After over one year of experimentation, tough talking, grandstanding, living in the cold and nursing a feeling of inadequacy and neglect, Olusegun Osoba, a former governor of Ogun State, like the Biblical Prodigal Son, last Sunday, returned to the embrace of his “father”, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Although going by age and the figures that are in the public domain, Osoba, the Ogun-State-born journalist-turned politician, is about 12 years older than Tinubu, but the former governor of Lagos State is his senior in the art and science of politicking. At least, the event of last Sunday made it clear.
In November 2014, barely four months before the 2015 general election, Osoba, who was a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), took a fearful leap into the dark. It was a dangerous journey to “Moab” which he never realised at the time. He had embarked on that voyage with Segun Adesegun, then deputy governor of Ogun State and three senators from the state.
At the time, Osoba was said to have dumped the APC because of some irreconcilable issues. Among them was the ideological bent of the party. He was also said to have expressed disappointment at the style of leadership of the APC and was particularly irked by Tinubu’s alleged larger than life posturing in the broom party.
The politician thought he could hit it big through the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a largely unknown political organisation he appropriated. He managed to congregate an army of aggrieved politicians in the state who tried hard to battle Governor Ibikunle Amosun. But as it is said, the taste of the pudding is in the eating. Their popularity was not wide-spread enough to purchase for them electoral fortunes.
For Osoba, it has been one-and-half years of political oblivion. He felt quarantined and abandoned. Perhaps, he may have thought that the APC would not make it to the Aso Rock Villa, at least, not now. But when the political sagacity of the Tinubus of the APC turned the tide in favour of the party, the septuagenarian must have felt very sorry for himself and probably regretted his exit from the broom-waving band at the “wrongest” time.
While he dwelt in the cold, the direct consequence of his decision, Osoba shunned events organised by the APC and was a lone-ranger. He was never seen in the company of Tinubu and some other juggernauts in the APC until Sunday.
But his return to the fold has been cheered and jeered by analysts.
According to some pundits, the politician goofed by rejoining a party he had left and said he would never go back to.
Anthony Aderemi, a post-graduate student in one of the nation’s universities, said: “In as much as he has the freedom to move to any party he desires; in as much as he is a free-moral agent that takes decision for himself, but people must not forget that integrity is a key factor in whatever thing we do. I like a quote by Warren Buffet, ‘Look for three things in a person- intelligence, energy and integrity. If they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.’ So, Osoba’s return to APC has lowered his esteem in my own eyes. Who says you can’t say No and continue to say No?”
A media practitioner, who asked not to be named, said: “In the part of the country I come from, it is said that ‘you don’t spit and lick’. You rejected an ideology; after one year you turned back to go back to the same ideology. Why must people these days return to their vomit? Why such fickle-mindedness?”
A public affairs analyst, said: “Look at what he has done to himself. If he had remained in the party, he would have been given one big job in the party or in government. This time around, APC is not looking for who to give position, but who will help them out of the quagmire they have found themselves in. I wonder if Osoba has the magic wand. When I heard the story, the question I asked and still asking is, what kind of merry go round is that? It is all about politics of the stomach.”
However, Kelvin Amaju, a public relations manager in a Lagos-based communication firm, said politics is about movement and that no politician worth his salt is comfortable sitting in a sinking ship or going into political oblivion, particularly when that politician still has life in him or her.
“Politics is all about people, influence and money. Politicians will always want to belong to a happening party in order to remain relevant. If for instance Chief Osoba believes he still has something to offer, you mean the best option for him should be to remain in SDP? He was wise to have swallowed his pride. He was in the party and decided to leave for whatever reason; it was also wisdom to return. You see, politicians are afraid of tomorrow. What if anything happens to them while outside the party in government; it would mean total abandonment. That is usually the phobia. That’s why you see PDP chieftains now rushing into the APC. It is in their nature. Osoba knows what is doing. So, in the game of politics, all is correct and all is fair. Morality has no place in that business.”
Osoba was welcomed back to the APC fold at a reception at his residence in Ikoyi, Lagos last weekend. Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, who announced the return while briefing journalists after the meeting of leaders of the APC, said: “A time was when Osoba switched to another party, he was a foundation member of the APC and he was in the APC throughout my election.
“Yes, he was for a time with the SDP, but with what we have just done today (Sunday), Akinrogun Osoba, the Aremo himself is back with the progressive leadership of the Yoruba race,” Aregbesola said. He said that the leadership of the progressive politics in the Western part of Nigeria on the platform of the APC had resolved all their differences. “As such we are happy to tell the world that the leadership of progressive politics in the Western part of Nigeria is united. “We are ready to jointly prosecute the agenda for growth, purposeful leadership, development, good governance in the Western part of Nigeria.
“The progressive leadership of the Yoruba race is now fully united and are ready and charged to lead our efforts to reposition our land and integrate with others nationwide to put Nigeria in its proper footing,” he said.
Zebulon Agomuo
