» "I Have More To Say, Fayose Shouldn’t Force Me To Spill All" – Aluko «

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.