Behold, The Dancing Governor!

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party lost the recent gubernatorial poll in Osun State. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the election with a wide margin. Senator Ademola Adeleke trounced the incumbent Governor, Gboyega Oyetola. He garnered 403,371 votes to defeat Governor Oyetola who polled negligible 375,027 votes. With Osun State as the latest addition the PDP boasts of two frontline states in Yorubaland (Oyo state included) leading to the general elections of next year. Indeed, it was a refreshing victory worth celebrating. And the triumphant victor danced happily in a blissful atmosphere of ‘revenge’ and triumph of the people’s will.

When, it would be recalled, four years ago the same Senator Adeleke won the poll the ruling APC made every desperate surreptitious move to steal the ballot thereby denying the real winner the fruit of his labour. Now he had laboured hard to avenge the electoral injustice visited on him by the Asiwaju Tinubu-led APC rigging machinery. Tinubu is a professional in rigging matters and he has been doing it every other four years in Lagos!

The well-oiled rigging machine ‘knocked’ this time as no Abuja connection or the Lagos gang-up (Jagaban electoral banditry) could change the tide if peace and harmony in Osun state must endure.

Indeed, attempts were made desperately to overturn the people’s choice by playing the rigging or manipulation card but it backfired leaving Asiwaju Tinubu and Gov. Oyetola a bitter taste in the mouth. The July 16 governorship election was predicted to be an obituary for the misruling APC party with the out-going Governor posting a below-average performance in office.

President Muhammadu Buhari, even though he is far less a democrat than anticipated, must be commended for transforming himself lately into an apostle of democracy and free and fair election (himself a victim of its very opposite). Buhari remains a reluctant democrat whose definition of democracy is little more than shedding the toga of dictatorship and swapping same with that of democracy.

The man of the moment who won the Osun guber election is an enigmatic jolly good fellow. The dancing Senator cum Governor-elect is of course a popular politician in the state. It is not a crime from every stretch of imagination for a Governor of a state to be a good dancer. Constitutionally nothing is wrong with that! What matters most remains the delivery of security, dividends of democracy and taking good care of people’s social welfare needs.

The defeated out-going Governor, Oyetola, is a dour politician whose four-year stint at the Government House in Osogbo cannot be described as stellar. He is neither charismatic nor active. He was wangled into governance in the state by Asiwaju and other godfathers and politicians of fortune. They failed to re-impose him on the people because the people themselves took their money and gifts and still voted for Adeleke.

Nigeria is blessed and cursed with politicians in general and Governors in particular. Some are serious and patriotic working hard to leave a positive legacy behind. And you have others whose performance is in sync with failure of leadership. They went into politics primarily for the money and nothing else.

Celebrating his deserved victory the night after Adeleke had danced himself to ‘stupor’! The jubilant enthusiasm was evident in a viral video depicting his talent as a good dancer. That ‘talent’ is seldom seen in our Governors. As Governor-elect Adeleke was busy dancing the night away the former Governor of the State and current Minister of the Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, was involved in an altercation with a Nigerian based in the States. Minister Aregbesola who controversially renamed Osun State as the State of Osun had gone to America for an official or unofficial engagement.

Hungry, he had decided to eat out with a lady friend in a restuarant. In the video ex-Governor Aregbesola was captured holding a plate of food and making his way to a table where a lady waited. He had barely dropped the plate and taken his seat when the dramatic scene unfolded. He was seen standing gesticulating and engaging the Nigerian recording the encounter.

The ‘feud’ soon degenerated leading to comments like: “This is not Nigeria, Mr Minister!” Aregbesola must have felt embarrassed by the temerity of the ‘bloody civilian’ to confront him! In Nigeria the bold and aggressive guy would not have done what he did. The bearded Minister tried in vain to use his bare hand to block the mobile phone camera doing ‘justice’ to their confrontation.

The Osun state Governor-elect had featured in a live programme on Channels Television in Lagos where he declared that he was convinced that Aregbesola boys had worked for his success at the polls. Of course there is no love lost between Aregbesola and Asiwaju Tinubu on one hand and the incumbent Governor and himself on the other hand. Aregbesola is against Asiwaju’s cult of personality and his penchant to play god!

Senator Adeleke is not alone in his passion for dancing. The Cross Rivers state Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, was once captured on video online dancing beautifully somewhere in Calabar! Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State is not a performing Governor but what he lacks in gubernatorial quality he compensates for it by being a lover of sports especially early morning gym sessions. He once uploaded a video of himself in the Govt. House in Lokoja dancing away while gyming up.

The outcome of the Osun state governorship poll must have thrown Asiwaju and his Lagos gang into a stalemate diminishing their political fortune and Tinubu’s presidential ambition which is encountering a whole lot of controversies and bad press lately. Asiwaju Tinubu is a politician who craves the limelight; he wants to be seen as another Awolowo in Yorubaland. But the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, was a great man with great credentials.

Asiwaju Tinubu can never be Awolowo in his entire life and political career despite his desperation to become one. It is akin to comparing dusk with dawn, oranges with apples. There would not be another Awolowo in Yorubaland as there would be no more Nnamdi Azikiwe in Igboland and Aminu Kano in the north.

Prior to the Osun guber poll Asiwaju Tinubu was in Osogbo leading the ill-fated campaign for the re-election of Gov. Oyetola. He had, as usual, goofed by causing needless controversy when he declared that his opponents in other opposition parties (including Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar) were all ‘labouring in vain till death’!

And now that ‘Jagaban’ and his many paid hooligans have all been given a bloody electoral nose having laboured in vain to make Oyetola a second-term Governor  perhaps it is time Atiku and Obi reply Asiwaju by telling him that his gang had laboured in vain and would continue to labour till the grim reaper strikes.

We welcome the dancing Governor to the Government House in Osogbo! This is hoping that his emergence would make life better for his people.

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the dancing Governor!

 

SOC Okenwa

soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr

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