Princess Funke Adedoyin was initially the running mate of former Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State. However, her appointment as Minister of Women Affairs and the Minister of Youth by former President Olusegun Obasanjo took her to the federal level. A native of Igbomina in Kwara South Senatorial District, she was at a time the head of the Atiku Abubakar Policy Team. She speaks with BIOLA AZEEZ. Excerpts:

Would you say that the birth of the APC, which brought about a seeming two-party structure in the country, is good for the polity?
I think it is fantastic. I think that the tendency for one dominant party and for many little ones was not very healthy for Nigeria. Two strong parties with a national spread will engender better governance. APC administrations in most of the states have demonstrated strong governance and fantastic service delivery to their populace, so it would provide an alternative, spurring complacent administrations to do more and engendering healthy competition to the benefit of the generality of our people. I would have also liked the inclusion of independent candidature in our constitution. Maybe at lower levels such as the local government. Independent candidature would have been useful for the purpose of bringing true representation because people will vote for what is available. I mean if the popular candidate does not win the primaries in the main parties, because we know the right candidate does not always win the primaries, in such cases the provision of independent candidature would, I believe, aid better representation.

What are you looking at for 2015 politically?
There are so many structures that we put together: from Kwara South Initiative to the Kwara Project, the Kwara South Professionals, the Princess Olufunke Trust that is focused on the resource enhancement of women, and the many youth groups, and so on. We are not newspaper politicians, as I keep saying, who will say they are this and they are that and will not get more than 200 votes in a general election. Politics is, literarily, as Yoruba puts it, ‘the people are my covering’. Without the people, you are not a politician. Our people were in both parties - the ACN and the PDP.

We will consolidate our people into the APC and take it from there. We will work with all our people across the state for the APC to win the elections at all levels.

There is a growing insinuation among some people that in 2015, you are likely to be put forward as the senatorial candidate from the South. How true is that?
 Is that what you heard? That is a very difficult question because you have just given me an idea. Again, I have never taken politics as my own personal agenda. I have a job. Politics for me is a vocation. Whatever is in the best interest of our people is what we’ll strive for. Certainly, it would be an honour for me to be considered to serve in any capacity. From being a Federal Minister, to being a member of the summit of the ACN, working with many able leaders to build enduring structures in the state, to being head of the Atiku Abubakar Policy Group, one has always contributed, even outside the limelight of official positions. It has always been an honour to be called upon to serve in any capacity to further the development of the state and the country. So we would see how this one goes. I have never turned down any call to service.

Preceding the commencement of the national conference, some of the decisions taken by Yoruba leaders included that the Yoruba in Kwara State should join their tribesmen in Osun State, which will mean that Kwara South, where you come from?
I have heard that but, there are several other positions. Well, we mustn’t forget that the previous delineation of state boundaries was a mess. The logic employed in the process of state creation was arbitrary at best and the South of Kwara illustrates this so clearly. In the Zone, there are the Ekitis, most of who are in Ekiti State. There are the Ibolos, some of who are in Osun State. There are the Igbominas, some of who are in other parts of Osun. So, the truth is that we need a holistic re-arrangement. You can’t just say the Yoruba-speaking part should go to Osun because there are parts of the Yoruba-speaking areas that naturally belong to Ekiti.

Some part of Ilorin is also Yoruba-speaking. Where do they go? In terms of land mass, Ifelodun Local Government Area is probably the largest local government area in Nigeria, and may require division into several local government areas, the majority of which is Igbomina. Yet the farthest, northern parts of Ifelodun Local Government Area may belong in Niger State because they share a native language. Yet, they are part of Kwara South. I’m also aware that there are meetings going on, where some of Kwara South and the Okuns in Kogi State are saying: ‘Give us a new state. Why can’t we have it? We are big enough! The South of Kwara and the Okun in Kogi State, we are enough to make a state, without even fresh local government delineation.’ I think together there are 12 local governments and they are banking on Ifelodun Local Government Area, which I mentioned earlier, is being broken up by permutation into several local government areas to swell the numbers of local government areas in the proposed new state. There are so many proposals and suggestions. In any case, how much input did the people of the state have in these decisions or proposals? Sorting out Kwara is far more complicated than just ceding an entire senatorial zone to another state. With all due respect to the Yoruba Elders, who, no doubt, have the best intentions, Kwara is more complicated than that simplistic recommendation implies.

How has the journey in politics been since the era of former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
It’s been an interesting time. It has been a dozen or so years of challenges, wonderful opportunities and the usual tumbles and fumbles, topsy-turvy of politics in a developing nation. To go back a little bit, as you know, when we were thrown out of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2005/2006, we all formed the Action Congress of Democrats, which became the Action Congress, then the Action Congress of Nigeria [ACN] and which has now, with other parties, become the All Progressives Congress. And I remained in the ACN until the last general elections.

We, in the South of Kwara, had been agitating for a power shift for many years because we had Governor Mohammed Lawal, who was from Kwara Central. He had done a term from 1999 to 2003; and we then had Governor Bukola Saraki, who was also from Kwara Central; he did two terms.

Even before Senator Saraki became the governor, we had been agitating, but the idea was that the Central zone should be allowed to complete its two terms. And don’t forget that at that time, we were in the PDP anyway, so we were following the trend at the national level, which was that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was going to do a second term. And since Governor Lawal was not in our party and the PDP merged with the Saraki faction of the then All Peoples Party [APP], Dr. Bukola Saraki emerged as the gubernatorial candidate, from the Central. That was what led to the Bukola-Funke ticket in 2002, before I was elevated to the federal level and an alternative deputy governor was found after we had concluded the primaries. As I said, when we were deregistered in 2006, we helped form the ACN. I would consider myself at that time the first among equals in the leadership of the ACN in Kwara. We fielded candidates in the 2007 elections, but we were too young as a party to win statewide, although we won a few seats in the state House of Assembly from the Kwara South zone. That went the way it did but, we still stayed in the ACN. We continued to build the party.

