Until recent polls gave an indication that the incumbent, Governor Rauf Aregbesola, stood a better chance of returning for another term after this weekend’s make-or-mar election in Osun State, the general consensus, from analysts point of view, was that the August 9 gubernatorial poll was too close to call.
That verdict, not being scientific, was largely emotional. It borrowed from the flawed analyses adduced for why the election in Ekiti State went in favour of Ayo Fayose. If a candidate could say less about developmental programmes and felt no compulsion whatsoever to demonstrate competence or openly pledge commitment to enduring values of democracy and accountability, he or she would be deemed practical and pragmatic insofar he could stoop to conquer by engaging in rub-a-dub politicking with the flotsam and jetsam of the so-called grassroots.
It is this narrative of subsistent politics, with its target being stomach satisfaction that had momentarily encouraged undue optimism, not just about the fact that Osun, like Ekiti, might fall; but also about how a grand design had been hatched to snatch many of the South-West states from the progressive political ideology that traces its roots to late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and forcibly goad them to federal platform.
If it could work in Ekiti, the proponents of this sudden call for a shift in political paradigm of the south-west are emphatic, it could as well work in Osun and beyond…because those who supposedly vote in the region – the lowly and the downtrodden as well as a growing hoard of teachers and civil servants who can’t see beyond their noses – simply care more for their stomachs and pockets than they do of what Awolowo described as an appreciation of the political ideology that builds the man and the state and propel both for a rewarding future.
With preponderance of the type of post-Ekiti election analyses that have engulfed the media, harping on a change that promotes characters with low and questionable reputation as political lords of the manor whose time has come; you get the feeling that some people are deliberately mocking the Yoruba race.
It is akin to saying the Yoruba man is like an average Nigerian who, in the contentious matter of subsidy removal on petrol, has blinded his senses to the long-term gains of deregulation and simply wants to hang on to the supposed benefits of subsidy in pump price of fuel while he unwittingly allows a corrupt regime to breed instant billionaires that collect about a quarter of the annual budget in a spurious fuel importation exercise.
Like the average Nigerian who must be educated about the folly of nurturing this unsustainable subsidy regime, the south-western voter, who may have been branded in the unenviable toga of ‘hungry voter’ should de-robe himself of that filthy, derisive attire. My argument is that the ‘Omoluabi’ vein in the Yoruba voter should be obvious and should be uninfluenced, especially in how he associates or chooses elected officials.
A narrative that tends to describe him as hungry for crumbs, lacking in self-respect or which exposes him as mediocre that prefers leaders who won’t demand excellence or fortitude in public service ought to be rejected because it is simply alien to the core of his being and the values that the majority in the region subscribe to.
This is the reason why Saturday’s election is as important for the dignity of the Yoruba man as it is for the direction of the 2015 general elections. And it shouldn’t be a do-or-die affair in whose favour the election goes as far as the puerile reason of the people voting Governor Kayode Fayemi out (as opposed to an actual endorsement of Fayose) on the basis of the governor’s indisposition to ‘stomach infrastructure’ does not form the basis of the analysis that will trail the Osun election.
Without doubt, the election is between Aregbesola and Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic Party. Interestingly, there are uncanny similarities between recent political history and the two leading candidates from both states. Like Fayemi, Aregbesola got his mandate through the court, having challenged the result of the election that initially denied him in victory. Like Fayemi still, he is generally perceived to have scored very high in infrastructural development as he has in engendering policies that seek to promote the enthronement of the ‘Omoluabi’ values, which stand the Yoruba out as decent and dignified. But like his counterpart in Ekiti, Aregbesola is also seen to be ill-advised in a few policies that have pitched him against stakeholders like teachers and school proprietors.
Omisore on the other hand carries a bit of moral burden, just like Fayose. His perceived role in the maltreatment and eventual death of the late Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige; suspicious educational credentials and a general feeling of harboring huge capacity for mischief are reasons why it is difficult to construct any winning formula for him other than PDP’s desperation to reclaim the south-west.
However, like Fayose has proven, getting elected or reelected does not often require the true consent of the people and it may soon become evident that development suffers because those who know how to win elections do not always know how to govern.
Steve Ayorinde
