If Ekiti ronu [Ekiti think] echoes Yoruba ronu, iconic caution as mass protest music by late dramatist, Hubert Ogunde, during the 1st Republic’s political storm, it is simply because a storm of similar magnitude is hovering over Ekiti.
Should this storm dawn and thunder break, as the pan-Yoruba one did in the 1st Republic Western Region, Ekiti people would be the grand victims in the present South West.
Indeed, in Ekiti, the third generation of Obafemi Awolowo’s developmental politics are about to fall upon themselves, ironically as the paterfamilias and his policy greats did; making hideous political killing fields of the same Western vista in which they had showcased startling policy wonders; and birthing the first generation of Yoruba political sinners and saints!
Now what is this: history inevitably repeating itself or plain hubris, pushing towards avoidable ruin?
Enter Samuel Ladoke Akintola and his fallen angels, among the brightest and best in the old Action Group (AG), the first generation of Yoruba political sinners versus Awo and faithful disciples, the first generation of Yoruba saints; then Akin Omoboriowo and pals, among the brightest and best in the 2nd Republic Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), second generation of Yoruba sinners versus Michael Adekunle Ajasin and brood, second generation of Yoruba saints.
Now, is the black-or-white, famously unforgiving and notoriously ancestral-feuding Yoruba political clime ripe for a third generation of sinners and saints, in the looming Ekiti toss-up between Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (MOB) and John Kayode Fayemi (JKF)?
Both lead feuding blocs of the All Progressives Congress (APC), present South West political lords of the manor, and closest articulators of Awo’s development politics, among the varied groups laying claim to the Awo legacy.
Indeed, Awo political descendants are no united phalanx. From the very genesis, even with Awo in charge, the ranks had always fissured. So, it is with the present generation.
For starters, a bloc insists it is Awo natural franchisers, to be disputed by no one. This class comprises the living Awolowos, the Afenifere grandees, Awo-era battle-hardened but ageing veterans and other Awo ideology coterie and family friends, in the clergy and other fields.
This group considers itself the Areopagus, apex chamber of wise elders in ancient Athens, from which the Awo franchise must be cleared. But aside from holding this virtual “spiritual brief”, to use legal-speak, they have done pretty little to concretise the Awo developmental essence.
Indeed, it is not illegitimate to charge this bloc with illicit doctrinaire trade-offs, for immediate but eventually ruinous political gains (as the Afenifere grandees did with Ogun’s former governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, OGD, and his Ogun Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and currently with Olusegun Mimiko and his Labour Party in Ondo), when faced with political pressures from rival claimants to the Awo legacy.
Then there is the Bola Tinubu group, from the Alliance for Democracy (AD) at the start of this 4th Republic, to Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and now All Progressives Congress (APC). Though the Afenifere bloc regards Asiwaju Tinubu and his younger Turks as a breed of upstarts (and on both sides, the contempt is mutual), the Tinubu bloc has done more than any other to actualise Awo’s developmental vision.
Indeed, what the AD class of 1999-2003 miserably flunked, the Tinubu current brood in the South West is doing with panache: in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti states, with the South West boasting robust development makeovers, reminiscent of the golden Awo days, in stark contrast to the abject developmental puddle of the Olusegun Obasanjo mainstream era.
But aside from the Afenifere and Tinubu blocs, there are the Awo ideological fair weather friends, exemplified by the Mimikos and OGDs, who nibble the Awo rhetoric for political sustenance, but are political Machiavellis, sworn to the end justifying the means – or “meanness” to parody Prof. Wole Soyinka.
Since every Tinubu gain necessarily translates into an Afenifere loss (and probably vice-versa), the Mimikos and OGDs are in booming business, entering sweetheart partnerships with Afenifere, as the unending battle flares, to control of the soul of the South West.
It is to this vicious vista, therefore, that the looming MOB-JKF battle royale for the capture of Ekiti is opening. But that is not the only danger. Lurking in the wings, and waiting for carrion, are the federal political vultures of Goodluck Jonathan, a presidential camp desperately craving a second term (after making a hash of the first), and for whom a fissured Ekiti APC would be virtual gift from the gods!
If all these would not jolt into sense the Ekiti gladiators, behaving as children without a sense of history, then it is plain hubris, the good old Yoruba eedi, at play!
MOB, rumoured to be lining up joining forces with Labour Party (LP) would probably destroy himself. That is trite, but if only conventional wisdom holds right.
So, after Akintola and Omoboriowo, is MOB bracing up to lead the latest generation of progressives-turned-demons in Yoruba politics? But what if conventional wisdom turns grand folly and MOB turns the table? Or worse: the federal reactionaries cook up the vote and bolt with the prize, while MOB and JKF, in progressive feuding, mutually self-destroy?
But why would a man take such a perilous path? Why would MOB eye possible glory but probable doom, and yet develop a Samson’s complex to stake it all? That is what is not trite!
That would suggest an intolerable political situation in his APC, that makes coexistence mutually unbeneficial. So, if a man cannot legitimately actualise his dreams in a union, why should he invest his time and loyalty in it? Vaulting ambition? Maybe. But ambition is no crime, and “vaulting” is only an adjective!
That takes the discourse to the Fayemi side, now posing as saints in the divide. They are not. MOB and his coalition of the aggrieved accuse the governor of bad faith and of use-and-dump tactics.
These allegations could be right or wrong. But the reality is that one side is incensed enough to torpedo the whole house. That cannot be good for a sitting governor that even the aggrieved admit – even if in private – has done enough to earn re-election.
MOB must, therefore, beware of the Coriolanus syndrome. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, in a fit of fatal anger, joined the Volscians against his native Corioli. He lost his life in the gambit.
But JKF too must be wary of the hubris of gubernatorial conceit to crush a comrade turned foe. And those bent on media demonization of MOB are tragically mistaken. He who is down need fear no fall!
Whatever it takes, the APC leadership must tweak the ears of both combatant camps, and bring both to reason – whatever it takes! On the basis of equal opportunity membership, they must hand each side mutual, cast-iron guarantees to build confidence and fend off the looming disaster.
Each time the South West advances, reactionary forces gather to scuttle the efforts, using feuding progressives themselves as fuel.
Should such happen again in Ekiti, MOB and JKF would take the flak. So, they had better both jerk awake before earning themselves a harsh verdict of history.
Ekiti ronu!
