When history records the present 4th Republic, Osun, with its impassioned elections, could earn a special chapter.
But so would the intense fray between the captains of development and commanders of retardation, grappling for its soul; with the people themselves seeming self-condemned, as democratic prisoners of war (POW)!
Still, shorn of that rather dramatic combat symbolism, the Osun situation is universal truism. The masses have never changed anywhere in history.
Those who have are lean and mean forces, of light or darkness; of progress or regress. The winners just corral the rest, and mould them in own images!
So, a polity or society that progresses or regresses is a function of the critical mass that holds it in thrall.
When positive forces triumph, society soars. That is a manifestation of happy thrall, with all its ringing paradox.
When negative ones are victors, the society sinks. That is a manifestation of mirthless thrall, with all its grim folly of wilful self-stabbing.
In electoral and democratic terms, it’s the majesty of choice. Make the right one and soar. Make the wrong one and sink.
To parody John Milton in Paradise Lost, you got free choice. But you must stand by the wisdom — or folly — of that choice. It is the severe beauty of self-making or ruining!
So, it was with Osun; and its bitterly fought gubernatorial election, just judicially resolved on July 5, in favour of sitting Governor, Gboyega Oyetola.
Now, the governor has his job cut out for him. Out of a term of four years, nearly one is gone, on bitter feuding on the judicial front. Yet, governance couldn’t stop. Neither did voter expectation.
So Governor Oyetola though now flush with victory, as the Supreme Court just affirmed his victory, is condemned to upping the ante, to make up for lost time.
That is as easy as executing a sprint during a marathon; and yet retaining well-managed breath to finish the race with aplomb, splash and dash!
That’s a hard chore, fit only for the brave and nimble.
Between Governor Oyetola and feisty opponent, PDP’s Ademola Adeleke, who symbolizes progress or regress, light or darkness, solid deal or titillation, hope or despair, may well be marooned in the emotive plain of politics.
In a cynical, value-neuter polity, both could well be pitches from two ends of the same continuum. It’s a happy-go-merry ruin that condemns the voter to sweet nothings, during electioneering.
In that ultra-cynical street lingo, it’s just all politics. Let everyone pitch; and let the most cunning take the day.
But to the development-minded — and development ought to be the purpose of governance — it’s not that fluid or empty. There has got to be definitive value ingrained in governance, which must guide choice.
In Osun, since 1999, there appears a distinct but contrasting pattern, between the forces of politics for politics; and politics for development.
By that frame, there appears two distinct tendencies; and quite frankly, the Osun voters must begin to take themselves much more seriously; and decide a definite path to follow, to make good by their state, given its peculiarities.
For politics for development, you could track the continuum, since 1999, as Governors Bisi Akande-Rauf Aregbesola-Gboyega Oyetola.
For politics for politics, you could track pretty much only Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, though Ademola Adeleke, had he won, would have fitted pat into that counter-continuum.
Now, this classification is no holy writ, valid only because Ripples had pronounced it — no! It is rather the columnist’s honest interpretation, based on close study and understanding of the policy thrusts of the two tendencies.
Of course, readers and partisans are free to agree — or demur.
Yes, there is also Iyiola Omisore, an ever-constant and recurring thrust, since 1999. Omisore was part of the Akande government. Before the split in that regime, he was the first Deputy Governor.
Omisore would go on own different political trajectory, becoming a PDP ranking senator, and unfazed opposition figure to the Akande-Aregbesola tendency — until the Oyetola-Adeleke stalemate, when he weighed in on the Oyetola side; and helped to swing the extended election the new governor’s way.
If therefore Akande-Aregbesola-Oyetola symbolize a thrust, against the Oyinlola counter-thrust, which of the two black-or-white will Omisore’s grey eventually fit into? That stays in the belly of time!
Suffice it to say the two major tendencies have had to contend with bruising post-election tiffs. Oyetola just lost eight months to distractions, borne out of a judicial challenge to his election.
Oyinlola, on the other hand, enjoyed almost a full four-year illegal tenure as re-elected governor, until the Court of Appeal sacked him six months to full term in November 2010, when Aregbesola was sworn in as duly elected governor, in those best-forgotten “do-or-die” elections (apologies to former President Olusegun Obasanjo) of 2007.
Irony of ironies: Omisore that threw his lot with Oyetola vehemently opposed the Aregbesola triumph, not really out of any strong judicial foundation but out of bitter partisan fealty.
Even Oyinlola, before Obasanjo’s ADC Trojan horse and CUPP, its giddy mutation, was part of the Osun APC order, after the presidential win of 2015.
Old Greek, Heraclitus the philosopher must sure have had Osun in mind, when he philosophically decreed you can’t step in the same river twice! Osun politics would appear Heraclitus’s constant state of flux!
Still, between the Akande-Aregbesola and the Oyinlola thrusts, it is clear which side was development-driven.
Baba Akande came with Spartan, if painful policies; preaching the gospel of for their future, we give our today. But that was seldom popular, among friend or foe.
He was scalded out of power by emotive politics, though the Osun Alliance for Democracy (AD) partisans, back then in 2003, swore trademark Obasanjo-esque guile and cunning fiddled the vote.
Rauf Aregbesola’s eight-year governorship scaled new heights in developmental policy, chalking hitherto unattained marks in infrastructure, physical and social; and giving the Osun rural economy a healthy jab in the arm.
But no thanks to the regime’s wilful media-roasting (especially on the salary crisis), and bitter division among the Osun APC cadre, Adeleke hit the scene as a tragic comic — a Maltina Dance All virtuoso, gunning for the Osun governorship, with no especial credential or any rigorous policy thrust, except free-style, consummate dancing!
It was disaster averted — the political equivalent of boxing’s “saved by the bell”!
But even as the high drama peaked, the Osun electorate appeared no more than POWs — dazed and stunned; even as Adeleke was wildly gyrating towards becoming the Osun equivalent of Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose: an unfazed mascot of retardation, to undo the gruelling work of the eight previous years!
Adeleke’s close shave defines Oyetola’s historic duty. He appears the latest of the critical mass for progress, against that for retrogress, baying for Osun’s soul.
If he succeeds, Osun soars. If he fails, Osun sinks. His job is well cut out; and time is not on his side.
It’s time, therefore, to play vigorous catch-up!
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