Mr Adediran also spoke about how he would have engaged the Okada riders in the state.
The PDP governorship candidate in Lagos State, Olajide ‘Jandor’ Adediran, recently sat down with PREMIUM TIMES’ journalists to discuss his emergence as the party’s candidate, his ‘Breath of Fresh Air’ campaign, and his strategy to end the APC ‘dynasty’ in the state.
PT: Having recently joined the party, formally, this year, were you surprised you won the primaries?
Jandor: Well, I will say no. No, in the sense that the PDP, unlike where we are coming from, is a democratic party. PDP is a party where, if you sell yourself very well and the members of the party see in you the can-do ability, if the members of the party see in you what they are looking for, which is the winning spirit, they will always be queuing behind such a candidate or aspirant.
So, we were not surprised. Because we had an occasion where somebody who just joined the party clinched the party ticket because of the belief they had in that person.
PT: Lagos has been governed by a party you have been part of until recently. How confident are you that you will be able to wrestle power from them?
Jandor: A game of this nature has to do with numbers and if you go back and look at the election cycle in the state of Lagos, you will observe that Lagos PDP has always been doing between 30 to 35 per cent in every election year.
This means that you want to say, perhaps, that is the strength of the party thus far. Even though this political party has been winning elections in some areas, at the end of the day, who is declared is what INEC upholds.
But what we represent is that the required 20-35 per cent for them to cross the threshold, is what we have brought from the APC to join the PDP. So, this means that the implosion in the PDP, which is now being credited, which the PDP has gained, will assist us now as a party, in crossing that threshold.
So, for us to believe that this is our year, we have never been this hopeful as a party, that we can win that election and then we have been seeing what’s been playing out even from the other camp since the day we found ourselves taking the ticket of the party.
It’s been like a war of sorts, but we are ready for the battle.
PT: You left the APC because you were largely opposed to the way things are run there. Has it been different in the PDP?
Jandor: Okay, there is a lot of difference because PDP is a party where you have, of course, different tendencies. People believe that when you go into poll, they also have their own person. And because it is a democratic party, there is bound to be a tussle, to be issues in the preliminary year before the election, while the party primary is ongoing.
Unlike APC where one person blows a whistle, everybody follows. We can’t but have such in places where it is allowed for you to compete. And you have something to manage thereafter, but in the APC, somebody just says ‘you are going, you are not, you are sitting down, you are not.’
And everybody feels it is okay because of what it is. But PDP, because you know that you can throw your hat into the ring and win, so, the competition becomes tense because everybody believes that they can get it.
But again, that is something for us to manage immediately after the election because there is no how three people would compete without having upsets, so we manage it.
The difference is that one is a total democratic party and the other one is just one person deciding what happens. For some people, the ticket has been taken away from them and you won’t be able to do anything. We don’t have that in the PDP. Somebody wants to prove a point, somebody wants to say – truly I’m the one who is qualified, who can do it.
PT: How have you been able to unite the other aspirants and will you be picking a running mate from there?
Jandor: There was really no issue on my emergence, as a matter of fact. But, I still went around to see contenders that contested the election with me and those that even withdrew before the election. We met, we discussed and forged ahead.
There are other positions like House of Rep and House of Assembly. Of course, because of the numbers, that position is bound to be (managing) all of this because we are managing all of them and we are always there.
We have eight months until the election. Trust me, we would have resolved all of these before going to the elections. So, they are normal – if you see all of these, but how we can do this is the issue.
So what I did, immediately after my emergence, was to set up a reconciliation committee. And this committee has been going everywhere to meet with people, to see how they can resolve issues and speak to them about believing and trusting the larger picture, which is winning the state for Lagos, where everybody will come into play. So, people are buying into that now because they understand that it is only where when we win that all of us can be happy as a party. So, we are doing that.
This reconciliation committee, I think so far, they have done about six local governments and are still working and we have seen positive results from the committee and we are ready to consolidate on that.
PT: Will you be picking your running mate from the aspirants? We also learnt that Funke Akindele has been listed, is it your decision or the party’s?
Jandor: It’s just like when I got to Abuja and they said to me that in Lagos there are five people that came for the screening and I said perhaps I want to have one per division, we have five divisions in Lagos.
But that’s not the issue, I can only have one deputy governor and I will only pick one and when I pick one, everybody will see and I will announce it publicly. Yes, there are a lot of people out there who have expressed interest and some of them did posters and all of that but at the end of the day, I will be the one to announce who my deputy governor will be. It is my right; it is my constitutional right to decide who my running mate will be.
We are consulting, we are talking to all parties, stakeholders and leaders, and we are on it. So, the moment we are done, we will announce.
PT: Lagosians, just like in other states in Nigeria, always want an indigene of the state to be elected. There are insinuations that you are from Yewa in Ogun, but that you claim to be from Badagry. Where are you from?
