RAUF VS LAGUN IN OSUN: MY TAKE

15:26 hrs, November 29
What is good luck? As I stepped out of my office a couple of minutes ago, I heard a splat on my head. Lo and behold, it was a passing bird that sent a message to me. It showered me with some droppings right in the middle of my big, coconut head. This is another issue for another day anyway.
In my part of the world, it is said that when a bird flies over your head and dashes you some faeces while moving, it is a sign of good luck. If that is the good luck that some people have recently been enjoying, I’ll rather welcome it. I’ll welcome it because I need it in every part of my life, especially in the love, loving and relationship aspect of things which has been a bit turbulent in a while.
Perhaps, that was the good luck that has smiled on the Action Congress of Nigeria in the past few weeks. That political party and her members have had to fight tooth and nail for every post they presently hold, especially that of state Chief Executives.
Like it happened sometimes in October in the South west Nigerian state of Ekiti, the breeze, or better put, wind of change blew across the land on Friday November 26, 2010 and blew away the Olagunsoye Oyinlola led-PDP government in Osun state. It was received with glee. Folks were happy all over the place – shouts of joy, screams of happiness, leaps of victory and other expressions that cannot be adequately expressed in writing were the order of the day in Osun, my home state.
Justice Clara Ogunbiyi and her colleagues have unwittingly written themselves into the good side of the record books of Nigeria. Conversely, one gentleman that answers the name Thomas Naron and members of both the first and second Osun state 2007 Election Petition Tribunal have written themselves in the other side of the history books.
I keep looking for a way to rhyme Naron’s name with something significantly negative. If it would be Thomas Aaron, then it would be that part of Aaron, the Israelite High Priest in Bible times that made the golden calf for Israelites to engage in idolatry.
Mr. Justice Thomas Naron had the chance to write his name in gold like Justice Ogunbiyi and her learned colleagues but chose to go the naira way, the way of perdition. It is an open secret, a common knowledge, that the retired Brigadier General who held sway in Osun state until last Friday and his boys did well to grease the palms of the first Election Petition Tribunal that was set up in the aftermath of the 2007 general elections.
Rauf and his team headed to the Appeal Court after Naron and his team turned the blind eye to all weighty allegations of electoral fraud before them. I remember sometimes shortly after the elections that a friend called me from Osogbo. He told me point blank that PDP and Prince Oyinlola openly used brute force to win the elections.
I stand on the fact that elections are not won in Nigeria anyway. It is rigged and the announced winner is the one who has out-rigged his rivals. I do not want to be corrected though. This is an issue for another day anyway.
The then ruling PDP had things in her favour – cool, hard cash, incumbency, federal might and a lot more. They made their money speak for them, gave the hungry members of the bench something to chew, and reduced them to young people begging for recharge cards. Or are there no evidences in the Tell Magazine that printed their call and S.M.S logs?
The then AC had a lot of doggedness, as exemplified by Rauf Aregbesola, the former SUG President of The Polytechnic Ibadan; the financial and physical backing of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the immediate past Governor of Lagos; the good side of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as used by the late Adrian Forty, their forensic expert and lots of other monitoring devices which came from the InfoTech world and the support of majority of the Osun people among other factors.
We voted, they voted, everyone voted. PDP rigged, AC rigged, thugs clashed, touts fought and at the end of the day, everyone knew whoever won had fought a keenly contested battle. The bald-headed Iwu’s INEC and OBJ said PDP won. AC went bunkers, claiming a lot of irregularities and pronto, went to the Tribunal. The Tribunal was fruitless for AC and they went straight to the Appellate Court.
Good luck smiled on Aregbesola, his party, and their appeal and they went back to a new Tribunal. The new Tribunal, cousins to Thomas Naron’s, also said it was the honey man, Olagunsoye Oyinlola that should continue his hold on power, and that the ex- Lagos MILAD did.
