You are an Islamic elder. How true is it that women don’t take leadership position in Islam?

It is not true; there is nothing like that. Even in Pakistan and Bangladesh, a woman is their leader. . . We have women in high offices in this country like commissioners, ministers, ambassadors, (and so on), so what are we talking about?

How many wives and children do you have and are Bukola and Gbemisola of the same mother?

I have only one wife, Morenike; she is a Christian and I am a Muslim and we never discuss religion in our house. My wife is the first wife in the world because she is very wonderful. I married her in London in 1962. Bukola was our first child born in London in December 1962, when I was doing my house job as a medical doctor. We both returned to Nigeria and gave birth to Gbemi two years later. So they are of the same mother. People are only saying rubbish that his mother is from South Africa. I have only one wife and she has four children for me. I don’t have any wife elsewhere.

Why did you float the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, considering that you were a respected person in the PDP?

ACPN was registered in January 2011, and we were led to do that because of the way the PDP was behaving. In 2003, Atiku Abubakar and former PDP chairman, Audu Ogbeh, met with me and begged that I joined the PDP because then, they could not win ordinary councillorship seat in Kwara State. They asked me to take any positions I wanted, so I took the chairmanship, secretary, woman leader, and treasurer. It was on that platform that Bukola, my son, contested election in 2003. I actually formed the ACPN in 2003 but mellowed on it. I ensured that my members were going for INEC meetings with parties and running the party, as if I knew that things might change. According to the PDP constitution, the governor is the leader in the state, and at the national level, it is the president. I told Bukola that I cannot be here in Kwara and still be in politics and you call yourself the leader of the party; I thought he would take note of that but he didn’t and was acting in that capacity. . . So, I decided it was better for me to leave the PDP for another party, but my team of elders advised that we should return to our party, ACPN, and we came fully on stream. We are now fully ready to win all the offices in the state. We have no presidential candidate but whoever wants to talk to us we are ready. I told President Jonathan that I am not a member of PDP, but a supporter because I have two of my children there. The party should be independent and the government independent but now for a governor to be running the party is not healthy at all. Here in Kwara, PDP cannot deliver anything for anybody; it is ACPN they need to talk to.

What sort of governance will Gbemisola bequeath to the state if she gets elected?

Peace, love, and positive development. She cannot do anything less than that and I am happy with the way Kwara people are accepting her. I quote Leo Max, a British poet: "Life that I have is all that I have and the life that I have is yours and yours and yours; the love that I have of the life that I have, is yours and yours and yours". My life is for the Kwara people.

Why Kwara people love him . . .

Kwara people know that I don’t deceive them and they know whatever I tell them is the truth.

• First published in TELL in March 2011