Since the return of participatory democracy in Nigeria, the question of who occupies the Agodi House has always been a peculiarly crucial one. So far, primordial sentiments have played more domineering role than merit on most occasions the ballot box has beckoned on the electorate to proffer an answer. AsNigerians who are mostly true to type, who or what a candidate is becomes less important. For us in Oyo State, we have mostly emphasized where he or she
comes from.
The secret beneath the emergence and sustenance of this negative political culture, which has successfully exalted mediocrity above excellence in matters relating governance, I am convinced, is the flawed orientation of Nigerians generally, through the seemingly traditional perception of power as not only as self-enrichment tool but also a necessarily divine blessing for the ‘lucky’ relatives, kiths and kin of the man or woman at the top. This is just why, in mostcases, communities, far flung in blood and origin from a governor, usually hit the heavens with their heads in dance of appreciation over perceived ‘magnanimity’ and ‘kindness’ of His Excellency through the location of projects, mostly of poor quality, in their domains.
Why not? Once a governor is neither our son nor daughter, we are not entitled to enjoy his tenure as much as his people to whom he obligatorily owes allegiance. The best we can do is to shoot him down, by fire-by force, when theopportunity presents itself in favour of any of our own. It is even worse if he is not our partyman. Then, nothing can be good or commendable about him, and so he must be haunted and hacked into an untimely grave.
Another undeniable decider of our fate, so far, has been godfatherism.At some crucial points in our ‘democratic’ history, the voice of a single man was equal tothe voice of the people, just as the service of the people was usually commensurate to the satisfaction of the godman by the resultant product of hisalmighty hand. As long as any ordained governor abided by the dictates of his programmed destiny in office, as plotted by his benefactor, the ordinary man on the street would know the type of peace and comfort we used to know too well.Otherwise, heavenly hell would scorch earthly beings in a manner reminiscent of the Ladoja-Adedibu saga.
For close to two years, the global audience had every cause to mock the originalroot of socio-political and economic development in Africa, Oyo State of Nigeria, which holds the enviable record of the first in many spheres. No thanksto the scuffle between the then Governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, and his Estranged godfather, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, in a theatre of the absurd that seemed like the proverbial fight between a thief that steals palm oil from a roof and the receiver of the loot.
What is more? Commonsense had a quick conversation with its legs, as the largest city in West Africa got transformed into a jungle where developmental project conception became impossible, let alone implementation.
In the same vein, the succeeding administration was nothing but an attempted affirmation of the seeming invincibility and superiority of godfatherism as an ‘essential’ ingredient of our politics in the Pacesetter State. By the estimation ofthe average indigene and resident, the Alao Akala regime was only a self-serving contraption of the godman, a metaphorical instrument devised by the same proverbial palm-oil thief to reclaim his ‘rightful property’ from the usurping receiver.
Political ‘generosity’, as an important character-trait in our political culture, wasat its best during the compensatory four years of the Ogbomoso-born chief executive. It brought with it pseudo development and distressing motion without movement.
However, in a manner similar to the restoration of power to the Nigerian people in 1998 through the demise of the late despot, General Sani Abacha, death, I believe, came to the rescue of the good people of Oyo State, exactly 10 years after, 2008. Perhaps, even if the current Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, would ever be what he is today, it probably would have been through, at least, the passive consent or fictional indifference of the godman, if not dead.
As a patriotic Nigerian with keen interests in what becomes of my country and state, I make bold to say that the 2011 gubernatorial election was a real turning point in Oyo State. It was the first time I joined my fellow citizens to freely express our wishes through the ballot. In the past, the voice and image of a real live Big Brother loomed large in our consciousness, warning us against the prospects of wasting our votes through a free-will vote, foretelling of a pre-determined outcome that we would never be able to alter even with an overwhelming majority strength.
This is where the issue of the elite populace in Oyo State politics comes in. As the most enlightened specie of any society, this set of people ordinarily helps to influence the political behaviour of the masses through informal education. But,in our own state, I have noticed partial political apathy amongst my contemporaries. Most usually register, obtain the voter’s card, but stay awayfrom the polling booth on the day of decision.
It is instructive to note that as a great fraction of registered voters stayed away, the availability of a large number of unused ballot papers, during past elections,was usually a ready tool for the agents of multiple thumb-printing.
If you probe those who indeed know that their vote is their power but, nevertheless, chose to stay aloof in the past, you would get a sure answer – itwas needless risking their precious lives in the avoidable insecure air of Nigerian elections which end-result had been determined by a godman and his cronies who were really visible but supposedly invincible.
My narratives, so far, with seeming judgemental leanings are never a prejudicedtale crafted to cast aspersions on some characters while promoting some others.Rather, it has been sincerely motivated by undenible change in reality courtesyof a noticed change in our electoral behaviour.
The widespread, non-selective nature of the qualitative dividends of democracy that has, so far, characterized the on-going tenure of Senator Ajimobi is, to me, a pleasant end-result that justifies the means of its coming to be – a free choice devoid of the godman’s influence, an everybody’s choice devoid of tribal consideration, a fact that has reduced the entire state into a single constituency for Ajimobi.
It is against the background of the foregoing analysis that the real issues at stakein the current rundown to the 2015 Oyo State gubernatorial election come to thefore.
Summarily put, Oyo State is at crossroads. The real issues at stake, in my view, combine into a single poser. Do we want to reverse into the immediate past of selfish patronage and its tragedy of socio-economic advancement of the few or prefer to sustain and consolidate the new political culture of enlightened self-interests with its attending selfless development by all and for all?
In making a choice, our elite class has a great burden their vantage position has placed on them. Aside from full participation, they have the duty of liberating our good-minded people from the on-going deliberately mischievous misinformation being perpetuated aggressively by a cross-section of the political class. These politicians and their cronies are not the enlightened compatriots I earlier referred to. Rather, they are the very dangerous specie amidst us we need beware of, as they are bent on colouring our perception, suchthat, on their prompting, white would no longer be white but seen as black.
• Abolade writes in from Yemetu, Ibadan.