I Have More To Say, Fayose Shouldn’t Force Me To Spill All –aluko - Politics

Former Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State, Dr. Tope Aluko, in this interview with ADEOLA BALOGUN and GBENRO ADEOYE, says his life is in God’s hands

Did you give what you are doing a thought and consider the risks?

Yes, I did but you will find out that it’s better for you to add value to your community to make people feel better and it will make you feel better too. Jesus was only 33 years only and he was known all over the world. What I’m saying in essence is that getting into this is more of purging myself (of these things), more of restitution, more of saying I’m sorry to Ekiti people and more of saying that I want Ekiti vehicle to move forward properly.

But isn’t it because of your self interest that you are coming out now as you didn’t get what you wanted?

You are talking about 20 months ago and saying that I’m reacting now. No, what about House of Representatives election? That one is about eight months ago? But what I’m saying is that it’s about moving forward and not about the past. It is about the future and I’m saying that we need to get the past corrected.

You said you have known Governor Fayose for 41 years. Can you describe the relationship you have had with him?

It was very cordial; I saw him like a big brother. He was at Orita Challenge and I was at Felele, which were close to each other in Ibadan. We were family friends; we used to call ourselves the Ekiti people in Diaspora. We were young and he was a smart brother, always adventurous, so some of us wanted to follow him. We always found fun in whatever he was doing. We grew up together. During his first tenure, I was the Chairman, Government Advisory Committee, like a chief adviser. When he was about to be removed from office, I was one of those that were still with him till the last day. In fact, after he left, they came for me in the church. I was arrested and before that time, they had arrested like five others. Some spent three years, some four years. I spent six months in detention and we were not convicted at the end of the day.

What really happened between you two if you have known each other for 41 years?

One remote thing I can think of is between the two of us, known only to us. I have decided not to talk about that. But the other one is that while we were doing the Ekiti project, he was derailing gradually and he was using the Peoples Democratic Party platform to feed his returnees from Labour Party and that was not good. People started complaining to me. We were telling him, but he was not okay with it. He started seeing me like a rebel. He had already betrayed Femi Bamishile (former Ekiti House of Assembly Speaker), so I was on the lookout for him. Later he betrayed me. But I still felt that Ekiti and the party were bigger than all of us and that if we could manage him, he would only spend four years and go. That any move we wanted to make with the Ekiti project could then be made. So I was willing to be patient for him to step aside but it got to a level that even the leaders and stakeholders in the PDP started complaining; they were disgruntled and disenchanted.

With the disclosure, do you believe that you could still continue in politics or have you decided to retire?

Why? I am still in politics.

People are saying it is a betrayal of trust and that if you could do this to a close friend, why should they trust you?

You still don’t understand it. I am not the one betraying him; he is the one that has betrayed us. He is the one that has betrayed so many of us. He did that to Adamu Mu’azu; Senator Iyiola Omisore; Senator Teslim Folarin; Goke Olatunji. At a stage, it was he and Folarin who were forming the South West executive council and when it was Folarin’s time to contest for governorship primaries, Fayose started backing Christopher Alao-Akala. From Akala, he moved to Seyi Makinde. He betrayed Mu’azu also.

Why were you supporting him if you knew all of these?

Because I had trust and I believed in what we had used to bind ourselves together-God. He said that if he should betray me, all the terrible things in the Bible should come on his head. He said it.

But people are saying this action of yours would hurt your chances in politics. Don’t you think so?

Why? Because I told the truth?

Is it telling the truth or being hired to tell the ‘truth’?

By who? By the people I sent out of office in this manner? Do you think they will like me? Do you think so? It is Fayose that has pushed me into a corner. He used me to fight those people and then dumped me, so what will I do than to purge myself of this, apologise to Ekiti people, sit down and allow people without evil intentions to come near me? If you are saying that because of this, you cannot relate with me, then it means you have evil intentions and want to do something illegal.

Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to Fayose, Lere Olayinka, and the governor have insisted that you were sacked from the University of Ado Ekiti, but you are claiming that you were not sacked and that you are a pensioner. What should we believe?

