I’m On National Reconciliation Project – Olawepo-Hashim

I’m On National Reconciliation Project – Olawepo-Hashim

Gbenga Olawepo- Hashim is the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Trust (PT), the party endorsed by a coalition of civil society organisations also known as the Third Force. In this interview with select newsmen, speaks on his chances and why Nigerians will prefer him as the best alternative to the candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI brings the excerpts:

Your base is seen as the North Central. The enthusiasm that you have painted that the party is going to be one of the first two, which other zones are you expecting the votes?

I think we will win the North Central for sure, by the grace of God. We will do well in South West. We will do well all over the North and we are getting our message to the South East and the South South. The South East and South South have a very peculiar problem and it is not about PT or APC. A lot of people feel a sense of huge injustice about Nigeria as a state from those regions and that’s the way politics have been defined for some time there. None of the two big parties can say that they have those zones for keep. Majority of the people in those zones are preoccupied more with other questions than even the 2019 elections. The urgent question that confront them is how do we find equity, how do we see that we are part of this? We are getting our message in and I believe that we have a pathway to victory in 2019, more than a number of people have even given us the chance for.

Are you scared by reports in some quarters that the February elections are already concluded and that that the results are known?

I’m not scared by all these noise that some people have already concluded the election. I’m not scared about that. We had only five parties when Abacha concluded his election by making sure that all the five available parties endorsed him. What was left was for him to be coroneted as President. But did he become President? He didn’t become President. So, it’s just that people forget things easily and some people have short memories. Nobody can play God in the affairs of Nigeria. My advice is that let us be responsible people and know that power is transient. Let us also know that we owe this country a responsibility to improve the situation in which we have found ourselves.

Talking about going round and talking to people, there is this impression that Nigeria is much more divided than any other time. What message do you tell the people while going across the country?

We were somewhere in the South East and we had an all-night quiet meeting and these people we met are people with deep roots in the east because these are patriots who have produced a lot of the people that you see on the scene today and a lot of people defer to them and who really bitter about the situation of Nigeria. Incidentally, I went with a team of my Chief Press Secretary, Dr. Jahleel Tafawa-Balewa and some of these people were talking about pains, why they are not really enthusiastic about Nigeria. They talked about pains which were of course very legitimate pains that had to be addressed. They were really bitter with Nigeria as a state. Then Balewa got up and said you people are talking about pains, my father was killed over allegations of corruption by some officers of a certain regional extraction. He never had a single property anywhere in the world, not talk about a bank account. He left nothing for us, and then my mother happen to be of the same parentage with Chief Ladoke Akintola, the same father, the same mother and Chief Ladoke Akintola, who by then was Premier of Western Region, was killed that same day Tafawa Balewa and Sardauna were killed. As an eight year old boy, I’ve borne this pain since I was told that my uncle died and my father died too. It was a double barrel tragedy for him. He said what pain are you talking about. It was very interesting to see and it was laboratory for me in testing hypothesis for national reconciliation and everyday calmed down. They we are ready to give you chance seeing where you are coming from and indeed you are very serious about this. Those are the quiet things I’ve been doing without the cameras.