Re-Obinde gets justice

Dear readers, in fulfilment of the design of this column, where the columnist and the readers dialogue, with the hope of educating each other and ultimately keeping governments and individuals on their toes, the columnist is vacating the podium today for fellow parliamentarians. God willing, I will be back next week.

FLICKERS’ comment on Ademola Adeleke’s victory in the just-decided Osun West Senatorial District election in the Sunday Tribune of 16th July, 2017 is very educative, brief as it was. My addition to that piece, I think, must bring the readers up-to-date in the emerging electoral permutation in Osun State and Osun West senatorial district, consisting of the following towns, Ede, Iwo, Ejigbo, Ikire with other satellite towns to make up the ten (10) local government areas in the district.
Senator Mudashiru Hussein, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is from Ejigbo, with a voting strength so small, compared to the rest of the other mentioned towns; the Rt. Honourable Speaker of the State of Osun House of Assembly, Honourable Majeem Salam, is from Ejigbo and to cap it, the Honourable member representing the federal constituency is also from Ejigbo, this electoral permutation is weighted heavily against the other towns with heavy voting strength.
Now, the only political position left with Ede is the senatorial position and if Ede, Iwo and Ikire allowed the senatorial slot to go to Ejigbo, it would mean Ejigbo would become too powerful to handle and there would not be anything for Ede and other towns.
The correct permutation in the circumstance, therefore, was that the APC should have allowed the younger Adeleke to fly its flag, after all, the people voted in Isiaka Adeleke for a four-year term.
The fact of the situation was that, the late Isiaka Adeleke was always on ground with the people of the senatorial district and that means he remained the live-wire for the people of the area. As a matter of fact, Iwo and Ikire would never have supported Ejigbo because of their closeness to the Adelekes.
In Osun political calculus, late Isiaka Adeleke had become the visible replacement to Aregbesola in the eyes of his people; he had become a sort of cult hero. The political expediency would have been the pacifying of the Adeleke family with the remaining two years which was not much of a sacrifice for a state which is in workers’ salaries crisis, it is clear that the security agencies in Osun failed in their duty to give correct advice to the governor in this regard.
While the government failed to pay the workers, most of them turned to Isiaka Adeleke for bailouts, which he readily rendered. Thus, pacifying the Adelekes for the next two years was not much of a sacrifice. The government of the state of Osun completely misread the political barometer.
The support the younger Adeleke got from Abuja that got him automatic ticket to contest under the umbrella of the APC is an enough signal at a time when the likes of Senator Bukola Saraki hold sway as the President of the Senate. In fact, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would have been given further directives.
Surprisingly, the state government refused Ademola Adeleke the ticket. Thus, the electorate in the Osun West Senatorial District formed the belief, either correctly or wrongly, that the state government was out to liquidate the Adeleke political dynasty. This was the song in the mouths of the electorate “Aregbesola, bi o fe, bi o o fe, ti Adeleke lawa o se”, interpreted to mean “whether Aregbesola likes it or not, it is Adeleke that we are going to vote for”.
It is however logical to say that governors should not take sides in communal land disputes between warring communities, especially when such cases had been decided in finality by the Supreme Court. Such was the case in Osun. The nearness of the state capital, Osogbo to Ede does not give any government the right to appropriate the land of Ede to Osogbo. The public face-off between the governor of the State of Osun and the Timi of Ede over Abere area where Ede dusted Osogbo at the Supreme Court, was an avoidable error which the governor should have averted. Calculatedly therefore, the people of Ede saw Governor Aregbesola as an Osogbo irredentist.
The sum total of my piece is that, the provision of infrastructural facilities in the areas of education, health, roads, etc plays very little role when it comes to communities where the people go to bed with empty stomach.
Erection of gigantic buildings, big roads, wherein compensations are not paid, backlog of unpaid workers’ salaries, are signifiers of electoral loss. The local market, which is the lubricant of the community economy, is in shambles, shamefully very close to election proper; teachers and doctors in the State of Osun went on demonstration demanding payment of 22 months salaries owed them.
With all these, the government of the State of Osun also failed to take cognisance of the hullabaloo that followed late Senator Adeleke’s death, a man whom the whole of the senatorial district saw as their hero and the only person that was taking care of them. His death was viewed as a colossal loss to the whole of the senatorial district.
With these plethora of reasons and the failure of the State of Osun to take pro-active measures at straightening things out before going to the polls, it was no surprise therefore that the election was lost even before the polls started.
