Last Saturday, Osun State Governor Gboyega Oyetola was dished a quit notice from the Governor’s mansion in an election that may be a prelude of unfolding challenging times ahead for the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress. The Peoples Democratic Party’s Ademola Adeleke, the only dancing-senator in the history of Nigeria, served the notice in a wee-hour announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Oyetola came tumbling down like a rubbished humpty-dumpty. The Osun sun rose on Adeleke and the same set on the sitting governor. Oyetola didn’t see it coming.
Osun is my home state. Even from far-away Texas, my fingers are on its pulse. Where and when necessary and without much noise, I volunteer to be part of the path that leads to its progress. But how and why did this electoral shipwreck happen to an incumbent governor whose party controls so much in Nigeria today? The APC’s love in people’s heart may be waxing frozen-cold because of pervasive hunger and anger across Nigeria.
At the Government House voting spot, in wards of current government officials, stretching to communities like mine in Imesi-Ile, Adeleke shellacked his opponent and rubbed it on the faces of visiting party big shots, including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The party’s Presidential standard bearer hurriedly skipped town when the embarrassment was too smudging to bear. Oh, poor Oyetola! I like the meek Alhaji. You cannot call him cerebrally dumb; he holds an MBA degree. He was a successful business man before he plunged into the dirty waters of politics. He is a cool dude with a placid ambition.
These are few reasons Oyetola’s dream was cut short. The following are my perspectives. For eight years, Oyetola was Chief-of-Staff to former Governor, now Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola. Oyetola saw Aregbesola up close. He saw his strength, his heart, his dogged work ethics, and his politics. Oyetola embraced Aregbesola’s strength and distanced himself from his not-too-strong areas. Rauf did make noise and stirred up many controversies as governor, but his sincere love for the people was never in question. Aregbesola inherited the sum of N4.6bn pension debt when he was sworn in as governor in 2010. He paid close to N2bn before he left office. On his way out, Aregbesola reportedly bequeathed a whooping debt of N141.1bn domestic debt; and N29.5bn multilateral (external) debt totaling about N170bn. Much of it was channeled into building roads, bridges, and infrastructures we all see today. Oyetola confirmed this figure in his governorship debate 2018.
Oyetola later took the baton from Aregbesola. Smart enough, he stayed away from the valley of the shadow of debt, increased the state internally generated revenue by about 131% within one year in office. With paltry income and huge debt to service, he paid state debt commitments, paid workers on time, doled out pensions with precisions, but couldn’t make arrears of pension payments owed by the previous administration that he was also part of. A labourer is worthy of his hire. People deserve to be paid when they work. Hurting retired civil servants without money to buy food and medicine quietly turned on the governor and waited till election day to show their anger. People don’t care who was governor yesterday; they hold accountable who is in power today for what is due to them, and justifiably so. Osun is not a money-bag state with monthly derivation windfalls from crude oil. It has an intractable financial stranglehold. Any governor in the state will face a boisterous wind of financial mayhem until there’s a creative way of cutting down on government expenditures and increasing the IGR to pay salaries to the 40,000 state workers. Oyetola couldn’t help these people who wanted the money they worked for. This was one factor that derailed Oyetola’s re-election train.
The fiery feud between Oyetola and Aregbesola is another factor that derailed Oyetola’s train. Unfortunately, the governor allowed the brawl to linger too long. The feud between the two men originated from Bourdillon and spiralled down Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to Oshogbo. It is no news today that Tinubu and Aregbesola cannot see eye-to-eye. The cause of their rift is politics and power play that got personal over the last year. Oyetola took side with his big cousin who single-handedly imposed him on Osun as governor. But he forgot that Baba Kabiru did the leg walk in Osun for him to become governor. And the former governor was the warrior leading the battle against a formidable and fiery PDP opposition. Aregbesola has his die-hard supporters who knocked on doors and mobilised for elections. Suddenly, Aregbesola, one of few Godzillas of grassroot politics in the entire South-West, became a plague the governor didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.
When the Interior Minister’s men in Osun observed that their boss was rubbished and side-lined by Oyetola, they sought revenge. They ensured that the sitting governor had his last dance on Saturday. And came the election night with results pouring in. The APC state chairman, Prince Gboyega Famodun; Special Adviser on Political Matters Sunday Akere; and the Assembly Deputy Speaker, Femi Popoola, were humiliated in their Boluwaduro Local Government. The Commissioner for Works, Remi Omowaye, was disgraced in Ilesha West. Chief Bisi Akande and his state Attorney-General son, Femi, couldn’t win their Ila Local Government Area for Oyetola. These were Oyetola’s darlings he counted on to win re-election. But Aregbesola, who the governor didn’t value, won handily his Ilesha East territory for his party. A minister, a man who won back-to-back elections, and ruled for eight years when his party had no control of the centre cannot be ignored. An astute asset with entrenched political machineries cannot be considered irrelevant. Oyetola valued the valueless, and devalued the valuable. He’ll probably regret this move for a while. As long as Aregbesola remains Nigeria’s Interior Minister, and the feud between him and Tinubu drags on without a détente, the APC’s presidential standard bearer may need to kiss Osun ‘bye-bye’ from the states he plans to win next year.
It is true that Adeleke took advantage of the foolish and infantile food-fight in the APC to lock in victory, but it is unfair and unbalanced to attribute Demola’s electoral success to the aforementioned factors alone. The incoming governor is branded in some quarters as a joker because of the public display of his dexterous dancing endowment. But the amiable and gregarious man has some strength. He found a way of weaving his message of hope and liberation around his hands and legs as they do the moonlight-Michael-Jackson-freak-maneuvering on the dance floor. Ademola danced his way into the hearts of the people who wanted something different. The closely-knit Adeleke family brought a history of kind-heartedness into that election. The light of the family is Dr Adedeji Adeleke, a quiet and discreet multi-billionaire international businessman. His kind is rare. His impact on lives across the globe is mind-blowing. A friend very close to the family told me of the jaw-dropping philanthropy of the Adelekes. I was told Deji pays the tuition of almost 3,000 university students annually, pays monthly salaries of about 7,000 pastors in his Seventh day Assembly Church, and builds worship houses for men and women called by God. Thousands of people in his Ede hometown who have benefitted from the Adelekes are both Christians and Muslims. His generosity cuts across all faiths. Check out the Ede results, the family’s uplifting testaments of help drove many people out of the woodworks to vote heavily for Demola last Saturday. When he lost the 2018 election, I knew this day will come in a matter of time. Because God, for the sake of certain good and generous people, rewards certain people connected to them for His glory. The Adelekes are now to Osun State politics what the Kennedys are to American democracy. They will hold sway for a long time to come.
Fola Ojo
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