The Deputy Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Mohammed Abiodun Fadeyi, in this interview speaks on the political situation in the country, the controversial Electoral Law 2026 and his bid to contest the Egbeda/Ona-Ara federal constituency seat in the House of Representatives. YINKA OLADOYINBO brings the excerpts.

What is your assessment of the political situation in the country?

Looking at the political situation in the country from the national to sub national, it has been a case of the good, the bad and the ugly in all ramifications, in the areas of security, economy and infrastructural development. Let’s take a look at the security situation of the country as a whole, it has not been very encouraging, the APC-led federal government administration has not been able to tackle it as they should and it seems they are insensitive to it, especially in the northern part of the country. Right from the inception of this administration, it has been politics about 2027 without sitting down to take a critical look at the security situation of the country. We know we have some challenges, but as a government, the primary responsibility is to provide security for the people of the nation. But the question we should be asking ourselves is, has the APC-led administration done that in providing security for its people? Just some few days ago, we heard what happened in Jos, in Kaduna, in Kwara, we can go on and on and look at what happened the day before the President was traveling to UK to visit the King of England. You know, these are the insensitivity of this administration. In area of infrastructural development, I will score them 40 per cent because if you look at the coastal road project, which they say they are doing, yeah, it’s a good idea, but it’s still not completed, but what if I were them, I would have looked at restructuring or revamping the old road, ensuring that the old road is reconstructed to meet up the standard of time. But instead of embarking on an elephant project like that, when there are other areas that need to be captured. Look at health sector, look at the budget. What we were meant to believe is that the 2025 budget has not even commenced yet, and we’re in 2026 while the Ministry of health got a peanut of N36 million, the health sector is in complete comatose. The federal government keeps playing the card of propaganda. They claim everything is changing; nothing is changing as far we are concerned. You know it has not been fair as well not to talk of petroleum. You said subsidy was removed, if subsidy was removed, is it not to cushion the effect on the people and transporters? But look at the price of all petroleum products today. Do you know how much has been sunk into the NNPC and our refineries in turnaround maintenance, yet not functioning up to capacity? It’s not even functioning for me, the both the Kaduna refinery and Port Harcourt refineries are conduit pipe of corruption. We are deceiving ourselves, we are not serious and our leaders are not serious.

But looking at the situation now and what is happening politically, are we not playing into the hands of these people, and make it possible for the President to be reelected?

Do we have free and fair election in this country? Let’s be sincere with ourselves, the issue of free and fair election is a major issue in this country. The judiciary has been bought over to the side of the federal government. So it becomes very difficult to say we have a free and fair election. Look at the Electoral Act that has just been released, fine tuning it today, fine tuning it tomorrow, nobody has seen the act. Most of the governors are complaining that they’ve not even seen the act themselves and we say we have a governor’s forum, what governor’s forum do we have? A tax bill was passed by the National Assembly and a member of the House of Representatives was bold enough to stand up to say that it was not the bill we passed into law and nobody cared to listen, what that means is that we now have another bill that was not passed by the National Assembly that was assented to by the President. What kind of political rascality is this? Why are we deceiving ourselves? How serious are we when it comes to governance? The election of 2027 has been rigged from the day the Electoral Act was assented to by Mr. President, but Nigerians are wiser now. Look at the shenanigan about electronic transfer, digital transfer, and what have you. You are telling me that you cannot electronically transfer a document from one remote area to the other, even when there is no network, the moment you leave that location where there is no network and get to a area of network it will deliver. They now put a clause that if the electronic digital cannot work, there is no network you can use manual, who are we deceiving?

Talking about the controversies about this electoral act, as a ranking lawmaker in the state how do you think we can resolve this issue?

It is too late in the day because the President has assented to it. And we have a national assembly that is working as an appendage of the Villa, so they are not being sincere. In 1999 when PDP was in majority, both in the House of Reps and in Senate, you won’t believe that they even had minority within PDP led administration. That is to say, yes, they have the majority, but they were still checking the executive if Obasanjo was to do something that was not fair the PDP led the National Assembly will rise up to talk because they were on the side of the people. Look at what is happening in Senate, look at the way the senate president has been ruling the Senate. The National Assembly is for checks and balances, but are they really checking them? We are not saying you should confront the executive, but when you have to stand on the side of the people, why not do it? The tax law is there, governors have been complaining that they’ve not seen a copy of the tax law, and the senate is not bothered. I’m even sure that the senators themselves and the house of members, they’ve not even seen it not to talk of the state assembly members. So the Electoral Act that has been assented to by the president is gone.