I’m a pensioner and I have the letter of acceptance that followed my resignation letter with me. I was paid gratuity. Two years ago, I participated in a verification exercise. I ‘m still a pensioner and I have collected pension for January.

But Olayinka said that nobody in Ekiti State has been paid pension for January, that the last one was collected in October 2015.

He is a misinformed person; you can cross check from anybody in UNAD. Later, they were querying the school’s Vice Chancellor to find out where he got the money to pay us from. He said it was from a special fund. Will I be lying? Call any professor there; don’t just call anybody.

We hear it was Prof. Kolawole who eased you out of the school.

Prof. Kolawole was the VC when I was going for election. You are talking about 2011, I left 2010. We did primaries before general elections.

It was also said that you were involved in admission racketeering.

What is admission racketeering?

It was said that it was what gave you so much money and power.

I’ve worked in the banking industry, in financing, I have petrol stations, and I was into wood business. How would I be a lecturer of Business Administration and not be able to manage one or two businesses? Even lecturers in Arts will still do consultancy, write text books and do other things. So once you are a lecturer, it means you are above average. And you will not be like other people; you must also have a means of augmenting your income.

Are you saying you were not into admission racketeering?

Why should I be? Why?

What about allegations that you were a prominent cultist, even as a lecturer?

What is the meaning of a cultist?

We hear that you were a Capo and even more powerful than the VC of the school and that you were eased out of the system because of that.

You are giving me three, four, five reasons why I was eased out and I am telling you that I was not eased out. I moved on to do other things. If you check the date of my resignation, my giving three months notice, my eventual exit and when we had the primaries, you should be able to know now. Do your investigation. I told you that I contested in the general elections. If I had all of these things in my records, wouldn’t the opposition have used them against me? And remember that we were not in power at the time; it was Fayemi that was the governor at the time.

You have not told us if you were a cultist or not because you have only been trying to explain.

And I asked a basic question, and then the other thing is that I am bold. If you are bold, people will say things like that. People will look at me saying things to governor Fayose and say it is because I belong to a particular cult. No, it is because I have this innermost respect for myself and I can look you in the eye and tell you the truth. So if you are asking if I was a cultist, I was not. If you are also asking if I was the most powerful person in the university then, I would tell you that in terms of hierarchy, the VC was the most powerful. In terms of administration, the Registrar was the most powerful. Even I had a Dean and when you look at all these things, you will just be wondering and mind you, there were other things I was doing when I was in school. And there are other things I am doing now. I must be able to practise my profession. So nobody can come and say he made so much money because he was selling certificates. Am I still selling certificates now after seven years that I left the school?

Fayose said you have a lust for money. Is that true?

What about him? Don’t let me open a can of worms here because I have records of the people that donated to us and I know how much was expended and how much he kept. We did not touch any of his money because we thought we were working for the positions of deputy governor and chief of staff. He was the one that was taking everything away so he should not allow us to go into that. I have invested over seven years in this venture. Bamishile sold his house in Ghana and put the money in this venture. I know so many things I put up for sale to go into this venture, so if he is saying that, I will open another can of worms. An average Nigerian will hear me talking again and say you should not have said that. They should have cautioned him not to say what he is saying now. That is why I said he should stop it or I will further spill the beans. He should stop it now or else I will talk.

Are you saying he didn’t spend his own money for the election?

He had issues with the EFCC so don’t let me tell you the story of how the funding of that project started. I can mention names and sources that are not too ‘okay’. But I don’t want to go into that because they helped us at that time. I should not go into that but he should stop upsetting people. How much have I got from him? I have been using my money. He recovered his money while he was governorship candidate. We have records. So he should not allow us to go into that and so he should stop that.

Olayinka said you are not a family person. What was Olayinka trying to say?

They should ask them what they have done to my family. They should ask Governor Fayose what he has done to my family. That is the other side I described as personal and I don’t want to go into it. Ask him, as a big brother to me, what he had done to my family.

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