You don’t need to share rice to win elections – 9ice

In music circles, Adegbola Akande Abolore, better known as 9ice, is not a pushover. He is as popular as Nigeria’s currency among the new generation of music lovers as a result of his numerous hit songs. However, in this interview with Sunday Independent, 9ice is not talking music, he is on the soapbox preaching good governance, which he says cannot be achieved through ‘stomach infrastructure,’ by way of sharing rice, beans, rams and other gifts to earn the people’s vote to represent them in elective positions. He also discloses his programmes for the people of Ogbomosho South, North and Orire constituency, which he aspires to represent at the House of Representatives in 2015, in an address to Ogbomosho women in Oyo State.

You want to represent Ogbomosho Federal Constituency 1 at the House of Representatives; when did you go into politics?

 I have been into party politics for quite some time now.

On what platform are you aspiring to realise your political ambition?

I am a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), so I will be contesting on the platform of the APC.
When did you join the party?

I have been a member of the APC for some years now.
What is your manifesto?

My manifesto is chronicled into what I call CARE, and all my plans are programmed under CARE. We have already identified the pressing needs of our people and have decided to make sure that these needs are properly tackled and, by the grace of God, we will solve them before any other
thing.

You and I know the importance of education, so we will be awarding scholarships to students who are brilliant, starting from primary school up to the university level. Our CARE initiative
will take care of that. Care for the less privileged, care for the elderly, health care, community care, care for pregnant women, widows and so on. In fact, we have a total package under CARE. We also have a good programme for agriculture, because food
business is very serious business; whatever you give people, if they are still hungry, they will curse you.

So we are going back to agriculture to provide food and employment for our people. We also
have what we call, ‘You Must Work’, which is also in our We CARE programme. You Must Work is specially designed to create employment for our teeming youths. I have said it before that if the youths are gainfully engaged, they will never get involved in criminal activities, they will not have the time for violence and crime; they will not become political thugs.

So we want to make sure that our youths are gainfully engaged. This is the only way our society will be protected and conducive for everyone. So my manifesto is very simple. CARE or We CARE, whichever one you choose, it would go a long way. If you care for people, you care for the society.

Your manifesto is very impressive, and that is an issue in this part of the world: politicians make good promises when they need votes, but when they eventually get the votes, they become tin gods that the people must worship. What guarantees that when you get elected you won’t abandon your people?

This is one of the main reasons I want to represent my people at the House of Representatives. You see, if there must be any change, then the people who need the change and are ready for it must rise up and make change possible. We must not continue sitting at the corner to criticise all the time; there is a time to talk and a time to walk. Evil, they say, persists where good men choose to remain silent. We must never leave our country for people who have been failing us all these years and expect that things will just change miraculously. We can no longer leave our society for those who don’t care, to
continue to toss our lives as they like. No, it doesn’t work that way, it is our responsibility to be involved in the welfare and development of the country, and we must not sit and expect miracles to happen. So we must make that change possible.

You are based in Lagos, far away from Ogbomosho. How well do you know the people of the constituency you want to represent? How close are you to your people?

I am from Ogbomosho; the blood runs in my veins. There is hardly any week I don’t visit home; I spend as much time in Ogbomosho as I do in Lagos and Ibadan. I visit home regularly and I interact with my people very well. People have been pledging their support for me.

They have been trooping in and out, showing support, since I declared my intention to run for the poll.  From the way we relate, you can see that I am not a stranger to them and they are not strangers to me. We are brothers, we are friends and, above all, we are family. I have never abandoned my people and they have never abandoned me. So the question of being on the ground does not arise.

That is usually the situation around politicians, particularly during elections. Most times their aim is to grab what they can and walk away. Are you convinced they really support you?

Yes, you might be right about people looking out to see what they can get, but maybe you still need to do some more walk around here. We don’t share money or rice and beans. We don’t play the politics of money or that of the stomach. No, we don’t do that; we are not part of those who have deliberately impoverished the people so they can take advantage of them during elections, those who have deliberately refused to provide jobs for the youths so that they would be available for them as political thugs during elections.

No, we are not like that; we play what we call the politics of the intellect. Idealistic politics, where we go to the people directly and convince them on the reasons change is necessary, why it must no longer be business as usual; on why they must not sell their conscience for rice and beans, they must not sell their vote for money, no matter how much because the money will finish within a few days. Then what next? They will now have to wait for another four years before they come back again to do the same thing. No way! How long must we continue with all that? We need change and that change is now. We must all join hands together to make change possible, including being good citizens.

What is your view on corruption in Nigeria and what do you think should be done to curtail it?

Corruption is a very serious problem in Nigeria. It is one of the main reasons we have not been able to fulfill our potentials as a nation, even with all our natural and human resources. Now, one question we must all ask ourselves is, what is corruption and who is corrupt? You see, these questions are very important because we may never be able to fight corruption if we can’t define corruption and who is corrupt. Corruption has eaten deep into the soul of this country and from the way I see it, we must acknowledge the fact that there is corruption before we can fight it. Starting from the top man, down to the man at the bottom end, corruption has become our norm.

What is the way forward?

I think I have already answered that: before you can stop corruption you must first stop corrupt people from being in positions of leadership, you must stop them from being in a position of authority where they can have access to our treasury. If you give fish to Mr. Rat to look after for you, what do you expect him to do with it? Surely he will not look
after the fish, he will eat it. Even eat the one you did not put under his care. It is the nature of Mr. Rat to steal fish and eat fish. The bottom line is, don’t put a corrupt person in charge of your money because the money will develop wings, stop corrupt people from being in charge of our treasury. Give
opportunity to those who have the passion for the job to do it. Allow only those who have the interest of the masses at heart to do the job. That is the only way we can tackle the issue of corruption in this country.

Nigeria is 54 years old. We still battle instability, bad roads, and bad welfare of the citizens, corruption and so on, how do we move forward? If you collect money from politicians before you vote, I am sorry you have sold your future. The lives of your children, wife and entire family are at stake if you collect money for vote. We need to continue educating people. Your destiny is in your hands.

Considering the political crisis here and there, the security challenges and the prediction by the American intelligence report some years back that Nigeria may disintegrate by 2015, do you still believe in one Nigeria?

I believe in one Nigeria because I know that God has a good plan for this country. Nigeria is God’s own property. If you just sit back and ponder over all that have been going on in this country since Independence, and how we have been surviving, you will agree with me that Nigeria is God’s own property.