By Leo Sobechi
National
Chairman of Social Democratic Party (SDP) and former Secretary to the
Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Oluyemisi Samuel Falae, in
this interview with LEO SOBECHI, x-rays challenges of Nigeria's
socio-political progress.
Shortly
before the 1999 election you were to debate the presidential candidate
of PDP, Chief Olu Obasanjo, but he was said to have traveled, only for
you to go and catch him in a hotel room, did you apply extra sensory
perception to discover where he was hiding?
I wish I had
extra-sensory perception; no it was just a chance thing. I went to the
arena, the venue of the debate and found that the seats were empty and I
sat on one of the seats meant for the debaters. Time for the
commencement of the debate came and went and Obasanjo was nowhere to be
found. Then the organisers came to me to say that Chief Obasanjo was not
coming so the debate is cancelled. I said not on your life! It was
supposed to be a two-hour dialogue, and implied in that is that each of
us had one hour and he has forfeited his own one-hour, so you must
interview me for one hour. They were not ready for that, they were
confused; they started making phone calls. Eventually, they interviewed
me for forty-eight minutes during which I answered most of the questions
that were germane to the election and to the development of Nigeria.
I think some
people used some influence to terminate the interview at 48 minutes, but
by then the whole country were excited. I got feed backs from most parts
of the country, of people saying that was it this kind of president we
were going to have, yes! So when they terminated the interview after
forty-eight minutes, I went back to my suite and my security man said,
sir, they are waiting for you. I said who? He said the party people that
they are in Ahmed Tinubu's suite. I said all right lead me to his
suite. It was my security people that led me to the suite. When I got to
the suite I saw security men in the living room and I said where is he?
(meaning Tinubu) they said in the room. I opened the room and it was
Obasanjo watching television! And I said sir; you ran away, why didn't
you come? He said you know the entire secretariat of PDP was for (Dr.
Alex) Ekwueme, so when the letter of invitation came they hid it from
him and that didn't give him time to prepare for the debate. I left.
That was exactly what happened.
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