Coalition against APC in Lagos’ll fail –Pitan

by Allwell Okpi

In this interview with Allwell Okpi, a former Commissioner for Health in Lagos State, Dr. Leke Pitan, who is eyeing the Lagos All Progressives Congress governorship ticket, comments on Lagos politics, doctors’ strike, among other issues

Recently, the Peoples Democratic Party said it would form a coalition with other parties to wrest power from the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State in the forthcoming February 28, 2015 governorship election. What’s your opinion on this?

Anything is possible. Politics is a game and I can’t tell you that they can’t. They can, but we are not going to fold our arms. In the APC, we are not going to fold our arms. I am that type of a politician who will not underrate or denigrate the opposition. My belief is that in politics we are free, within the law, to use whatever strategies that we want and two, to also deploy whatever strategies we have. If they are talking of coalition it means they have admitted that they can’t do it alone and that is kudos to us. That is a plus, even if psychological.

What it means, therefore, is that we have to ensure that our own household is united and we must also keep reaching out to quickly snatch the potential members that they may want to use for coalition before they get there. We will make ourselves more attractive to those people and we will keep beckoning to those people among them who are like minds with us to come over and join us. We, as a party, must not be complacent and so, the PDP is free to deploy whatever strategies.

We must be ready to counter such strategies all within lawful means. For instance, they are talking about men in black uniform and I have been advising my party in government that they are simply using it as bait for the youths.

They will say, come and line up, we promise you job, to join the task force. So, there is some hope and everybody will just come to line up and since they are hoping to get something out of there. They will necessarily like them to be on their side. We are on the ground here and we will create our own ‘O Yes.’ If they do SURE-P, we will do SURER-P. The devil finds works for idle hands. So, let’s reduce the number of idle hands. It is all part of coalition. It is like pouring rice on the ground and everybody is picking. That is the way I see it. If they can, we too can. That’s my take on that. If anybody says coalition, we are going to do more of a coalition. If we are 70 per cent and you are 30 per cent, before your 30 per cent can become 70 per cent there will be so much to do.

Do you have the financial muscles to slug it out at the poll?

I rely on well-meaning Nigerians, both from what I may consider to be rich to ordinary folk like me and you to also contribute in their various ways. To some, they find it easy to put down cash. To some, they find it easy to put in efforts, which could be more valuable than cash. I can go on and on telling you various possibilities; different things that could happen. It is that collective effort that we must bring to bear this time around and let it tell on the system so that, we can now say, we are part of it. We can now know what to expect.

Are you not intimidated by the practice of ‘godfatherism’ and imposition in your party?

 I don’t feel intimidated by any ‘godfatherism’ for now. I feel and I expect that, there will be a level-playing field. And so far, nobody has been stopped from reaching out to the people. But thank God now, we have got to a stage in the democratic experience or practice that even the issue of party labels are now becoming less important. Rather, it is now the person or candidate that matters.

I can give you so many examples. When Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State left the Alliance for Democracy for the PDP and then the PDP for the Labour Party, the LP was a non-starter there. There was the old AD, the old PDP, the so-called giant party, and without understanding the situation of things, we may be thinking that a party would not be accepted by the people but the masses may be saying otherwise. It is still part of developing democracy.

So, every party ought to be very careful and sit down and properly ensure the emergence of a very appropriate and sellable candidate that it would presents to the public. A party that does any ‘wuru-wuru’ (foul play) internally and arrives at a set answer will have only one day joy, that is the day of the primary, but three months later down the line, there will be problems. And the problem will be a problem that they will live with almost from the first week after the primary; like how do we sell this man?

If you are not careful, before the election day you may have lost, and you will have to bear the loss for the next four years. Why bother to work for one day joy of primary when you know you are going to suffer for four years plus? There is no need and I won’t advise any party to think that way. They must think of what is presentable to the public. The question should be: can he or she sincerely and truly win elections? And so, they must be transparent and expand the contribution of party members in as much as possible.

As a former Health Commissioner, how do you see to the incessant doctors’ strike?

Well, I want to say that, even when I was a medical student I would not want to say that strike was something strange either in the medical profession or other professions, after all, there were strikes led by Pa Imoudu and so on and so forth. Also, we had the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers strike led by Chief Frank Kokori, strikes are not new. I can’t tell you that, as a medical student then, strike never crossed my mind. They have been going on strikes before I entered medical school. They had gone before I became a medical doctor and also when I became a medical doctor. It is not a strange thing.

Be that as it may, it is something unfortunate, something I believe nobody wants as far as I know and neither the doctors nor other health workers want strikes. I can tell you that I know that workers don’t like going on strikes. I have come to understand that going on strikes is usually because government does not move to attend to issues deftly, tactically and promptly that usually leads to it.

When I was in office, I was able to bump into union meetings. I would say that I had superintended or supervised two of the largest sectors of public service, I was commissioner for education and commissioner for health at different times in the administration of our great leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

You should know they are the largest and between the two sectors they carry between 60 and 70 per cent of the entire public service in any government. Throughout, I was able to manage, because anytime I got a hint of what they were doing, I would sit with them, talk to them and we would find a way out.

And together, we would reach a compromise because they had learnt to believe in me as they realised that I meant well for them. Whatever advice I gave, they followed it because they knew I meant well. They didn’t usually see me as belonging to the other side. Usually, they would hold meetings in the night and I would go to them. I could remember when I was in the health ministry. I would meet them at Ayinke House. Even, if there was a threat, we would nip it in the bud.

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