O’dua Peoples’ Congress leader, Gani Adams is sure one of the many Nigerians hoping for a successful 2015 general elections. The convener of Coalition of Concerned Nigerians held a town hall meeting for stake holders of the elections on Tuesday 24th March, where he formally declared his support for President Goodluck Jonathan. Otunba Adams, also denied being involved in any acts of violence while slamming the APC for spreading negative stories about the OPC and CCN. Sahara Weekly spoke with him after the event which had enjoyed huge presence of top Nollywood stars such as Racheal Oniga, Yemi Black and Olumide Bakare. Excerpts…
Sir, is it true that you have ceded your support to President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in the 2015 elections?
Well, if you say so then you are right but, it is not just me. It is a new NGO I have founded called the Coalition of Concerned of Nigerians, CCN, built based on people of like minds who want to move this country forward. The CCN has decided to support President Goodluck Jonathan but, we are not saying because we support him then; we are an enemy of other candidates or Political parties. We watched carefully before we made our choice and if you observe, about 23 other parties have endorsed President Jonathan.
The reason we held this event, is to formally declare our support for President Jonathan and also correct the negative impression that came from the rally we held on Monday, 16th of March. Most of the information that the APC (All Progressives Congress) has released concerning that rally is all fallacy. You cannot win an election based on fallacy or propaganda. I believe they have wasted their resources concentrating on the CCN protest rather than engaging in meaningful campaign.
The whole of the media was awash with so many negative stories all through last week. Why are they doing that? We did not campaign against Tinubu (Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu) or APC. Why are they protecting the wrong doing of Jega (INEC Chairman)? In 2011, when he did the right thing, we all commended him so; now that he is doing the wrong thing, we have to correct him.
Why would Jega want to deny 19 per cent- which is 12 Million people-the right to vote? That means certain signal is coming. I just want to appeal to people not to allow Jega provoke them. Let us accept the fate but, let Jega’s actions be recorded in history of Nigerian elections.
There have been several allegations that some persons have hired some of your boys in the OPC to cause trouble during the elections. What is your reaction to this?
The OPC has witnessed elections in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011; and we did not disrupt the elections so why should we do it now? We have been funding our organisation before the elections and you will in fact realize that we organize noting less than 25 programmes in a year- who has been funding those programmes? Why should they start insinuating that we have collected money now? Just because of our believe to support President Jonathan?
Well, I am not surprised; if the APC can allege that some of our royal fathers like Ooni of Ife, Alafin of Oyo and Awujale of Ijebu land have collected 250 Thousand Dollars each to support the President then, who can’t they accuse? You cannot state downgrading our royal institutions in the name of politics. Politics will go and Yoruba land will remain!
We are not going to involve in any act of violence. They were reporting the issue of tearing posters and bill board destruction-do they have any prove? And even if they do, we challenge them to take it to the police and let them investigate. The pictures they circulated over the internet is from an event held by Dr. Fredrick Fasheun and his boys on 4th of December, 2011. So, I am appealing to them to concentrate on how to win the heart of the electorate rather than destroy the character of anybody who declares support for President Jonathan.
There have also been allegations that you got a contract of N9Billion from President Jonathan. Is it true?
What I know is that the President gave us a contract to protect oil pipelines and the analysis of it is that Nigeria loses about N1.3 Trillion to pipeline vandalism every year. Now, we have 6 zones involved in the deal- 3 in the South-West and the other 3 in the South-South. Out of the 3 in the South-West; Dr. Fredrick Fasheun has one, I have one and one other guy from Ondo has one.
The entire money they will send for us to protect the pipeline in these 6 zones is not up to N4 Billion. As a matter of fact, we have just signed the contract; we have not been paid a dime.