Nigeria Election 2015! There have
always been some asinine, farcical and insincere features to the politicking
and electioneering in Nigeria, even long before the real election times.
Nothing has ever been normal or straightforward with politicians; if they are
not involved in one corruption scandal or the other; they are involved in
bloodletting, mudslinging and what not.
It is entirely typical and with my
universal experience, has come to realise that this particular trait of
“insincere, do-or-die politics” is unique to Nigeria. Please I stand corrected
and educated.
If they are only simply “asinine,
farcical and insincere”; one might be mildly humorous and take it in one’s
stride, but this is not so. It is murderous, and that is what makes it
unacceptable and to be abhorred and detested.
Anyway, before I continue, and in
order not to be seen to be hypocritical, let me say I am sympathetic towards
the opposition All Progressive Congress, APC, so most of what I will be saying,
will of course be biased against the ruling People’s Democratic party, PDP. But
what I say should be weighed and balance with truth, common sense and sincerity
of purpose, because I have no other reason than to say it the way I see it -
the truth as I see it, but not necessarily right, since I am a mortal, fallible
like everyone else.
In my state of Oyo and in my city of
Ibadan in particular, the PDP and its gubernatorial candidate and other
aspirants are on a downward trend, and one of the causes of their demise is due
to their outright lies, deceit and sincerity in their promises to the people. I
listen to their campaign jingles and other electioneering gimmicks, and I could
not but help marvel at their inanities, and how their mediocrity shows through every
time. I am not even worried by their reputation for insincerity anymore; it is
the quality of their deceitful claims.
The PDP jingle on radio stations (I
never watch the TV stations), sponsored by an Ibadan daughter who happens to be
a junior minister in President Jonathan’s mediocre cabinet, make claims of
improved agriculture, an effective, efficient and easily accessible healthcare
system, building and reconstruction of roads, empowering of women, improved
electricity supply, enhanced, youth employment, refurbished and standard
airports and improved rail transportation, etc.
I have absolutely no problem at all
these, after all, politicians must say anything to get votes and even the
opposition are not immune to such lies too, except that, again, I marvel at how
people are wont to believe their own lies, and wallow and exult in it.
My problem with this jingle is the dangling
of the carrot of the creation of an Ibadan State, if Mr Jonathan is re-elected.
This outright deceit and wrong promise is too much for me to take. With others
asking for Oduduwa State in Osun State, and Ijebu State in Ogun State, and who
knows how many others such small states to be carved out of the 26 existing
states, it becomes pertinent to ask the disseminators of these lies how and why
President Jonathan intends to prioritise the creation of an Ibadan State,
assuming he can single-handedly do this or push a bill through in the National
Assembly, over the others.
We should also ask the Oyo State
Coordinator of President Jonathan’s Campaign, what mileage or advantage this
will be to the whole people of Oyo State, comprising the Ibadans (and Ibadans
now also comprise of almost every other Yorubas, and other tribes in Nigeria),
the Oyos, the Ogbomosos, the Ibarapas and the mighty Oke Ogun (the peoples of
Iseyin, Shaki, Okeho, etc.) if, as a campaign slogan, she is asking for the Oyo
State people to vote for Jonathan, and at the same time telling them that their
state will be split up and Ibadan exorcised from the rest of them, giving the
Ibadans an advantage, which they already enjoy anyway, as the most populous and
most metropolitan and most developed of the people of Oyo State?
I therefore find it very deceitful and
condescending to the people of both Ibadan and the encompassing Oyo State to be
assailed with such obviously fraudulent political promises and guarantees to
get their votes.
But then I figured it out as soon as I
know who the Coordinator is. Treachery and trickery, artificiality and
grandstanding are not strange to them. Her father, a prominent, yet self-centred
son of Ibadan, is likely to be one of the brains behind this creation of Ibadan
State. It is an attempt to create an empire for their family. If such an Ibadan
State is created in Jonathan’s tenure, you can be sure that the first governor
will be this man’s daughter, who is already the junior minister for the Federal
Capital Territory (Abuja) and is running the campaign (with billions of Naira)
for the re-election of President Jonathan in Oyo State.