He changed from honey to the bee and stung quite some folks who were never in his support, openly denying them the small dividend of democracy he had to offer. In stinging in different parts of the state, the paramount ruler of Aregbesola’s part of the state was the first to have a taste of the bee’s sting. He was being stung while others were enjoying the honey.
Some others paid the price for being avowed AC supporters. It was quite a battle that nearly consumed the lead fighter himself. At a time, Aregbe, as the new Governor is widely called, was accused of faking the Police report he tendered before the Tribunal.
Mike Okiro did what he could, tagged the gentleman different names and stopped short of calling him a tout. It was a battle indeed. Some people had already given up, they had told dogged Rauf to throw his hat into the ring for 2011 and forget all about 2007. The guy simply refused to give up, his backers did not back down or back out; they were staunch in his support, they stood with and by him and the result is there for all to see.
Olagunsoye Oyinlola has done his bit; his only blot was wanting to cling on to power when he should have left. No matter what bad people have said he did while in the saddle, it is on record that the teachers his immediate predecessor and now ACN Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, sacked while in office were reinstated by him. The fact that Osun can boast of her own state University can be attributed to Oyin, even if he made the school out of the reach of the masses. He had his pluses while he held sway in the state of the living spring. He only screwed things up in his second term, a term which was not his own from the start.
What I think Mr. Aregbesola should do is change the bad impression Akande, his party chair, has created in the mind of many Osun people while he was Governor under the platform of the old Alliance for Democracy, a party which broke into pieces and part of which is the present ACN. Akande would have been a very good Governor if not for some administrative blunders he committed while in office.
It is Aregbesola’s call, his chance to make history in Osun. It is his choice to either continue being celebrated or have his head being called for on a platter after a few months in the saddle. Remember what a section of the American populace is doing for Mr. Obama now; they want him to fix the mess of George Bush’s eight years in just two years. People want miracles overnight and I hope Rauf can do just one that will keep Osun people salivating at least for some time.
I do not think Oyinlola has lost anything save for the fact that he was sacked by the Court. He has been warming up to contest as a Senator next year. The only person who has lost at least for now and who would have lost in a level playing field is one man that is call Christopher Iyiola Omisore.
The young man who won a Senate seat while standing trial (that alone is funny to make you laugh and tumble over) has been nursing the ambition to be Osun Governor come 2011 but may have to wait at least until 2014 to have that ambition realized.
Aregbesola was Commissioner for Works under Tinubu, I hope he has something to bring to Osun so I can brag the more about being an Osun indigene through and through. I want to believe Governor Rauf is not just about power, but about delivery of goodies to Osun and her teeming masses. It is only by doing that that the ousted PDP government would not mock Osun people, it is only by giving us a better deal that we would have our own new Osun state.
The fact that the Court has told PDP and Mr. Oyinlola to vacate Abere for Mr. Aregbesola is not the problem. It calls for celebration in that we may be getting it right. Let those who want to celebrate do it and do it anyhow they like, either moderately or over-the-top.
What I think should be addressed is the issue of holding an office illegally and getting away with all salaries, emoluments, security votes and entitlements. The Nigerian system should find a way of getting back all the salaries that these illegal political office holders have collected over the years.
Youths roam the streets without jobs, some hardworking men can hardly feed their families but some people smile to the bank every month and sometimes weekly and daily for holding offices, political offices that do not belong to them. They get paid for years and are eventually booted out after almost finishing another person’s term. I find it sad.
To make it worse, they would have employed SAs, SSAs, PAs and other unnecessary Assistants and it is government that pays these staffers. I think the new Electoral laws of the land should make provisions for this anomaly.
They would have eaten enough dough over the period of time spent in government that asking them to return the basic salaries they were paid while illegally occupying office would not be bad.
The game goes on as 2011 approaches but for my dear Osun state, I say congratulations. To Mr. Aregbesola, I salute his courage and say Bravo! Nigeria shall be great once again and my generation shall enjoy after suffering while growing.
Enter Rauf, and let the music go on…