Current situation of the country I don’t want to make a categorical statement about the federal government; I want to make that after one year in power.
This is because I listen to the submission of the Minister of state for petroleum. It gave me some rethink about what led to this fuel scarcity. I believe the government in power should know that Nigerians are hungry for a change based on their campaign.
They thought that once they get into power, within 6 months, Nigeria will be different entirely, but the fuel scarcity this time around is more worse that what we’ve ever seen in the country. The issue of electricity dropped to minimum, this has never happened. I think this compounded the hardship on Nigerians.
I don’t want to talk too much until May 29. That will give room for us to fully access the government in power. The minister said the cases of pipeline vandals doubled what was recorded last year and you can recall what happened last year when we got the pipeline protection contract, Nigerians politicalize it, especially our people in the South-West.
When we left in job in July, 7 operatives of the DSS were killed, and from the information in our disposal, day by day, the vandals are syphoning this fuel. So I think the President and the minister of petroleum should move to reduce the wastage of fuel through by the vandals.
So are you calling for the restoration of your pipeline protection contract?
No, no, no, no, the issue of restoring the pipeline contract is not the problem. The issue is that they should pay us our money.
We worked for 3 months and in the process we lost 2 persons and 36 were wounded and we reduced the activities of the vandals to the lowest minimum within that period. FG formulated the contract, we agreed, there was a correspondence to the NNPC in Mosimi and in the last email they sent to us, they commended us for a job well done and they regretted that they can’t secure another term of contract by then. Crisis within OPC Part of the OPC crisis you see in the pages of the newspapers is because of this pipeline contract. They are accusing me that I took a huge hunk of the money for the job which FG has not paid a kobo.
The 17 persons that are being use by politicians to malign my character and wrote a two-page petition to the EFCC saying that I collect 22 million dollars from Gadhafi, embezzled 150 million naira from OPC; Took 20 million naira on Owo crisis.
A petition without content, credible evidence, nothing. Has the EFCC invited you? Can any serious organization take such petition serious?
Even the police that ask people to write against each other cannot take it serious. If I want to make an allegation against you that you embezzle my money, I have to write the way you embezzled it, the way you transfer the money, what it was used for, the day and time. I can’t just say Mike, you embezzled my 5million. OPC has never contributed 1million naira in a month. It’s a grassroots organization. It’s a voluntary organization.
We have an office in palm groove, we are paying seven hundred thousand naira annually. No OPC can say he contributed to the rent. Singlehandedly I pay for the rent. We have 11 staffs before but I reduced it to 5 and I pay their salaries from my pocket since 2015. Even the address they used to write the petition to the EFCC is the land I bought in Mushin. I bought it and paid the money twice to the family as a legacy to the organization. They said OPC raised money to buy land for hotel, that’s a lie.
I raised the money, bought one land in Ikorodu, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Osun and Ondo so that when we have money in future, we can build 3 star hotels. How can Gadhafi give a Yoruba socio-cultural group 22million dollar? Am I Taliban? Is OPC a religious organization? We don’t run such. Reaction to Otunba Runsewe’s claim that OPC’s festivals are diabolical You are one of the journalists that attend our festivals; do you see anything that is diabolical? How should a festiuval be diabolical? We have to use our common sense. Christmas is a festival, Easter is a festival, Sallah is a festival. Anything that brings people together for celebration is a festival.
Do you ever see us kill chicken or ram at festivals? We don’t do rituals at our festival ground. What we do at our festival is to showcase our culture and polish the image of our deities. When you watch china TV you will see cultural express. They are the richest country in the world. Those running away from their culture are not getting it right built those who are getting close to their culture are getting it right.
A country like Malaysia, Japan, China, India, these are countries that control technology of the world. Even the European Union could not run away from their culture. The headquarters of UNISECO is in Paris and the UNISECO fund several festivals like Osun-Osogbo, like Arigungun, Ifa. How could someone who is a former DG of tourism read religious meaning to festivals? You should have realized that the man does not know what he is doing. A festival is a cultural tourism. We can’t be like the European even if you have their passport. It’s a privilege.