As I near my homecoming to Osun, a home run of sorts in my plan to make the state a second home, it is natural that who leads the Living Spring, which is close to a civil-service state than any other definition of its defining socio-economic environment, is of greater interest now that I would be rising from bed to my people more regularly than before, ceteris paribus.
I love people with buoyant spirit. Incumbent Osun governor, Jackson Adeleke is one. There are some comedians, you start laughing immediately you sight them, even before they start their stand-up or sitcom. They cut a funny figure and are usually of dramatic personae. Governor Adeleke glows everywhere he shows up. In a state with widespread poverty especially in her hinterland, a comical Chief Executive will be a desirable optic. But Yoruba will say, ebi ki wonu ki oro miran wo (a hungry man can’t be bothered). My brilliant egbon, Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN; passionate Yoruba nationalist and perennial undergraduate of Bourdillion University of Politics and I, regularly diverge on this point whenever we dissect the Tinubu years so far. He would accuse me and others of not trying enough to see the positives and would sound off on a lot; one million undergraduates enjoying student loan facility, massive infrastructural projects, unfailing remit of billions of naira to states since subsidy removal, among others. At times, I would detect frustration in his voice, especially when we touch on the subject of the administration barely communicating to Nigerians despite the president’s massive media investment and the influence his position could command in shaping narratives and messaging. One thing I respect about his position is that he is not advancing the administration because he has been appointed to any office, unlike some who only speak in favour when favours are advanced them by Villa. The moment largesse stops flowing, they go truculent with criticism, latching on public emotions in projecting their pains. Once brought in again, their tune changes. Their stomach structures their mouths. How the president is able to live with these characters who are well known to the Nigerian public as vultures, attracted only by carcasses of patronage, is a commendable testament to his ability to decipher opportunists and manage them. Doing it successfully also requires a large heart. However, hopefully, he is not entrusting critical national or even personal assignments with national implications to these latter-day BATists who are just singing his praise for heist. Their footprints in public service and the sewer of their private lives are my witnesses. They are for the highest bidders and the man in the Villa is an acknowledged giver. So two has divided four as they say.
Even a lot of the president’s appointees, including ministers, appear not keen on risking their names in his defence in their domains, especially in the North where opposition against him keeps mounting. How the news from the recent Kaduna village square meeting between his appointees from the North and the political leadership over there, were trolleyed out should be an eye-opener. The feeble defence from his team was almost a footnote to the accusative agitation from the zone’s elders which dominated the airwaves. And his minister of information is from the zone!.
Since many appointees assumed office, they have been mute about the Renewed Hope Agenda as it concerns their end. Maybe there isn’t actually much to talk about. So it is better to remain quiet and keep marking time while enjoying the abundance of office, until the appointor see need to replace them or their luck keep them, for the four years.
There is this song about those who came to this world to work and those who came to count money that comes without breaking sweat. The ruling APC is reportedly fractured in many state chapters because of this “awon kan waye wa sise, awon kan waye wa ka dollars” reward system of the Tinubu administration, but we should give the benefit of intimate understanding to the man dishing out the goodies. He is possibly rewarding worth as contiguous to his 2023 success and relevant to his re-election project, which means his calculation and permutations are likely to be different from those looking in from outside.
In Lagos APC, there is this bitter but funny joke about the abyss between “eniyan kan” (one solid person) and “gbogbo ero” (an insignificant lot) in politics. If a party member is loud on his/her alleged abandonment, some would jest if he/she is somebody or gbogbo ero (the irrelevant band). I guess the jab is also being imported into Oyo APC. Learnt a leading gubernatorial aspirant recently shut down a crowd chorusing his praise, dissing them as beggars. To him, they are gbogbo ero, of little value, until election day when the “disposable” women would be corralled into “dibo ko se obe (a street lingo for vote-buying). Someone may be shouting self hoarse in the public domain but as long as he/she is still pinned in the “gbogbo ero” column by the powers-that-be when weighted for value, the fellow may remain a John in the wilderness, especially those categorized as professional politicians who must be patronized one way or the other, to eat.
Chief Akintola isn’t in that class. The Ibadan High Chief is a very successful lawyer with material wealth to boot. His love for his political leader is what Yoruba will call ife eleyele (forever bond). But that won’t change the fact that more Nigerians are in agony under the leadership of his man. Last Sunday, we swung hither and thither. He asked me to go check indices from other African countries’ economies to see the difference. He believed the comparative analysis would convince me his man is doing a yeoman job. We couldn’t align on the salient governance issues to consider in awarding the incumbent performance grade. But Chief remains my great egbon any day. Even when he isn’t agreeing with you, his manifest love never wanes. Yoruba nation owes him, though his fire-brand nationalism could be worrying, occasionally.