The coordinator of President
Jonathan’s Campaign in Oyo State is a very brilliant and educated lady. I
respect her for that. She was encouraged by her father to go into politics,
mainly for what will come to their family as wealth and power, not to serve the
people of her constituency, Ibadan. That is a proven label of the father. Her
father, who is more like an remote uncle to me (he always addressed my father
as “Broda Akinlade”) is a renowned international jurist and lawyer, one of the
best Nigeria has ever produced, bright legal mind, a legal luminary of world
renown, has always been in one way or time or the other in every government,
military or civilian, of Nigeria since independence. He has always been there –
twice minister for justice and attorney-general of the federation,
representative on international bodies, agencies or organisations, etc. He has
never been in any progressive political party in his life, but those that feed
on the wealth of the country.
Unluckily for this Ibadan elite and
big man, since 1960, one cannot definitely point to a single item in terms of improving
and empowering Ibadan indigenes, that our Uncle and any member of his rich
family has ever done for Ibadan. His mansion is impregnable and merely looking
at the entrance gate will immediately deter any prospective mendicant or
anybody seeking his help or connection. The man is a known miser and very self-seeking,
only for himself and his immediate family. I am not saying this lightly or to
deliberately malign the learned Chief, but ask any Ibadan indigene, and 9 out
of 10 of them are likely to agree with me. The man and his family are not
well-liked in Ibadan. So it was no surprise that when the same daughter ran for
the House of Representatives in the 2011 election, she lost so severely, she
lost her deposit.
Then her father persuaded the then
Governor, who later became an ex-governor, to nominate her as a minister on
President Jonathan’s cabinet, as the nominee from Oyo State. She scaled through, and she is still a
minister now. And parenthetically, she is now at bitter logger-heads with the
ex-governor that made her position as minister possible, making her an
unapologetic ingrate.
Of course, her father is not the only
Ibadan elite with similar selfish and covetous traits; rich elites that are
more used to taking out of Ibadan and its people than giving back to develop
the city. The city is replete with their
acquisitive ilk. That has always been the curse of Ibadan. We have so many of them,
which make one wonder why the City of Ibadan is so great and famous despite the
self-centredness of some of its notable indigenes.
Ironically, Ibadan, let us face it,
owes its development, prominence in the world, greatness and even its current
and future political, technological, economic and aesthetic sustenance to
non-indigenes. As of today, that remains the fact. Look back at the history of
the city, and that is what obtained. However, it is a very lucky city, in that
every non-indigene wants to be associated with it; wants to live and work and
trade in it. Even the white colonial masters preferred to make it their
headquarters and this transferred to post-independence prominence in every area
of endeavour in Nigeria. This is not to say the Ibadan indigenes are not
themselves forward-looking and hard-working or progressive. They are, but the
development of Ibadan, which would have been the highest in Nigeria, had been
unfortunately held in-check and back, and sometimes sabotaged or truncated, in
recent decades due to the self-aggrandisement and egocentricity of these
self-absorbed Ibadan elites.
So, this poisoned carrot of an Ibadan
State is bound to backfire. It will not work. Yes, I don’t mind an Ibadan
State, but what’s the use of having it now; a state that will keep on going to
Abuja to beg for a meagre monthly allocation; and because it will not be an
oil-producing state, it will be getting pittance; a state that will not be able
to stand on its own industrially because of short-sighted and clueless elites;
a state whose existing industries are moribund and a lack of political will is
not them resuscitate them. I don’t know.
Anyway, since it is a poisoned carrot
at the end of the stick, the donkey will never catch up to eat the carrot, so
we can conclude that, in the meantime, we are safe from the warped, insidious,
invidious plans and chicanery of those who want to create private empires and
states for themselves, where their fellow people will be their serfs and
servants perpetually or allow them to perpetuate them and theirs in power
continually.
Forget it for now. When we have sorted
out who our true leaders and elites are, we shall do what is best for us, not
what is best for them. The people of Ibadan are not that daft, uneducated and
diffident and unaware anymore to be lured by false, insincere and selfish
political promises.
Let the Truth be said always.
Akintokunbo A Adejumo MSc, Dip Mngt, CIHM, MCMI, FITP
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