There is another aspect about this Electoral Act that stipulates the kind of primaries that political party can conduct, what is your take on this?

The idea of direct or consensus is managing crisis or crisis management. Before now, we usually have kind of primaries that are violent related, I am a product of consensus, and I believe that it will help to reduce violence within political parties, but issue of consensus or direct has to be a 100 percent agreement among the leadership of the party. So it is a way of curbing violence, and I pray you don’t witness the other kind of primaries that were conducted before now in various political parties, not just in the APC or PDP, it’s always there. So it’s now left for the leadership of the party to be fair, thorough and allow internal democracy to prevail, because the executive of various party usually want to lord themselves on the executive at the local level. So the state executives should allow those that will be saddled with the responsibility of doing their jobs thoroughly, not just lording themselves here and there, they should allow internal democracy to prevail.

Do you see the PDP surviving the crisis rocking it this crisis, and what do you think can be the solution to the logjam?

I must be very honest with you; I don’t see us surviving this onslaught and the problems before us because of the Electoral Act and the election timetable. The issue has lingered for so long, and when one party is trying to come up with options for the party to stand, another faction is pulling it down. But anything can happen in the next couple of days because, we are time bound now and like you rightly said, a convention was held most recently, the other faction has gone to Supreme Court. So let’s see how it’s going to play out. But honestly speaking, we were all waiting to get directive from our various leaders on what next to do.

That means there’s a prospect of dumping the party for a fresh platform?

Yes, Yoruba people will say “orisa bo le gbemi, se mi bi o se bami” that is to say that if you cannot go forward again, you can always retract your life around.

The sky is so big that all sorts of birds can fly without hitting each other. So if PDP is not conducive for now, there’s always an option, but that option is what we don’t know, and we’re hoping that very soon that option will be made known to everybody. I mean, nobody holds the monopoly of knowledge. We all come and go, yes, Wike is bragging everywhere now some people were there before, where are the likes of Arthur Nzeribe who got an injunction against June 12 election at the wee hours of the night. Where is he now, people forget history, that’s the problem. The time will come when your name will be written down in history book. So is it for good or bad? It is left for each and every one of us to decide which side of history you want to belong to.

Having spent close to seven years in the state house of assembly, you are aspiring for the house of representatives, what are the motivations, or what can we call this springboard?

I came in from the National Assembly as a special assistant from 2011 to 2015 again, as an SA from 2015 to 2017 to come and contest for the state assembly all in the name of trying to get close to the grassroots, and after contesting in 2019 I became the Deputy Speaker, in 2023. I was re elected as the Deputy Speaker, seven years going down, and that has given me the institutional knowledge of parliament. I can beat my chest and say that with what we have learned in the last seven years, going to national assembly with my experience will be a plus for me, because the problem is this, when you send a new person to the National Assembly, either as a senator or as house of representatives member, it usually takes close to two to three years before they get used to the workings of parliament. So once you come in as a new parliamentarian, you find it difficult to know the working and that’s why, over a long period of time, the National Assembly, has been trying to get a bill passed to allow for right of force refusal for members of National Assembly. That is what you have in developed democracy like the United States of America, where you have senators or House of Representatives members being there for more than 30 years. At that point in time, they become encyclopedia, they become an institution. I know for sure that even some courses that we have attended on parliamentary issue, they’ve talked to us on this thing, that the way we are changing our parliamentarians, term in term out is not good. So my contesting for the House of Representative is another advantage, that when duty calls, experience matter, it is not about saying you want to be an honourable member in the federal rep, you have to know what you are going there to do, because of the technicalities there, so is not politics. That I’ve learned here in the state assembly is another advantage for me to be at the National Assembly, representing my people at the national stage.

Talking about changing lawmakers’ term in-term out, don’t you think your ambition will also lead to replacing a serving Reps member?

That is not in our party; that’s in another party, the person you’re talking about belongs to another party, if the party where he belongs to so desire to keep him or change him, so be it. What I’m saying is that for me, I’m going to spend eight years here now, at the state level, I’m the most qualified in my party to vie for that position, because I’m going to be taking the institutional knowledge that I’ve gained from the state assembly to the National Assembly and don’t forget, that was where I came from as an SA for eight years. So it’s not going to be new. When you when they begin to talk, you know, there are legislative jargons and terms, even in language. It’s not every person that is used to the legislative terms and jargons, but for me, as a two-term deputy speaker, two-time SA, I have the cognitive experience to go, I’m not talking about whoever is there now. I’m talking of my own party sending me. Recently, the governor gave automatic ticket to first time members in the assembly, with that he is building capacity. Is building capacity. (Nigerian Tribune)