When the hunter begins to beg the bush meat, much is to be said about the ferociousness of the bush and the meat. However, just like the love we have for the household chicken is not deep; if not to fatten it up so as to eat and enjoy it, so is the intrigue going on in Osun State in the wake of the August 9, 2014 gubernatorial election.
The gubernatorial election coming up in Osun State has left me to wonder the credibility of our electoral system and democracy. Isn’t democracy about voting for the leader of your choice who will instigate the change that will result in good governance and therefore make the country worthy of living? What then do we call this politics of Mother Theresa and Father Xmas where foodstuffs are distributed to people like victims of earthquakes and wars camped in a refugee camps?
When Governor Ayo Fayose of PDP Ekiti State was doing the same in the prelude to the Ekiti state elections, you would have thought Nigerians know better after years of suffering from this same armed robbery tactics, but the result of the polls proved differently. People would rather collect their share of the national cake before they go to the polls than go to the polls with hopes and promises. They have come to know, through their nose, that the benefit of democracy is only before the polls. Once they go to the polling booth to cast your vote, they have no business whatsoever with whatever the elected does. Since they know it will never get to them in the long run.
Same is going on in Osun State. The PDP has once more engaged in the welfare/distribution business; giving out kerosene, rice, cash and other goodies to the hungry citizens who couldn’t care less about what is happening in government house, Oke-fia.
Who would blame them?
Right in the midst of this, the ruling party, APC has also thrown itself into the battle ground, not by giving out goodies like the PDP but by doing all they can to tarnish the image of the PDP candidate, Sen Iyiola Omisore. Top on their list is the governorship aspirant’s involvement in the murder case against the former Minister of Justice in Nigeria, the late Cicero of Esa-Oke and foremost nationalist, Chief Bola Ige. Though the senator was discharged and acquitted by the court, it is widely believed and pedalled about by the ruling party that the senator is culpable to the death of Chief Bola Ige.
Furthermore, the APC hold against the senator such grievances as holding a position they term as ‘juicy’, the position of the Chairman Appropriation Committee for four years while in the Senate and doing nothing but in their words, “rather than serving the people and make positive impact in the lives of the people of Osun, he was only there to serve his own pocket. Another grievance the APC hold against the PDP is trying to involve and bribe the “good” students of the state with counterfeit naira notes and bus in the case of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife which is currently generating a lot of upheaval in an already tensed academic environment due to the closing down of the school due to the increase in tuition. There in OAU, Sen. Omisore had been deemed a persona non-grata to the students, but recent revelation shows that he was so only to the students, and not their union leaders.
The list goes on and on.
In Ile-Ife where the PDP aspirant hails from, support is said to be high as loyalty to an indigene is a major force the assembly man is gathering to himself. This leaves other parts of the state to the machinations and intrigue of both parties. The Osun State August 9 gubernatorial election has become a battle between to party systems who seem to have no standing ideology, APC and PDP; therefore between two political giants in person of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Senator Iyiola Omisore.
Looking critically at the intrigue rolling away, I have note that only in Ile-Ife will you find the citizen of the state bad-mouth the education policy embarked upon by the Aregbe-led government four years ago. To the people of Osogbo and its closest neighbours, the policy has benefited them.
Now I wonder who is fooling who? Just like all APC-governed state capitals, Osogbo has been transformed into a small Eldorado of infrastructural beauty. I wish such can be said of other cities in the state.
According to findings from a secondary school principal, the free school uniform, O-Uniform, which was given to the students free when the policy started and released into the market after some months of implementation has now been withdrawn from the market and given free again by the government. This clearly is a campaign strategy. The question I ask again is who is fooling who?
Christian clerics have accused the governor and his government of trying to Islamize the state with all his reforms while the Muslim clerics had replied with accusation of unpatriotic behaviour of the Christian clerics. The governor himself in an interview on a radio programme had rebuffed such claims saying the company in charge of the free school uniform production, Sam and Sarah is owned by a Christian. Such intrigue!
In the latest move by the PDP and the presidency, security personnel from all the security apparatus in the country have stormed the state as was seen in Ekiti State. Gun-carrying officials from the SSS, Police, Army and others from the Civil Defence Corps are sprawled everywhere around the state giving an air of unrest and subtly instilling fear in the hearts of the citizens who are being threatened and cowed into staying indoors on the D-day.
Definitely, INEC has not been left free of the game of thrones as the APC has decried mischievous plots by the electoral body to under-supply APC strongholds with electoral materials. Such towns as Osogbo, Ede, Ila, Iwo, and others were among the purposed strongholds of the ruling party.
Obviously, the power play and battle of trying to outplay the opponent in the political battle has just begun. Much is yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, observant citizens of the state and the involved media are on the line waiting for the next move in what promises to be a fight that will be fought before August 9 and beyond.
Ayodeji Adeyemi. Obafemi Awolowo University. Ile-Ife.
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