsa is vote buying. It featured in Edo, and most recently in Anambra.

So it’s going to be a challenge even if you get a credible person to come and stand for election, peoples’ wish might still be subverted when people begin to buy votes particularly in a state like Bayelsa where salaries are not regularly paid and people are hungry.

It is actually part of an old thinking that vote buying and financial inducement during elections is something that can be abrogated or completely stopped.

But I just discovered that I was wrong and that is the essence of thinking from both sides of your brain.

What I just discovered is done all over the world. Now vote buying takes different forms. I know that for Obama to become the president of America, he had to do a little bit of vote buying but in a different way.

For example, Obama had buses, flooded all campuses, so what did he do, he sent buses to take voters to the venue of the elections, to their polling stations and polling units and they were served coffee, they were served lunch.

That is another form of vote buying. Now it could be that those things were provided for them in kind or they were provided in cash. All I know is from the process of the primaries, monies were spent in America.

For people to go and register with a particular political party you needed money, so for Obama to win nomination in the Democratic Party more people had to register to become members for them to decide against Hilary (Clinton). You understand?

So those people were assisted to register. Then during the caucuses and primaries, people moved from their places to where the caucuses were taking place.

They were assisted financially. Then on the voting day, people who didn’t have transport fares to go and vote, Obama provided fares for them to go and vote. While they were there, Obama provided assistance for them to eat and drink tea, you understand?

And so, the formula now, the ideology and philosophy now is that when you have found the man that has the competence, that has the capacity, that has the capability and has integrity, you can assist the voters to vote for him.

That was what happened in Anambra. Among all the contestants in Anambra, Obiano was the best by all standards. You saw the people that came to contest against him; none of them was living in Anambra except Ezeemo.

Ezeemo has his business in his village. So you had most of them either staying in Lagos or Abuja. Obiano was on ground for four years working with the people, creating relationships with the traditional rulers, with students and co.

So you have a situation where others accused him of paying. So the question now is if it was merely payment, all of them were richer than Obiano.

They are all richer than Obiano. So why didn’t they spend their money? They didn’t want to spend because they felt if they spent, they would lose because they knew they were not popular.

If you are not on ground, you don’t come few months to the election and start making noise like Chidoka. Between the primary and the election, it was less than two months for Chidoka, a PDP man suddenly became a UPP and wanted to win an election. It was impossible.

So the way we are going to design it in Bayelsa is first of all find a man that is competent, a man with the right character, a man with the right capacity both intellectual and physical.

Once we have found that kind of a person, then you assist the voters to bring him into power knowing full well he is coming to serve them. So, you cannot completely eliminate politics of the belly because our people are undeveloped.

Last election in Bayelsa was very violent. And looking at what happened in Anambra, not even one gun- shot was heard. Are there lessons Bayelsans should learn from Anambra?
It will be difficult for Bayelsans to learn that lessons now because of the kind of people that are at the helm of affairs. Dickson is a very violent man; Sylva is a very violent man.

Now you have two major parties in Bayelsa State, you have APC led by Sylva, a very violent man. And PDP led by Dickson, another violent man. And two of them are not democrats.

They are basically some despots and very dictatorial in their ways. So if you look the way APC is in this state, it is controlled by one man, you see the way PDP is, it is controlled by one man.

And when you look at the levels of their intellectual capacity, they have no ideology. So PDP has no ideology in this state, APC has no ideology.

So if you ask a simple question, what is the difference between APC and PDP, it will just be that one is in power, the other one is out of power.

Quote
In 1999, Alamieyeseigha was chosen in Abuja, 2003, his second term, was decided in Abuja. In 2007, Jonathan was decided in Abuja, even though he left the ticket and went up to Abuja. Sylva was decided by Jonathan who had moved to Abuja. 2011, Jonathan decided from Abuja. 2015, he decided PDP ticket to Dickson from Abuja. This is going to be 2019, there is nobody in Abuja that is going to decide for them. So they now know they need to go to the people.

Quote 2
The greatest challenge today is to find a Bayelsa man who is going to do charity. People see that the rich in Bayelsa do not do charity. It is a culture that is alien to our people. Our people have the culture of taking, of grabbing by all means possible. They don’t have the culture of giving and assisting each other. So my greatest challenge is to find those activists in the rural areas, in the communities at the ward level, at the local government level that will carry this vision whole heartedly.