Transcript of Dr. Oby’s Meeting With ACPN NWC On 5th October 2018 When She Would Finally Accept To Run On Their Ticket

Dr. Oby: My character and my values, that’s not negotiable at all. As my dad raised us to know, money can grow wings and fly away anytime. So if you’re a person for money, you’re wasting your time. That’s not a lasting value. My character and everything that goes with it is very important to me. I’m not going to negotiate it. One of the things that my father kept hanging over our heads until he died is that he was giving us the best of education, giving us his name and rising us with values and that if we should ever make the mistake of one day rubbishing his name, he will come out from the grave even if he is dead and hit us with his walking stick. So we all carry it as something that would happen when he said that. So it does matter to me very much.

And that has been the major issues in terms of looking at, I think I’ve come to a place I think I should step back a bit, there was a place where I was , where if you mention politics I shut you down immediately. I hate, I still hate politics, I still do, I hate it with the last blood in me. Because when I look at what people have to do, the kind of compromises, the (kind of) quality of persons that they bend unto, I say to myself no! no!! no!!! I don’t want to be in the theatre of this, so that was always my position.

In the last couple of weeks now, as we have looked at the issues of Nigeria and as a matter even months because some months ago I came to a painful realisation that whatever we do, we can’t simply talk governance, there’s politics before governance. And so that missing piece of politics is where our problem is. Politics determines what governance would be…

(Ganiyu: …determines the effort).
No matter what we say about governance, if we don’t fix politics, we’re just wasting our time.

And then when I came to that place, what we then began to do was to see how we could help midwife a process where people of quality would enter into that space and as citizens, we can then say ah yes! Finally! We got this going! Sadly we are at a place where we watch the existing political class say to us, they even say it in disdain ‘where are your credible alternatives’? in other words, they’re saying we have monopoly of this field because, you know your so called credible alternatives are no where to be found, and so they are deriving joy in the fact that they are going to lock us up again into another round of four years of failure.

And thinking all of that through over time, we were at a cross roads basically and then this conversation about entering into politics commenced and I very much did not want to even answer that call. We are at that place now where you (the ACPN party members at the room) and I, this is the third time that you’re visiting with me.

(Ganiyu….third meeting).
And you’ve raised this conversation…
(Ganiyu…we have gone far, we have gone so far)

We have gone so far? What do you mean you have gone so far with me?
(laughs)

That issue of my character, the sanctity of values to me is the key point, I worry about who I go on a journey with, I don’t know yet that I am fully at the place where setting out on a journey of this kind with your party is a sensible decision to make. I don’t know, I’m at that place. Because I really don’t know the values that drive the core leaders of the party, it’s going to matter. If I set out on a journey with you and it turns out that we have a divergence of values, what then would I do. I would already have been connected to that. So, that’s the deal breaker for me…that’s a deal breaker. So if I got the sense of the kind of non-negotiability of values as being what drives you and how we can say that indeed it is so. It’s not to say it with the mouth, it’s to prove that indeed, this is what drives you, I’ll like to explore that conversation a little bit more, because I’m at a place of decision making but that for me is a deal breaker.

Ganiyu: Thank you ma, thank you so much, as I said earlier we started this meeting (I think) about two hours ago, and a lot has been said…a lot has been said. And (I think) your concern also was the concern of our committee members, which we have dealt so much on. I also want to join in saying, that it is the same value that is driving you that is also driving us, we are men and women of ‘impeccable’ value. That in this country today, our output matters that we also give so much concern to our public image, and it was the reason why we said ‘let us go to Dr. Oby and answer to her.’ If we didn’t have the required quality, if we were the compromising type we will not come to you, because we know what you stand for…because we know what you stand for. We have seen your struggle and if you had wanted to compromise since it’s very simple…very simple. The issue of Bring Back Our Girls (the Chibok girls), Liya Sharibu…and other pressing issues would have been forgotten. By now the government will have forgotten about the struggle. I want to say, that we are also connected to you in this struggle. That if you choose to run… I can say on behalf of the ACPN, that “we are not going to betray you. That we will not betray.” That our names are very important to us, you know good names are better than gold and silver. The same value that drives you, drives us. That money is important, but more important is integrity and the name to your immediate family. We are driven by value, if you agree to run, we will give you all the deserved support and nobody will sabotage the campaign. That is our word and I’m saying this without leaving one person out. This is the national secretary, seating beside him is the national secretary north. We lost our deputy national secretary south, in 2017.

Dr. Oby: What did he die of?
Ganiyu: He just died
Dr. Oby: He didn’t just die, the problem with our society is we never know
Ganiyu: The sickness was not that serious, was not that pronounced

Dr. Oby: It is part of what we should worry about, getting our health care system right. People don’t just die, there’s something. The more that we know then we can prevent his lineage from just dyeing.
So I hear you, I heard you. I heard your very strong statement….. I think we will do it.

(round of applause all over the room)
Ganiyu: ACPN Unity and Service! ACPN Oby for President!

All of them red card left and right…PDP red card, APC red card, President Muhammadu red card, everybody red card. Bukola Saraki Red Card…. Florence red card (joke, everyone starts laughing).

Florence: Chairman, you do realise that your nomination form hasn’t been given… (general laughter)

ACPN chairman congratulates everyone in the room.

Ganiyu: There’s something about this struggle ma, early this year, one of my great uncle…(words not clear ’11:47’) he was a councelor 199… he urge everyone to seat down.