Deacon John Dara, a one-time presidential aspirant, is the Director-General of the Simeon Ajibola Campaign Organisation. He tells OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU in this interview that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP is the alternative for the people of Kwara State. Excerpts:

How do you rate the success of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kwara State vis-à-vis the power of incumbency?

Well, there a times when the power of incumbency is big advantage and there are other times where it becomes a liability, whenever the incumbent government has little to show for the mandate it has received, there will be big problem about credibility.

The double jeopardy that the incumbent governor has in Kwara State is that, he has not only been a non-performer, he has also been seen as a puppet and weakling, and therefore a big let down to those who thought they were giving their mandate to somebody who was capable. His only excuse is that ‘my boss,’ who they call leader Bukola Saraki, ‘has not allowed me to perform.’

That is just a terrible excuse for the people of Kwara State, in any case the people of the state is fed up with Bukola Saraki who has been on the scene since 2003 and has not been a good governor and has now become a dictator, manipulating the process.

The people of the state can see how their lands and assets are being sold to private interest, they can see how local government council has been deprived of funds in spite of the monthly allocation from the Federal Government.

There is a consensus in Kwara State that Bukola must go and Ahmed must follow. Ordinarily, this does not translate to the automatic victory for PDP, but one thing the people of Kwara State are sure of is that they know the people they won’t vote for.

They have now shown them that the party to vote for and the only alternative they have is the PDP, the only alternative they really have is PDP, which is lucky to have a very good gubernatorial candidate in the person of Senator Simeon Ajibola, a three time senator, and a grassroot politician who connects with the people.

He is everything that Bukola and Ahmed are not; he is humble, they are arrogant; he connects with the grass roots, they don’t; he is accountable to the people, they are not and that’s why readily Ajibola is the alternative and PDPD is heading for landslide victory in Kwara State.

What exactly is the PDP bringing to the table for the people of Kwara State that will now make Kwarans pick the party and its candidates as their next viable alternative?

The first thing that the people of Kwara State are yearning for irrespective of political affiliation is freedom. This is the kind of thing that is uppermost in the mind of the people and PDP is bringing them democracy. We have demonstrated since April, when we wanted to rebuild our party, some people said we should pick new executives by consensus, but we said no, that it must be freely contested for.

So from the ward level to the local government level there was free and fair contest and we have our new executives. Then when it was the primaries for the various elective offices, the contest in PDP was fierce, free and fair and candidates emerged and that’s why you do not have a single aspirant in the party that have defected to other parties.

Among the governorship aspirants, for instance, they remained in the party working for the candidate that emerged, because it was a free and fair contest.

The second is team work as opposed to one man governance, and that has been demonstrated by the fact that everything we are doing in Ajibola’s campaign is team work. Professor Oba, Jonh Dara and the rest are putting everything into it as if they are the candidate and that is to show that we will be bringing a new era of team work which will replace the one man show that we have in Kwara State.

The other which we have been emphasising is that every amount of money meant for the local councils constitutionally from federal allocation to the state counterpart contribution will be delivered to them and we will ensure that it is judiciously utilised.

So we are bringing on board democracy, team work, accountability and rapid development. When money is being judiciously utilized, you can be sure that there will be so much activities, much job opportunities and so wealth creation opportunity that people will see the big difference that the PDP will bring upon the state.

There have been incidences of violence in the state where All progressives Congress, APC, and PDP are accusing each other, what exactly is the true position of violence in Kwara?

In Kwara State I am DG of the campaign. I am a man known for peace and I abhor any form of violence and I am not the only one, but every stakeholder from Senator Ajibola, who is a complete gentle man, who does not want any form of violence.

So in PDP we have had to devote all our energy to protecting ourselves from attacks from APC. But just as at the national level, APC will be the aggressor and the culprit but use the media to campaign that it is the victim.

There is so much desperation on their part and Bukola Saraki knows that his imminent failure means the end of an era; the era of turning Kwara State into a family estate is over under his watch, so there is desperation on the part of APC both at the state and the federal levels, but our position is that we will continue to use the law enforcement agencies to prevent violence.

We have called for all stakeholders in the state to commit themselves to peaceful electoral systems. In reality what we have going for us is that we are the one who have the upper hand electorally; we have the people with us.

The incumbent governor is running the last few months of his first term, how would you assess his performance?

The governor has been a tragedy for the people of Kwara State, especially the people of Kwara South. We clamoured for a Kwara South candidate to emerge and Bukola wisely rode on the back of that and picked Ahmed, and our people generously voted for him, that’s why Bukola was able to defeat his father and sister in the elections.

But what do we have now, Ahmed is saying that his hands and leg were tied and his mouth is sealed. These are excuses but the bottom line is that we got nothing in the last four years, all we are seeing is mass plundering of the resources of Kwara State, supervised by Bukola and aided and abetted by Ahmed, so we are tired of listening to their story and we think the time has come for Kwara State to get rid of the bad rubbish.

As the DG of the Simon Ajibola Campaign Organisation you are more or less the face of the organisation. What is your message to the people of Kwara State as we prepare for the April 11 gubernatorial election?

I want the people of Kwara State to know that the day of freedom is just around the corner and the power to get that freedom is in their voter cards; they should jealously protect it and cast their vote for PDP and usher in a new era of probity, democracy and rapid development. I believe that this time around we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by people who want to buy the electorate with the money they have stolen from our coffers and make sure they avoid violence because they want violence to disrupt the polls, but we will make sure we vote out the looters.