However, the challenge we had in 2010/2011 was, again, the agitation for power shift to the South. One of the things I say about politics is that people are in politics either for their personal interests or for the collective interest. I have always been in politics for the collective interest. I entered into politics because the women in my seven local government areas, where I had developed a vibrant empowerment programme, insisted that they wanted me to be their voice. So, I came into politics with a natural constituency and that constituency had an agenda, which I felt it was my duty to promote. Unfortunately, in 2010, the ACN picked a gubernatorial candidate from Kwara Central. This totally devastated the South, which was the power base of the party. So, we entered into negotiations with the PDP for a gubernatorial candidate from the South and a brilliant candidate from the South emerged in the party in the person of Abdulfatah Ahmed, who won the election. The ACN also nominated a senatorial candidate from the same federal constituency as the PDP candidate. So, while statewide our structure worked for the PDP, at the senatorial level, we divided the structure so that some worked for the ACN and others for the PDP. And unfortunately, we had created a bit of confusion among our people in the process. In any case, the Southern candidate won the election on the PDP platform. You are aware that Kwara went through massive shake-ups in the period leading to the last elections. In fact, every zone was in a state of flux in Kwara and basically, what one had to do was to maintain one’s political structure because the collective interest cannot always rest on party affiliation. Nonetheless, the majority of our supporters in the South Senatorial District were not advised to leave the ACN, despite the emergence of the ACN candidate in the last elections. Our hope in the South was dashed, but we rallied and strove for what was in our best interest regardless of any party affiliation. Kwara South has been very active.

So, it can be said that you played the ethnic card?
No, we did not. As I said, we had to play the politics of what is the interest of the state in general and our zone as well. Though we take a lot of credit for the emergence of the current governor as the candidate, of course it took the entire state to ensure he won the election. A lie left unchallenged becomes the truth. A lie was being perpetuated that nobody from any other part of Kwara could win a gubernatorial election; only the people from Central could! We were faced with a generation of Kwarans who have never had leadership from any other part of the state but Kwara Central. We felt it was very important to challenge that lie and prove the truth that any deserving person from any part of the state could win the election. Elections are based on alliances any way. It takes the votes of the majority of all voters and it was the alliance of all the senatorial zones that contributed the votes that produced the governor.

Does it mean you have not pitched your tent with any political party yet?
Let me say emphatically that we have moved our entire structure, our supporters in both the PDP and the ACN to the APC. The party is, of course, the more progressive party. And in terms of my own personal ideology, I’m more of a social democrat and the policy positions that lifts people out of poverty, that ensures the greatest good for the greatest numbers, that places the greatest resource of this nation - the people - at the front and centre of its policy thrust, is one that I subscribe to and that is what APC represents.

Was there any specific reason why the Kwara South was agitating for power shift that materialised with the victory of the incumbent governor at the polls?
The reason for pushing for power shift to the South was because of the challenge of the less-developed areas of the state. The idea is that when the governor comes from the capital, the rest of the state may be not get as much attention. People would come and they would talk about how a state capital has become a small London. And we would know that it has not spread across the entire state. But, I believe the reason for the principle of federal character, even in institutions, is to engender a sense of belonging and focus attention on every part of the state and not that just one part of the state would be developed. We believe that while, certainly, there has to be merit in terms of the person and his or her capacity to govern and administer the state, a transfer of power from one zone to another will engender better and more even development across the state.

One of the things that I find very worrisome in the Igbomina-Ekiti zone is that a lot of the men are not there. Our towns have become towns populated mainly by women and children. Most of the able-bodied men have gone out in search of greener pastures. So, we felt that it was important that opportunities for job creation and employment generation, that will draw our people back home, so that we could reduce what I call employment migration and develop the state, must be provided. The South has been developed largely by town associations and wealthy individuals. We felt it would attract more federal and state governments’ attention; it would focus attention on the zone if the governor was from there and that it would increase the exposure of the state at the federal level, police and army recruitments and federal recruitments, etc. The focus should not just be on the state capital. The new thinking was it would help to develop the less urban parts of the state. So, we were not agitating for power shift just because we wanted to be able to say we have been governor. No!

So, how much of your aspirations would you say has been met?
Government is ongoing. We have seen more infrastructural development. Some of the development that was started long before the civilian government, even some of the projects started by previous administrations are being completed. New projects are being commissioned and brought into use. More of the major state roads linking the local governments in the zones are getting attention.

Are you satisfied with governance in the state?
Yes and no. And I will explain what I mean. The individual wish list is always endless. But, I have been in governance and I know that capacity is finite. If you have an infinite dream list and a finite capacity, something would have to adjust. We would like to see more. For me, creating jobs and getting our men to move back home, fostering real development and stopping the rural-urban drift is critical. I would like to see a focus on that. But, I must also say again that at least people are now moving from the rural areas to the state capital, Ilorin as opposed to moving to Lagos and credit must go to former Governor Bukola Saraki for opening up the state capital, attracting investment and industries. We have seen a considerable reduction in the distances people move. So people are around, in the state, to contribute their quota to the development of the state, because the state is its people. When your able bodied, educated and most vibrant people leave, what is left?