Olukayode Ezekiel Salako, the former State Chairman of Labour Party (LP) in Lagos State, and a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) speaks on circumstances that led to his exit from the ruling party, why he has chosen to return among other things.
Would you describe yourself as being politically unstable?
Naturally, I am not someone, who likes jumping from one political party to another like that. I have been in politics, since 1998, which was around the time this current democratic political dispensation started, and I had been on the side of the progressive political system in the country ever since.
I started as an Alliance for Democracy (AD) man. Then to the Action Congress, founded by President Bola Tinubu, and later to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) of the same leader.
I had a stint of operation with former President Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) for about few months on the invitation of one of the leaders of the party, veteran Olawale Okunniyi, in 2013/2014 as at the time, until President Bola Tinubu of ACN; Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Muhammadu Buhari of CPC came together to form the current ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the country.
“So, I had been a member of APC, from the first month it was formed in 2014, until 2022,
So why did you decide to dump the party?
I decided to go and try my luck with Labour Party, after 24 years of operating actively with the progressive political family in Nigeria. I left my party, the All Progressive Congress in 2022, because I didn’t find fulfillment on that side of the political divide in the country.
The Tinubu political system, in which I had been a loyal and consistent actor, never gave me a job or engaged me productively with any fulfilling appointment to work the way many others around me that I know had it. The system did not see me at all for the rewards of my age-long stewardship for the long period. So, I felt I did not have luck, operating on the side of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. So, when Labour Party approached me for the job of working to build the party in Lagos State as one of the major stakeholders in the polity in 2022, I thought about it; consulted both physically and spiritually, and I got the conviction to honour the invitation.
I got to the party with the wherewithal of astute and rich operational experience I gathered as an actor from Tinubu’s school of politics, I was warmly received by its leaders and prominent stakeholders, until the so-called OBIDIENT people in the party, started assaulting me and accusing me of all sorts as the State Chairman of the party, because, according to them, my Nollywood actor wife, Foluke Daramola-Salako, was working on the side of the presidential election project of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at the time.
Was it at any point a trust issue?
They never trusted my sincerity on the Peter Obi Presidential election project throughout the period, and so, I was forced to leave the office at gunpoint, precisely about 30 days before the February 25, 2023, general elections in Nigeria. Though with another higher appointment, as they called it, to assuage me.
I was persuaded with the position of the Special Adviser to the office of the National Chairman of Labour Party in Nigeria on Lagos State Labour Party affairs and its Liason operations.
By virtue of the prominence of that office, I was the supreme leader of the party in the state. This is the office I held distrustedly till after the governorship election in the state.
You left APC because you were not given a job or appointment like others?
On this account, I wouldn’t have ever left APC for any reason, if I had found fulfillment for the long period of the number of years I spent on that side of the political divide, and maybe, I might continue to stay with Labour Party, if I had been trusted, ideally motivated and treated well enough as the leader of the party in the state.
From APC you went to Labour Party and you are now back to APC, what is the motivation behind your return?
Right now, I am back in my original party – the All Progressives Congress to continue to play my politics.
And, if after a few years, I won’t still be able to find fulfillment, my God would lead me on how to handle what next to do with my political life.
However, I am not the only one who would be leaving his party for another. An example is the current leader of the 10th Senate, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele. At a time in his political career, he also had a reason to leave APC to join the Labour Party in Ekiti State.
He was also there for some time, but like me, for his reason again, he left the party to come back to APC. Today, he is the leader of the Senate as a member of our party – the All Progressives Congress in Nigeria.
Many examples of those, who left the side of the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu system, or their parties to another, abound like that in the politics of Nigeria.
In a nutshell, I reiterate that I am not someone, who likes jumping from one political party to another. If I had found fulfillment in APC, since 2014 when I joined the party, and since 1998, I had been on the side of anything that had to do with Tinubu in the polity, I wouldn’t have left to try my luck in Labour Party.
And, if Labour Party had trusted me and treated me well enough that I wasn’t a Tinubu/APC mole in their system, then I might still be where I am to continue to run my politics.
I am a veteran political actor in the polity. I have come of age in it. My experience with politics should be green and rich enough, after 24 years of being a consistent actor in it. I cherish my worth, and my social integrity matters to me a great deal.
If you are in a place as a Labourer, and doing your best for the growth of the place, but you realise that your best is not being ideally appreciated and valued with deserved honour and dignity of treatment, there is nothing wrong if you retrace the roots of where you came from to reconnect with it.
I left APC in 2022, not necessarily because I was tired of the party, but because I felt I wasn’t lucky with the political system.
I am back at the party, and I hope that luck would find my sincere contributions and efforts in the party this time.
Why would I need to leave the party I joined voluntarily the first month it was formed, and I contributed conspicuously to grow if I am finding my purpose and fulfillment ideally in it?
I have been on the side of anything that had to be with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu political system/school of progressive politics, since 1998, and I didn’t leave until 2022, when I had to go and try my luck in Labour Party.
Yes! I was very lucky in Labour Party with good appointment and office positions, but the party and its operationally peculiar OBIDIENT people did not trust me at all that I am not a Tinubu/APC mole in their system. Hence, I was bullied out of it.
I was asked to leave as the leader of the party in Lagos State, and I have since found my roots back to where I came from.
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