Senator Nicholas Tofowomo is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who represented Ondo South in the 9th Senate, where he served as Deputy Chairman of the Transportation Committee. In this interview with BIYI ADEGOROYE, he speaks about the current state of the economy, outcome of Ondo governorship election and other issues

It’s a few days Christmas. What is the mood of the nation now, especially in view of the economic situation?
The economy is our everything. But because it is there, that is why we are angry. We don’t have to carry placards to show that, but you can see that from our faces. When you go to the market to buy something now and you are short of change, by the time you return in the afternoon, the price has doubled.
The economy is so bad that people are getting hungrier by the day. Look at civil servants taking N73,000 minimum wage. Even some states are paying N85,000, but that can’t buy anything. The other day, we just went to a place in Ondo for lunch. We spent N15,000. Any civil servant that goes there three times in a month is finished. It is so bad, but the issue is this, there is nothing that falls but will not rise. My father used to say that failure is the beginning of success. When you fail, go back to your drawing board and put it together and start getting things right gradually.
For instance, we have 774 local governments. There is one thing that President Tinubu should have done that would change the topography of the country and people would have seen it. Let us put a plantation in every local government to tailor around their resources. Like in Ile Oluji here. Let us have a cocoa plantation, managed by Ile Oluji/Oke Igbo Local Government. It will provide jobs for about 2,000 people. We have a cocoa processing industry here, which will be serviced by the plantation. And they will be exporting.
There is a cocoa plantation in Oda, and the Akure South Local Government can take it over. We can learn from the Chinese. Most Chinese are not government workers, but have private companies that they manage. Look at Supare in Akoko, they are doing granites. In Okitipupa, there is oil palm which can be extended to Ayesan and Araromi Obu so that they will have 20 square miles of palm oil plantation. Remember that Ondo State used to be the largest producer of palm oil before Malaysians visited us in the 1950s. They took the seeds to their country and they are now the largest producer of palm oil, but we are importing palm oil.
Look at rubber. Our raw materials are processed at Araromi Obu and taken abroad to produce tyres which are later imported here to sell. Why can’t Odigbo local government extend rubber plantations and start producing, and the government sets up the tyre industry at Ore? Look at cassava. It can grow anywhere in Ondo State. Today, the Chinese run after cassava pallets. Employment will start increasing.
When I was in the Senate, I passed a bill on the establishment of a seaport in Ondo State, but at the end of the day, because I am a member of the PDP, they played a smart one on me, but it does not bother me. Muhammadu Buhari created a seaport. Instead of him to bring that bill to the Senate along with his idea, and that of the late governor, so that the three of us would sit down and have a meaningful seaport, not a political seaport. We don’t need such.
Ondo State has the largest sea shore in Nigeria- 184 kilometres, that are empty – nothing is happening to it at all. South Africa has 96 seaports, but Nigeria has six, where less than four are functioning. So, these are the things we should do.

From what you are saying it is between political interest and national interest? So where do we go from here?
Yes. But to make a headway, we must take all actions on the basis of national interest. Nigeria needs to develop, and explore its resources. Let us go back and revive our local governments. They are all dead. Look, when I was a commissioner, the governor then, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, asked us to inspect all the local governments. I was sent to Akoko South-East to inspect their activities there. But to my surprise, they didn’t do anything. They had an engineering department that had not even a cutlass. They had an agricultural department and all the stuff, but none of them were working.
When I arrived there, the moment they heard I was around, all the truants started running helter skelter to the office to sign attendance registers, and that was the state of the local governments. Where is their sense of patriotism? So, God has blessed us in Nigeria with mineral resources, and agricultural resources, it is left to us to utilise them for the development of the country.
If you go to Zamfara State, they are mining and frighting gold. Mining is within the exclusive powers of the Federal Government, but to what extent is the government exploring this for national development? Are they being left to criminals despite the presence of NAMA which controls our air space?

If this has been happening and no reports of arrests of perpetrators. What do you think is wrong?
Look, we have to look at our constitution. There are some areas where the local government cannot touch. We have an exclusive legislative list, concurrent legislative list and residual legislative list. That is why we have had a lot of conferences where we advocated that opportunities should be given to the states to function. Let the states take care of their resources, from which they can be paying taxes to the Federal Government. That will save a lot of things and promote development.
In the northern states, they are just waiting for allocation every month. If you go there, you will only see heavy development in the state capitals. But what about other villages? Unemployment is very embarrassing in Nigeria, despite the fact that we have the resources.

That now takes us to the tax reform bills. How do you see them?
You know, when we are talking about tax, my opinion is that someone who is hungry, you want him to be paying tax. It doesn’t work like that. I schooled and worked in England. In England, the government pays unemployment benefits. They give some subvention, to feed their people. In Nigeria, we don’t feed our people. The salary is not enough and you are talking of tax. I am not saying people should not pay tax, but let us have a conference on tax, not this corner talk. Let informed Nigerians of various categories sit down, and have a say. Anyone who is early N100,000, should pay a category of tax, ditto for the ones earning N300,000. All of us should agree.