The APC should quickly strategise, mend fences, make concessions and re-alignment where necessary. In Yorubaland, power of incumbency no longer determines the electoral swing in favour of those in political power.
Aladeleye Alademeta, Oyo, Oyo State.
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Welcome back
I suppose you are the journalist who went to one of the states in the East (Anambra?) as a media aide to the Governor? You are welcome back to your beat. And indeed, your column is enlivening. Your declaration in your introductory note to your comeback, on being immune to political leaning, is noted and well taken. But having dined and wined with politicians for that long, could you be completely immune from their hocus-pocus tendencies?
Now, while one notes the underlying reason for your stand point on imposition of taxes on churches and mosques in the country, one would say that your statement that “the state may not have the power to stop the fraud in the name of God but it can ask for its dues from the purely economic transactions” is a generalised statement; and generalisations are dangerous in the sense that they tend to put the guilty and the innocent in the same net, which is against a fundamental principle of justice! Basically, a church or mosque is not a business or commercial enterprise that the law of the land stipulates to be subjected to tax. And if some spiritual entities are seen to be engaged in nefarious or “business” activities, such should be fished out and dealt with, including imposition of appropriate levies. It will be out of indolence and insincerity to treat all spiritual entities the same way. Again, you are welcome to your familiar terrain.
Olaitan Makanjuola, [email protected]
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Re – Handshake with Akala
Governor Alao Akala is such a gentleman. I am impressed. A certain section of this country thinks they own us; yet they contribute little or nothing to our coffers. What has Osinbajo done wrong? Is he the cause of anybody’s sickness? Undue and misdirected hostility. It is careless talk like this that is causing unrest today by all kinds of characters. If the Yoruba react now, there will be further tension in the land. Let us mind our utterances and help to build a virile nation. It belongs to us all. This article of yours is very brilliant, as usual. You are too much!
*Victor Eromosele, Benin City
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Re – The maggots of LAUTECH
Your write-up of June 25, 2017 on the rot which has become the lots of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomoso (LAUTECH) and your conclusion reiterated some of the possible solutions to the intractable crises of the institution. However, the present composition of the leadership in the nation has foreclosed the possibility of inserting into the rule of public office that occupants must have their children in public schools under their watch and administration. Even the under-privileged are fighting tooth and nail to ensure they enrolled their children in private institutions, at all levels, since they know that government schools are ghosts of themselves.
There is no higher institution of learning in Nigeria where students, employees and other stakeholders have been made to suffer or experience the kind of madness going on in LAUTECH .Who will now rescue the school from its near hopeless situation?
Truth must be told: the problem of the school stemmed from the joint ownership mentality. It has been reiterated severally that a dog that belongs to two brothers will die of starvation. Why is it difficult to part ways by the two owner states as done by other states when new states are created? Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma and former Ondo State University Ado-Ekiti are typical examples. The idea of shifting blames will not occur at all as the public will know who is to be held responsible. It still beats one’s imagination why Osun still holds on to LAUTECH despite its avowed inability to co-finance the institution. Oyo State is not forthcoming because Osun is a serial defaulter. The Yoruba says “Ajoje ko dun benikan o ni” (Joint feasting is meaningless without co-funding)
Peace will continue to elude the institution until the assets and liabilities are shared by the two states because what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody. Meanwhile, both Aregbesola and Ajimobi must be told in clear terms that the days of joint ownership are numbered. Well, eni to mo ibi oro maa pari si ota oloro ni (s/he who knows the end result of an issue is always the enemy of those involved). But it is on record that both of them toyed with the fortune and future of a hoard of students, employees and other stakeholders of LAUTECH for the eight years both of them held sway as the executive governors and constituted authorities of Osun and Oyo states respectively.
Kudos to Ekiti and Ondo states who under the same political party, Alliance for Democracy, parted ways on Ondo State University with little or no skirmish.
Laudable as the ongoing campaign by the old students of LAUTECH to raise N1bn to rescue the collapsing institution is, one is. without being pessimistic, forced to ask how far and for how long? The move is even enough for the two governors to be ashamed of themselves!
The solution solely depends on each of the two states bearing its name. This will come to pass the day the two states, or either of them, have/has determined, sincere and responsible governor(s) but before then, let the students and their parents, employees and their dependants, and other stakeholders continue to bear the brunt of dereliction of duty and maladministration which are the hallmarks of the duo of Aregbesola and Ajimobi on LAUTECH issue.
Adeyemi Odedokun, [email protected]