{ISSUES & POLICY} Osun: Hubris Trumps Hubris

 

By Olakunle Abimbola

In Osun, hubris just trumped hubris — alleged arrogance of performance, trumping bumbling hedonism, venality and vanity.

It was an ultra-close call — and it wasn’t pretty!

Up till the last second, the wide and merry way to Ekiti, Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti, was beckoning — satanic allure, charm, magic, force and all.

But as in Ekiti, Osun’s escape came from the Biblical rejected stone; which became the crucial pillar, in Gboyega Oyetola’s win.

Dayo Adeyeye, a run-away progressive, in Ekiti, nicked the Kayode Fayemi encore.

Imagine what could have happened, had Adeyeye not broken ranks with Fayose, thus exiting with the bulk of his Ise-Orun votes?

In Osun, it was the much vilified Iyiola Omisore that made the difference.  Whatever his controversial political biography, history would record his critical support, which tilted the scale, when it mattered most.

Otherwise?  Like Fayose’s Ekiti, Ademola Adeleke would have vaulted Osun right back into the Stone Age.

Or how would you fancy a 58-year old, that flunked his school certificate examination in 1981, but is linked to an alleged examination forgery in 2017, for the same O’ Level certificate, even as a sitting senator of the Federal Republic, gunning for a South West governorship in 2018?

What people vote such a persona, and hope all would be well?  That is the depth of Osun’s narrow escape, with less than 500 votes — the closest in Nigerian gubernatorial election history!

Still, like Ekiti, which plumbed the Fayose debacle, the Omisore intervention may yet prove very costly — except both sides strictly stick to the terms of their deal.  But more on that presently.

The Osun see-saw is clearly a grim metaphor of acute retardation in Yoruba political thinking.  In a South West that prides itself unrepentantly progressive, basking in the infallibility of the Obafemi Awolowo vision, a reactionary incubus is setting in — and its long shadow seems getting longer by the day.

In 1999, an Ademola Adeleke candidacy, in any South West state, would have been the butt of derision, to be furiously guillotined on Election Day.  Yet, an Osun of 2018 nearly saw a headless dancer, that articulated near-nothing, almost coasting home to victory.

But give it to the Yoruba conservatives.  In their desperation for election wins, they don’t mind throwing any jerk at the electorate.  That is why the Osun PDP would look over an Akin Ogunbiyi, and pick an Ademola Adeleke.

Fayose was governmental poison, sugar-coated and packaged as stomach infrastructure champion.  But  Adeleke’s paralyzing profile, of a gubernatorial vacuum, appears even worse than Fayose’s infantile tomfoolery.

That should plumb an all-time low — at least, in the Yoruba South West.

Yet, all that seemed not to matter.  The Afenifere, in Omisore’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), seemed ready to cut a deal with Adeleke, ideological warts, barrenness and all.  At that fatal moment, their ancestral feud with Bola Tinubu triumphantly trumped their fealty to Awo’s developmental ideology!

It took an Omisore, pariah in good times, comrade in grudge times, to puncture their delusory ballon; and show a far keener sense, of both history and posterity.

Long before, much of the South West media had turned livid with scalding, plebeian hate, against a sitting governor; and profaned the public trust in their care, with personal hostility; and institutional rascality and vendetta.

No thanks to this rabid hysteria, from an otherwise respectable society turned so despicable in their professional misconduct, outgoing Governor Rauf Aregbesola, had become the devil-in-chief, fit for severe roasting.

Yet, compare and contrast to neighbouring Ekiti, and the callous conspiracy would appear clear.

Even on the skewed passion on salary defaults — a pan-Nigeria crisis fraudulently shaped as exclusive Osun “wickedness” — proclaim Aregbesola guilty as charged.  Yet, did Ekiti’s Fayose who, in his cheap theatrics, had earlier joined in the Aregbe roasting, do better?

Now, contrast Fayose’s parlous infrastructure re-stock to Aregbesola’s record, in futuristic roads, bridges and eye-popping schools, among others.

Which of the two would history remember to have dug deep and made a brilliant difference, even at a time of acute adversity?

It is eerie, indeed, that Osun’s September 22 election nearly repeated history, ironically at the dawn of an earlier epochal developmental push, in the old Western Region.

The great Awo had launched the free primary education programme.  But some elite back then, as some Osun elite now, thumbed down the project, in a blitz of fearsome propaganda, led by the opposition National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC).

The next federal elections, Awo’s Action Group (AG) lost — and urban Ilesa and Ife, proudly NCNC bastions, gloried in the AG loss.  On September 22, most of Ijesa, urban or rural, would have gloated over an APC loss, just as urban Ife went SDP.

But whatever the present hurts, just like the great Awo, history would be far kinder to Aregbesola.

He has put in place quality infrastructure to make the next set of Osun youths very competitive, via quality education.  He has also laid a solid infrastructural foundation that, if continued, could, in a short time, vault Osun from the puddle of “civil service state”.

Moreover, he more than any politician of his generation, has demonstrated fierce fealty to South West integration, as a key engine of Nigeria’s re-federalization.

Awo would later call his electoral loss, for doing the right thing, “eebu d’ola” (insult-turned-praise).  For his developmental work in Osun, across many strata of society, Aregbesola’s swan song won’t be much different.

But that doesn’t, in any way, supposed he didn’t make his own mistakes.  He did.  Not a few, friend or foe, would continue to pepper him for leading his party from a near-thumping majority in 2014, to a cliff-hanging win in 2018, aside from a net-loss in his native Ijesaland.  Still, it could have been worse!

That takes the discourse back to Alhaji Oyetola, the governor-elect.  If it were a parliamentary poll, the Osun mandate would birth a “hung parliament”, with neither government nor opposition having a clear mandate.

That just shows the ultra-tight rope Oyetola has to walk; and somewhat maintain a delicate balance.  It is good he has pledged an all-inclusive government, driven by mass consultation.

On immediate expediencies, he must consummate, to the letter, the Omisore deal.  Otherwise, he risks an election-time ally turn an implacable foe.

Besides, such unconsummated deals, in Ekiti, gave Ayo Fayose political resurrection, that almost doomed all Ekiti to collective death.  To boot, it also turned Omisore against the Adelekes, when it mattered most, after their Osun West collaborative senatorial triumph.

But on no account should Osun’s developmental strides be halted: the school feeding programme and other social safety net schemes, road infrastructure and futuristic schools — within budgetary limits of course.

That is the hard road to gubernatorial greatness — beyond the short-term lure of belly politics.