Jandor: This is a new version, Yewa is the new one. We have heard several, some have said Ibadan, and a lot of people have said Kwara. The one that said Kwara was because Saraki came in here but they have not mentioned Edo and all of that.
I’m from that part of Lagos where you can’t even lie about it because we are not many in that community. It is a riverine community of my both parents.
PT: What’s the name of the community?
Jandor: It’s in Ojo local government. Irewe and Isagira. Isagira is for my mom and Irewe is for my father. But again, this is politics. We started Lagos4Lagos years back, and one of the things that Lagos4Lagos probably stands for is to see how we can galvanise the true Lagosians and say let us wake up.
Not that we have anything against non-Lagosians. We are saying, let us come together on our own and see how we can wake ourselves in our state and be part of what is happening. And it is the season, where you see attacks flying all around.
And there is a saying that when you want to know whether your mother has gone to do one shoki (adultery) somewhere, join politics.
As far as that is concerned, it doesn’t hold water. They have tried it over and over again. It is not selling. Why is it not selling? It is because everybody can trace their source.
PT: Some online publications claim you are worth between $5m to $20m?
Jandor: I don’t understand but if those that put that figure can help me arrange the money and bring it to me, that would be lovely.
PT: Can you tell us your net worth?
Jandor: I don’t even know what that means, all I know is that I file my tax
PT: What is your core business?
Jandor: I’m a media consultant and I also have other interests in procurement companies, of installation in the areas of crude lift and all that. I have a license for crude lift.
PT: If you were elected tomorrow, what would be your first assignment?
Jandor: The first thing I want to do is change the face of governance in the state of Lagos by having tech-driven young Lagosians take positions of authority in the state of Lagos. Those that are in tune with the 21st-century innovations.
PT: This government is also doing something similar to that.
Jandor: You see, you don’t understand. If you say that they are doing something like that, how come we have a government of the day saying that he has issued a permit for a building for 15 floors and the same government, somebody who is number two, the deputy governor, come in at the same time to say no what we gave was a 21-storey permit.
And only for the true state of that to surface on the internet and contradicted the position of the deputy governor. Or how do you reconcile the fact that the governor who came in 2020 made a pronouncement at a press conference to say I’m banning Okada in February 2020.
The same governor forgot that he had banned Okada in February 2020 (and) he came to ban it in 2022 and you are telling me this face of governance doesn’t need total change. As I said, they have been there for over two decades recycling themselves.
READ ASLO: Lagos 2023: PDP guber candidate, Jandor, picks Funke Akindele as running mate
We need a breath of fresh air, that is what we are speaking to. These guys are tired, let them just go and do something else. I’m 44 and might have a deputy governor that might not be above my age.
So, we can begin to look at how to bring this much-desired breath of fresh air to the state of Lagos. So that’s what I’m saying.
How do you reconcile that? The governor has forgotten that he banned Okada in 2020, and the attorney-general of the state has forgotten. The SSG, that one that is sitting with his friend’s children in the cabinet in charge of the environment has forgotten that they have banned it and had to ban it again.
PT: Do you agree with the Okada ban or do you have a better alternative?
Jandor: No, you know we are not talking about whether the ban was ok or not. You have failed in enforcing the law. You have failed in carrying out your responsibility as the government of the day. So a solution is to come and tell us again that you are banning so that all of us will say you are banning. It doesn’t work that way.
Yes, of course. Everybody knows the menace of Okada riders in the state of Lagos but of course, yes, if they have been on the wrong side, what you need to do is to find a way of reprimanding where you want to do a total ban. You can as well do a total ban but don’t forget, these people are in your economy, and that is a source of income for them.
In the process of trying to do a total ban, what other options have you for them? because you just throw them to go and eat us up in the economy. They have an association. You have a union that’s been collecting money from them, have you, through the association, called all of them to say you know what, give me your data. Or let me have your data. How many of you are doing this? What can we do with that?
Again? We’ve had opportunities in the state of Lagos to sanitise this sector of our economy. But we blew it up because of greed on the part of some people who think they are the owner of Lagos.
What was the opportunity? All of us were aware when Opay came into our economy and Gokada. These guys came into our economy on their own. So, as a serious government, what you need to do, the moment you have seen that and you want to find a way of sanitising that sector of the economy, something has happened.
What would I have done differently? I would have called both of them. Opay, Gokada, I will say, gentlemen, you are here. Welcome. I’m going to license you.
You can even licence two or three. So the license I’m giving you is for you to operate what we call Okada in the state of Lagos.
And by doing so, you will now give them no-go areas. This area you must not go. This is the capacity of the bike I need you to have. This is where I’m restricting you. But I’m giving you that business to do.
