Architect Lola Ashiru, was a chieftain of the defunct ACN and a former senatorial candidate in Kwara South. Having defected to the PDP, he, in this interview with newsmen said the PDP will win in Kwara State inspite of the defection of Senator Bukola Saraki. He also dispelled insinuations that the North is against President Goodluck Jonathan bid for second term in 2015. Chibuzo Ukaibe was there for Leadership. Excerpts: Kwara state is presently in a political turmoil following defections of certain personalities from the People's Democratic Party (PDP), what is your take?

I like that word turmoil that Kwara state is in turmoil because some people defected but I will not sympathize with that word turmoil. There is no turmoil in Kwara with all honesty; the issue really is that a group of people decided for reasons known to them to join camp with All Progressive Congress (APC), but that does not mean the PDP as a party will not remain as it was and, from my own study I can tell you there are two set of people that owns a party- the sympathizers (faithful) and the people call politicians (registered members).

As far as the sympathizers, are concern, they are solidly behind PDP as ever and they are the largest majority. When you talk of the politicians, I am still sure based on statistics that most people who are politicians and who decided long before to be in the camp of the PDP is still there.

You saw our rally in Ilorin, it was heart shaking. It was not a rally that was done with so much inducement; more than 95 percent of the people at the rally were registered members of the party. More than that what we were expressing is that Kwara state will always prefer to go to the centre, rather than stays in the fringe.

You said there is no turmoil in Kwara politics, particularly within the PDP, yet there are reports that some PDP members are kicking against Gbemisola Saraki's from being nominated as a minister.

You will always see a lot of tricks and disequilibrium in every organization, you will always see a lot of what I will describe as entropy, you know when a group is coming together, there will be a lot of struggle and people who will like to take undue advantage of the new situation to create an empire for themselves, an empire that they don't understand and don't even know how to sustain, an empire that they don't know the history behind. I could see two things from that story; APC are very delicate people, not only delicate but desperate, there is nothing they cannot do to hold on to power.

The APC saw the advantage of having somebody of Gbemi's caliber, I mean somebody who is so experience in politics, somebody well educated and experience and love by the people. When they see somebody like that seeking to take a vantage position in a party like PDP, they know the type of destruction Gbemi can cause if she is empowered and the advantage to the party; the other side of it is that, like a new dynamic, something new is rearing its head and people are trying to take advantage of the situation that they don't have the capacity to hold.

But I can assure you that the PDP led federal government is sensible enough, they can read between the lines, they know what is good for them. For me what Gbemi as a minister will add to PDP, three or four ministers of unknown quantity will not be able to do.

Do you think there is fairness against the background that Gbemi Saraki has been nominated as member of the national conference, she is also being touted as a minister and at the same time she is reportedly eyeing the governor of the state in 2015?

Honestly I don't know where the unfairness comes from in this equation. The ministerial thing coincidentally is coming after the national conference, if she will not have sufficient time,... I don't think there is anything that excludes a minister from becoming a national conference member. I don't think there is anything legal that excludes her, but if there is issue of time, having sufficient time to concentrate on the work of a minister, and having sufficient time to concentrate on the issue of the confab, I am very sure if she is eventually nominated, she will drop one. I don't know about governor, I don't want to discuss governorship, because it is still far, but I am very sure Gbemi has not come out to tell anybody she want to contest for the governorship of kwara state, but when the time come and she decide people will judge it. What is your perception to the perceived opposition of the north to President Goodluck Jonathan re-contesting in 2015?

By the simple fact that Nigeria is a complex equation of multi ethnic people, nobody can deny the fact that presidency must go round, from a corner in Rivers state to remotest place in Sokoto state or even to Bama in Maiduguri, or Yoruba land. Everybody has accepted the fact the presidency must go round. The people of the north are politically intelligent, when they are there they know what to do, when they are not there they know what to do. The north has been very supportive of the Jonathan administration. The Vice President of Nigeria is a Hausa man, an erudite architect; the senate president is also a northerner of middle belt extraction.

The people of the north are not saying no, there are a lot of individuals who are interested in the presidency from the north, you cannot hold it against them, as long as there is no law that says a northerner must not contest this time around, you expect them to come up to fly their own flag, what is happening today, people who are interested in the presidency are engineering this perception that the north does not like Jonathan, but it is contrary. Jonathan has done a lot for the north, and other geographical areas in Nigeria, anybody who goes through Lagos-Ibadan expressway will be amazed at the volume of work. You will be amazed not only about the volume, you will be amazed by even the seriousness Jonathan is putting in making sure that Lagos-Ibadan expressway, which is the busiest road in Nigeria, is totally modernized.