But the bill says anyone who earns less than N1,000,000 in a year would be exempted. But those bills have now been suspended, whereas it is designed to grow in various states. How do you see it?
If you are earning below N1 Million, if you look at those earning below, you will not be able to get accurate statistics, especially from the North. For instance, if you look at our figures, the population of Kano State is higher than Lagos, which is not correct. If we do a proper census, Lagos is more populous than Kano, but in terms of election, Kano, with 44 local governments has 24 House of Representatives members, the same figure as Lagos. This has made it imperative to have reliable census and meaning data that can guide our planning. Then if you are talking about those earning below N1 million, we should have the statistics. But do we? No.

What do you make of the last election in Ondo State?
Let me tell you one thing. The last election from INEC results, irrespective of whether PDP is happy with it or not, have exposed a lot of things from my party the PDP. What it has exposed is that we were not really prepared for the battle called election in the state.
I said it during the campaign, that from the House of Rep by election in Akoko North-East, North-West, APC didn’t campaign, but PDP did. Former Governor Mimiko moved there, but when the result came out, PDP had 15,000 but APC had 35,000. APC must have adopted a strategy that gave them that election, because these days, nobody rig the election at the polling booths. They have their strategy.

Which is?
I don’t know. They have their strategy.

Vote buying?
You know, vote buying is practiced across all the political parties in Nigeria. It is not peculiar to Ondo State. It was done in Edo State, everywhere in Nigeria. What can eradicate vote buying is a conference on meaningful elections. When you say somebody should campaign around the whole state, how many local governments and wards will he be able to cover?
Recall that during my election into the ninth Senate, I led the election with 28,000 votes. That means I had 82,000 votes. What happened to those votes? Are you saying that those 82,000 people have turned against PDP? Not, it is because notable leaders of the party like me were sidelined during the election.
In my local government, for instance, I don’t know how the campaign committees were constituted. In the senatorial districts, I don’t know how the committees were constituted. The only person that reached out to me was Dr. Eddy Olafeso, because he is my uncle and my leader.

But he has also been accused of not doing enough as the head of the campaign committee in the governorship state?
It is possible, but from my own end, I am talking as Nicholas Tofowomo now, not the mouthpiece of the party. Because, I put some things on the table, and advised that they be done… For instance, when Agboola won the primary election, I congratulated him, but I did not see him until about four months later. Then, when I spoke to the newspapers that I didn’t know who would win the elections, he ran to me, and we held a meeting here.
I told him ‘You are the candidate of my party; can I have your template for this election?’ He said he would send it to me the following day. Except he will send it to me tomorrow, because up till this moment, I have not seen it. That was the last time I saw him, until a few days before the election.

Does that mean that PDP had no template for the election?
No, they had, but I was not part of it.

But Eddy Olafeso …
Let me tell you something, when we were campaigning in Ondo South, as the immediate past Senator who represented the six local governments, I should have led the campaign there. But they chose the person I defeated in the primaries.

What was the basis for their choice?
I don’t know. If I was their choice, I would have mobilised the 82,000 votes I had previously, and mobilise the people I empowered while in office, and the aides who worked for the party. I would have gone to them and said ‘I’m back oo’. I know what I did for them. I gave 650 motorcycles to people. My marks are there. I rebuilt the burnt police station in Okitipupa. Even when I was a commissioner, I put buses in some local governments. Those things are there and when they see my face, they would remember these things and give the party their votes. But I did not participate in the election because I was sidelined.

But Nigerians thought that the Ondo election was of strategic interest to Governors Makinde and Adeleke, especially in view of the APC’s growing whirlwind?
Governor Makinde was very unfair to me. I visited him in Ibadan and had an accident on my way to Akure. He sent somebody to give me N2 million while I was in a wheelchair. My hospital bill was N53 million. The South-West senators contributed N1 million each. Senator Remi Tinubu gave me N2 million to support what was on ground.
Since that time, Makinde has never given me a call, to find out whether I am still alive. I wrote to the late governor of Ondo State, for assistance with the bill, but he never responded. The then Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan gave me $20,000 and he visited me at the hospital with 22 Senators. Tears came down his cheeks. Not to talk about a sitting governor from Owo where my father was a magistrate.

What do you think are the tasks ahead of Governor Aiyedatiwa?
Aiyedatiwa has won, and I want to use this opportunity to congratulate him, because he fought a war in his party and won. When he was deputy governor, he went to Kiriji war and won. Then as governorship candidate, he won in all 18 local governments, hence they must have seen something special in him. Having won in all the local government, his name has really worked for him.
Now, it is time for him to sit back, and think, identify five projects- education, rural development, healthcare, good transportation network, put it right and welfare of civil servants. If he can put those things right, that is enough for him to write his name in gold. For instance, he is doing the road from Ile Oluji to Obotu, there is Ile Oluji to Bolorunduro, he is doing it, and I learnt that he is doing it in several other local governments. I just plead that he constructs a direct road from Ile-Oluji to Oke-Igbo.