So, these guys will be the ones that will employ whoever gets the Okada job either with their bike or their bike. And they would have done their due diligence. All the aliens you want to sieve off your road, they would have assisted you in doing that.
Because what you have said to them is that look if I found any Gokada on Third Mainland bridge or the Ikorodu road I will not run after that person, I’ll come after your license.
You will see that they will put a tracker on their bike, the moment it is climbing the Third Mainland bridge, it will stop working. They will do all sorts to make sure.
So, you can then do all that to restrict them to wherever you want to restrict them. You will clean up your city centre. And by doing so, even where they are operating, you will see a saner Okada riding people and all that. It doesn’t take rocket science for you to do that.
You know what that will do for you. That again would have succeeded in migrating the people in that sector from informal to formal.
Because they are now in the employment of the business that you have licensed you will be able to take tax from them in the name of Pay As You Earn. That they have not been paying before. And that is even more money for the government.
What did he do? We sent them away. He simply sent them away. It doesn’t make any business sense. It was an opportunity for him to sanitise that sector. But he threw it up. But again, what do you expect?
They are tired.
PT: So, if you become the governor, would you revisit the Okada ban?
Jandor: You see, there is a law in place if I take an oath of office as the governor of Lagos State today. What that means is that I’m upholding the law of the state of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
If I then have a sector or section of the economy approaching me as governor, asking me to reverse whatever, we will look at it together and say okay, let’s do what will pay us. Because I also don’t want you out of business. I want you to be in business.
I don’t want you to be a security threat. We include them. We are running a government that will treat Lagosians to that wealthy status that we talk about.
And it has to be tech-driven. We will include everybody. There will be an accountable representation. Those are the things that we will sit together to do. You will not just come and wake up and say to hell with everybody. You can’t say to hell with everybody. They will create a nuisance.
PT: As a young entrepreneur, you established CoreTV. There are allegations by former workers of the company that they were underpaid and denied their pension. How true are the allegations?
Jandor: There is nothing like that in my establishment. Nothing like that. Don’t forget, we have started playing politics. I don’t know the definition of being underpaid.
All I know is we now have a pension scheme that informs money taken from your salary as your contribution from the organisation and the money being paid to your account through your RSA.
I don’t know about denying somebody a pension if we have that one. CoreTv has been around for 10 years. So, nobody is pensionable yet. And no pension requires an employer to pay you off when you are going. Because, now, what you have is a contributory pension.
You can see when people come up with that. There is nothing in it. And when you used the word underpaid, thank God, we are both in the media business, I’m sure you are being overpaid in your own PREMIUM TIMES.
Because I don’t really understand, and let me say this – when I started my career, I worked for one year at Lagos Television, here. I worked every day Sunday to Sunday, back to back without a salary for one year. I was a young reporter living with my parents and I was enjoying what I was doing.
I was coming from my home. I had somebody who used to live around my axis. I would have finished my job by 6-7 pm. That person will stay back to read the news at 9 pm. So, I will wait for that person to give me a lift going home and he will drop me at the bus stop and I will cross to the other side.
So, on the day I will miss that person I will sleep in the office. I did that for one year.
PT: In Lagos State, one of the problems that we face is access to official information. Be it official records or interviewing officials. As someone who has been in the media, can you give us your word that if you become the governor, things will change?
Jandor: We can only have that situation if you have something to hide. There is an FOI bill that has been passed into law but it is not in operation in Lagos State. I’m aware.
Now, why do we need to go hiding if there is nothing to hide? However, because we took an oath of secrecy, an oath of allegiance, we will not be allowed to give some classified information, as a government person.
Now, you might not get that from the governor even if that government is Jesus Christ. Because there is some information that is capable of bringing down the entire state, which is considered classic information. FOI might not even bring that for you. But I’m saying that we will run a transparent government, we will run an accountable representation that will make people see.
You don’t even need to ask. For instance, what happened in Lekki and Ikoyi tollgates before people now said – we don’t want you to take tolls anymore? That was because, in the process of birthing that project, you didn’t involve the people.
Why are the people of Lekki now writing letters? If they had been part of the whole thing and there is an agreement that we are going to build this road and it is going to last for this number of years and there is that trust, I don’t think anybody will write anything.
They will just wait until the expiration of that tenure and see that what we have agreed on has expired and now, this thing should be free.
If it was BOT, they would say these people have built and operated, and let them transfer. If it is PPP, they will say this is the lifespan of the PPP, each of the sides brought to the table.
If they are part of it, nobody will come against it and say why? If they are trying to behave funny, all you need to do is flash the agreement that you have with them. But because we have a government that likes to do everything in secrecy because somebody has an interest, this is the result that you will get at the end of the day.
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before Mr Adediran announced his running mate.