Oyetola’s compensation of Osun #EndSARS victims

RECENTLY, Governor Gboyega Oyetola laid bare the high values he ascribes to human life by his compensation programme. He gave N53,290,000 financial support to the victims of violence and deaths from #EndSARS police brutality protest, aimed at “redressing past wrongs, setting our society on the path of healing.” During the protest, there was sudden breaking, bouncing, burning, battering, bulleting as anything in sight became, like in all mob actions, a ready target and people ran helter-skelter from brute force and criminality. While Mr. Governor was spirited out to safety, no single shot or canister was heard from his security architecture. Unlike in a counter insurgency.  The attack on Oyetola is here unreservedly condemned again for more reasons than one. One, Oyetola did not deserve any such attack but the power seekers dangerously after his seat were hell bent at supplanting him in office. Two, Oyetola did not deserve that. Has his governance of Osun ever for a day reduced to the application of tyranny, brute force or harshness to have warranted corresponding payback in an “an eye-for-an eye? The answer is no.

Three, Oyetola never for a second launched any offensive against #EndSARS protesters. The nooks and crannies of the state were not reconfigured into a network of official or extra official spies on anybody. Four, Oyetola has constantly watched out against scenarios akin to  tyranny. He practises the Osun well acknowledged values of integrity, dignity and socio-political discipline. Five, between Oyetola and Osun youths, a good number of them on licit, lawful #EndSARs protest, there is a pact that points up  Oyetola as a father, honestly and consistently expecting to see the youth acquiring a certificate of excellence in any worthy endeavour, not a certificate of death; and he sincerely expects to see the youth’s golden fleece, not a wooden casket. And he has not failed in this role of a father. As a humanist, 0yetola is proud of the state’s youths. He said at the time: “60 per cent of them voted us into government and had embarked on peaceful road walks with us several times in the past, delivering with us a better and prosperous Osun,” Oyetola proudly recalled.

Six, as governor, he has not shirked his responsibility of providing sufficient avenues for the citizenry to realise their potentials or be at their best to contribute to the development of the state without fear or intimidation. He places very high premium on fairness and justice, giving concrete expression to them that put paid to any propensity, penchant for tyranny in Osun. And the state moves on the wings of justice. Seven, Oyetola  didn’t stall the path to social justice as he pledged government solidarity with the legitimate protest and assured that the protesters’ demands would be forwarded to the Presidency were getting Mr President’s attention.

Had he sponsored political thugs, the oppositions would have assumed that the government was too hasty; and if the government had moved cautiously as it were, then the assumption would have been that the government was too slow.  Between 23 and 24, October 2020, there was chilling destruction of government facilities, private business premises and personal houses, with properties looted. As an insurance professional, Oyetola had to give effect to the Osun Judicial Panel of Inquiry’s curative recommendations, objectively determined by the magnitude of the bodily and material injuries suffered by the victims on the basis of medical records and property valuation. No  victim, fought for compensation but the government felt a strong compensatory strategy, the testamentary of “a further commitment of our administration to peace and rule of law.” It said: “Our decision to pay compensation ordinarily is not the responsibility of the state since the police are not directly under our control,” Oyetola stated at the state event where he presented cheques of #53 million as compensation for the 13 victims out of the 21 cases heard.

Oyetola’s compensation indemnifies lives lost, bodies maimed, livelihoods wrecked, property damaged and human rights breached. Interestingly, the Osun government on the heels of the calamity, gave proper medical treatment to the wounded. There were no reported cases of victims’ premature death while struggling to pay medical bills. All such bills were paid by the government. None of the victims of the #EndSARS brutality was made to suffer abandonment by Oyetola’s government through political neglect.  The compensation is Oyetola’s social intervention in another direction, intent to offset the physical and psychological difficulties in the corollary of the crisis. The All Progressives Congress (APC)-Oyetola government’s compensation cannot be a defence mechanism for welfare failure as the opposition in the state are wont to make Osun residents believe. The Oyetola compensation says so much about the  values he ascribes to human life, building trust, maximizing empathy with the beneficiaries, managing their speed recovery.

None of the victims of the #EndSARS barbarity felt let down by the Osun panel. Outright murder, attempted murder and wounds with intentional hostility or recklessness to injury did not earn police any acquittal or exculpation in the panel’s reports. That is in order.  After all, force must be reasonable, even in pre-emptive shooting. Neither did any victim who was injured while being lawfully apprehended qualify for any compensation. In other words, only the innocent victims of police atrocity or force of violence who survived and the families of those who did not ought to get the attention of the panel. And indeed they had it.  While the #EndSARS debacle lasted, property owners in Osogbo and elsewhere in the state, outsmarted at gun point by the crisis actors, reportedly sang, depending on their faith, the psalmist verse: “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and Quranic lines: “Lailah illa Lahu, Walahu Yasimuka mi na Nasi, Laula Walau uwata Ilabi Laluli Asim.” Justice done, unimpaired!

• Olusesi writes in via isaacolusesi@gmail.com.

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