THE effervescent Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, turns 57 – in an election year in Nigeria.
I had long held the suspicion that the governorship election in Ogun might be a paradox of some sort because of the body language of certain politicians. It will be the simplest and the most difficult. Simplest and straightforward because if the poll is conducted today, every Nigerian knows who will be the winner. In fact, it is not just that Amosun will win but by what margin – landslide or ‘moonslide’? But there are politicians whose political career, in their own estimation, is on the line, and so have become desperate they want the governorship seat by hook or by crook.
When a political party formed on the eve of a general election suddenly lays claim to membership strength of 400,000, 500,000 or 600,000, you are compelled to ask for the evidence. Such a bogus claim is nothing short of a throw-back to the 1965 Western Region. I recall Remi Fani-Kayode of the NNDP boasting that they would win whether the people voted or not, that angels would vote for them. In the end, it was demons that voted for them. This led to operation wetie in the West, (and with other factors) a military putsch and ultimately the Civil War. As believers in the rule of law and free and fair elections, we must never permit any electoral heist in Ogun.
Politics, when it is merely a game devoid of rigging and violence, can be very interesting. A man who cannot win his ward will paste posters as a governorship aspirant while the one that cannot deliver a single local council out of 774 in Nigeria will call himself a presidential aspirant. Indeed, if freedom of thought and expression ever finds an avenue for ventilation, it is during the season of adult suffrage.
On the other hand, this invasion of public space by these paper-weight politicians is salutary, especially at a time like this. At least, it provides some diversion for the average citizen who is traumatized by the economic downturn of the country. It provides an opportunity to unwind, to take your mind away from the Nigerian palaver or the ‘penkelemes’ of our time. The grandstanding, the high falutin rhetoric, satires and sarcasms are better than recourse to guns and machete.
I once expressed my amusement aloud a couple of weeks ago in the newspapers. Truly, I did wonder why an aspirant that is not sure of winning his local council and whose only manifesto is “It is the turn of my area” would issue a quit notice from Lagos (!) to the incumbent governor of Ogun State, who garnered three times the votes of this fictitious landlord in the same poll in 2011. Wonders shall never end!
It is even more intriguing or should we say ridiculous when you recall that while the candidature of this aspirant was still in dispute, the current governor was already at Imeko Afon Local Government, moving from door to door, village to village, exchanging pleasantries and banter with the people who are truly his.
One elderly man spoke openly and loudly: “This man was part of the government that ruled this state for 8 years. They did not do one-tenth of what Amosun accomplished here in Ogun West in just three and a half years.” Then turning to some of the people around and directing a question pointedly to a woman, “During their 8 years, did any of your children come home with a single textbook, let alone 7 or 12, as they now have? Did they provide free education for our children?”
“No,” the woman responded. She added, “We can now get our farm produce to the market easily because of the new road that links our villages. We are all for Amosun – men, women, children and adults!”
“We will vote for SIA because he has put an end to insecurity that menaced our souls before 2011,” one other man interjected.
If the quit notice from the opposition candidate was a slip, how could we describe his latest offering – “My administration will complete Amosun’s projects in Ogun” – as widely reported in the press? A blunder!
Mr. Opposition Candidate, how can you continue the projects you spent three solid years to discredit as a waste of resources? Is this not a brazen deception, a Machiavellian way to secure the votes of the unwary? The Ogun electorates are wiser. They say it makes economic sense for the man that began the socially-beneficial projects to complete them…
I have refused to refer to other parties in this short exercise because, just like in the 2011 poll – when citizens could not have imagined that Amosun could perform these wonders as governor – the total votes of all the opposition parties would still be far below that of the ruling party in the February 28 poll.
Finally, as we celebrate this Sunday with Senator Ibikunle Amosun, the governor of many firsts, who has written his name in gold not just in Ogun State but Nigeria – for having delivered democratic dividends of three terms in three years – let us remember the immortal words of John Curran: “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he breaks, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.”
I’m under no illusion that the plot by some desperate politicians to rig the forthcoming governorship election in Ogun – by all means – is very real. We must therefore employ all lawful means available to us to scupper the plan of the robbery consortium. This is the price we have to pay in order not to return to Egypt. And we are destined to win!
Happy birthday to you sir, and I wish you all the pleasant returns of this day.