My assessment of the three years of Osun administration under Governor Adeleke isn’t cast in iron but I believe the state can do with a better performance, either from him or someone else and my take has nothing to do with partisanship, parochialism, clannishness or nepotism. Thankfully neither the governor nor those seeking to replace him next year is from my community. I have conversed, verbally and by other means, with residents of the state and recently traveled some parts of it. The governor is rated above his immediate predecessor (maybe that is why he withdrew from seeking a second non-consecutive term), but the economy of the state would need a jump-start more penetrating than raising the Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR), which in itself is a major plus for the Adeleke administration provided the bumper harvest of billions from the struggling residents, is transparently, responsibly and responsively administered for the greater good of the state’s six million-strong human population.
If the governor is looking politically weakened today, he can only blame himself for how he handled the botched “transfer” from PDP to APC. I have details I won’t share here but a more politically-savvy administrator would have read his immediate environment well, before advancing to lead those still smarting from the several political wars they fought facing him. Receiving him into Osun APC as the new leader, would make those in the party feel like a conquered people. The opposition leaders chose the path Yoruba will call “iku ya ju esin” (death is better than reproach). They got their leader in Abuja to make the “home-coming” conditional; let everybody go and vote next year first before we determine who should lead who. Other defecting governors in the Southern Solidarity project didn’t get such a humiliating condition. Yoruba will couch it as; the eye seeing what it is searching or looking for what isn’t missing.
With that conditional crossing, Tinubu has drawn the battle-line for Adeleke and Osun APC, the way cantankerous elders of old would draw a line in the sand for two boasting combatants. I had participated in a couple of such, growing up in Ilesa. Nothing is ever demulcent in a dogfight, especially when a crowd is gathered to sing “Akiti (tantalus monkey) lo le ja o” (hailing parties in the battle). Before anyone would knock the president as agba ti o to’le (a mischievous elder), it should be noted Osun APC asked for this rubber match against Adeleke and it has become a must-win to eternally save its face. It remains to be seen if the boast of imminent sacking of the incumbent isn’t what Yoruba will dismiss as using mouth to bloat the pot of soup with meat.
Yes, the governor has hemorrhaged badly in street credibility and political clout since his cross-over service was stopped before the first hymn, but Osun APC can’t claim any victory, even for stopping his “transfer”, because the incumbency factor still gives him an edge in the main poll in which he is certain to be PDP’s candidate, God preserving his life, regardless of who he is partnering with, ADC or SDP.
I’m not a big fan of identity politics but it has taken root and come to pattern the path to electoral victories in my dear state. Two of the big three, Ede, Ife and Osogbo, playing outsize role in determining guber winners so far, just have to find some sort of alignment, to dislodge the one standing alone. Currently Ede and Ife are into that winning partnership, with Ede topping the ticket. If Ede (Adeleke’s homestead) must be dislodged, then Ife and Osogbo would have to find cohabitation on the opposition platform. Ife has been number 2 severally, actually thrice and you want to ask if it its destiny not to produce another governor after Sir Adesoji Aderemi. Osogbo too, has been doing what Yoruba will call amugbalegbe (supporting role). Maybe both will bond against Ede; two-time winner, incidentally from the same nuclear family. What a grace on a home!
The opposition leaders may not realise they are in as much a dilemma as the governor and that is why the early celebration beats imagination. Of course, the APC ticket is looking desirable again after Oyetola’s self-imposed gubernatorial moratorium, but the tendency not to choose right is always there, due to a lot of factors, especially the Tinubu factor which is almost the principal factor.
Considering the public presidential acknowledgement of how Senator Iyiola Omisore torpedoed the Northern/Adamu Abdullahi coup to make Ahmad Lawan the handpicked APC presidential candidate, in what has come to be known as “coup and counter-coup” (I’m considering a tell-all once I get the major actors’ buy-in), there is widespread assumption within and outside APC that President Tinubu is going to gift Omisore the governorship ticket as a pay back. That would be a commendable gesture only that the president has a way of delaying gratitude to those who dared death (fori laku) for him to realise his lifelong ambition. Though I won’t recommend Senator Dayo Adeyeye as a model politician but at a point I had to wonder to someone why he took the president that long to reward his early Tinubu gospel when the then-aspirant was being crudely mocked across the country. Of the big 3 in contention for APC ticket, Omisore, Ajibola Bashiru, APC national scribe and the former finance commissioner, Bola Oyebamiji, representing the three senatorial districts of the state, the president’s job is cut for him.
Funny enough, Ife-born Omisore was so close to being one of the Class of 1999 governors (Tinubu’s set) but fate and now-late Bola Ige had other ideas. Since then, he is on his fourth run. Maybe same fate has been waiting for all of the 27 years to now smile on him.
There have been talks about Tinubu, due to an alleged understanding with the Adelekes, likely endorsing a “weak” candidate for the incumbent to roller-coast to re-election. But I doubt the president would want to fit the waist of omolomo (someone else’s child) with celebratory beads. A potential match-up between Adeleke and Omisore would be a blockbuster. The merry nature of the governor would always make him my favourite but it would be difficult to close one’s eyes to the massive self-development, academic and professional accomplishments of the one known among his supporters as Chrisore, since he burst into the political space, culminating in academic doctoral award. Who doesn’t want to be governed by an egg-head?
End.
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