BOREDOM

TO CHECK OR NOT TO CHECK
I sure am not the only one who gives myself a lot of mental tasks. I have this way of evaluating issues that get me doing a lot of reflecting, so much so I start having this guilty feeling about my feelings sometimes.
You know while we were growing up, there was this thing that discouraged one from thinking too deep. Stuff like “it is beyond human comprehension, don’t you ever bother your head about it”. I want to disobey that rule and get thinking. You heard me, I wanna think a little.
I have had the cause to critically examine some situations in the past few days. I want to share the thoughts that have made my head heavy for a few days now, I hope I get response and comments from those who take time to read.
In my part of the world, people have consciously or unconsciously started doing something that is funny to me. In choosing marriage partners, many folks now go to their spiritual leaders to see what the future holds for them both. Does that not seem a bit like divination to you? I ask because I am confused.
In recent times, this same thing has been happening across ethnic, religious, social and other divides. This practice used to happen among the hyper-religious and overtly spiritual but even all of us who are sinners now do it.
I have seen people who have decided to break up with their partners because “Pastor said our stars do not match”. They gave up love because someone heard from God for them, possibly because their ears are too filled with sin that they cannot hear from God directly. Whatever matching stars mean.
This thing is actually becoming the in-thing everywhere now. They have this funny way of saying it in my local language, it is translated as ‘checking’. The whole thing is even assuming a more terrible dimension these days because we now give the ‘checkers’ the authority to pick and choose for as many of us.
They do the sorting and arranging all in the name of “this one is better than that one”. They even end up forcing their clients on unsuspecting peeps in some cases. They peddle different tales about one to favour the other, the one who is their client in most cases.
I remember quite clearly the same thing as it happened to someone I know last year. He was seeing an industrious young woman before different revelations started saying she was possessed by marine spirit and stuff. The guy left her and started seeing someone else on the orders of his Pastor.
The funniest part of it is that even the person that took this young man to the Pastor later complained about the young lady. We have a way of gossiping in my part of the world and everyone says she is downright lazy, lacks the industry of the ‘marine’ lady.
I am not saying it is not right to ‘seek the face of God’ as we put it, I am saying we should not base everything on spirituality. Some people have lost the ability to seek God themselves, they base everything on human beings like them, those they see as God’s representatives. They actually have forgotten that they are themselves God’s representatives.
We end up forgetting that apart from being a child of God, there are other personal characteristics to look out for. There is the individuality. And who says there is a perfect person anywhere in the first place? I believe
I believe in God, I am a Pastor myself but I do not believe you should hand over your life to someone because you believe he can talk to God for you. What exactly is wrong with your own mouth that has made it impossible to talk to God yourself? I have this funny feeling that most of the men to whom we run have their own biases and may just deliver their verdicts based on those biases.
Some of us have passed love on the altar of ‘checking’; ‘trying to see if their stars match’ or ‘if he/she is the will of God for me’. I only pray some folks will not misunderstand my position or see me as totally carnal. What do you actually think of this controversial issue? Let me know, I’m outta here.

MINIMUM WAGE, MAXIMUM ACHE

Sometime last year, either out of excitement, trying to win acceptance or for reasons I cannot say, Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan (GEJ) announced a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers. People were happy, GEJ had what he wanted. Folks were singing his praises to high heavens. He wanted that acceptance, he got it.
What Mr. President failed to take into consideration was the different bottlenecks associated with things of this nature in Nigeria. In as much as there may be evidence(s) of personal gains (politically of course) and honest pity or otherwise of Nigerian workers, he did not consult well before making the matter public.
Trust the Nigerian populace, it was as if they were waiting for the gladdening news and they took it with all available enthusiasm. Many wanted to know whether the implementation was going to be immediate or if they were going to pay arrears whenever it was to be implemented.
Not a few government personalities got into trouble because of GEJ’s minimum wage. The announcement had this divisive tendency and just that it did. News filtered out that the Legislature was yet to pass the Minimum Wage Bill and Nigerians turned against the people who hold sway in the Hallowed Chambers. The leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives were called different names.
I am sure that was one of the reasons people shouted when the Central Bank Governor talked about the overhead cost of maintaining our system of governance and the overhead cost of maintaining the Legislature.
The major question now is when are we going to start earning the paltry N18,000? The least paid member of the House earns in millions in salaries and entitlements. They are paid allowances for Constituency Projects they will not do. State Houses of Assemblies are also not left out of the heavy pay packet jamboree. It then surprises me when they say some state cannot afford to pay N18,000 as the least salary when they can spoil their Special Assistants with ‘special’ salaries.
What exactly is the cause of the delay in implementing this new minimum wage? The furore this minimum wage has generated is too much, too much for comfort such that one begins to ask what the motive behind the announcement at that time was. The controversy is so much that by the time it will be paid, it will not be enough again (who ever said it was enough in the first place).
The N18,000 monthly translates into a paltry N600 daily, convert that to other major currencies and you’ll understand how ridiculously low the least paid Nigerian worker earns.
Truth is Nigerian workers deserve to earn more than they presently do. In all honesty, let us compare what our politicians (who do next to nothing) earn with what the average Nigerian worker (who works his fingers to the bones) earns. It is so small.
The new minimum wage is long overdue and I think all the bureaucratic and administrative bottlenecks associated with it be should sorted out on time. I have always been skeptical about salary increases in Nigeria. This is due to the fact that you get a salary raise and in some months, government increases the fuel pump price and the prices of foodstuff and other things go up.
It is the fact that our legislators get to approve their own jumbo allowances with the speed of light while the average Nigerian will have to wait endlessly that annoys most of our people.
What I think should be done is that government should without any hesitation again make that ‘coins’ available. At least N18,000 is no money to those in government circles; it is not even enough for them to lodge their ashewos or take their mistresses shopping. The Nigerian worker knows how much N18,000 is and needs it to augment his daily expenses.
At least, it will make some people smile. So can we have its implementation as soon as possible?

I COULD BE PRESIDENT

Some days ago, my Facebook profile read ‘I could be President’. I was not merely pulling legs or trying to get funny. I actually meant what I wrote. I tried to get into people’s minds, especially those that are my Facebook friends, and of course everyone who must have seen that post. I know quite a number of them would just hiss and scroll down the page.
In the real sense of the word, I could be the President of Nigeria come May 29. Get honest with me, when you read that status update, what exactly was on your mind? Did you not think this guy that has an exaggerated impression of himself has started again?
I know some folks would say to themselves that I make a fool of myself while thinking I am funny. Let it be known to them that I am not trying to be funny; I know I could be President. What have they all got that I haven’t? Someone says cash, maybe, maybe not; I just know I could be Nigeria’s number one citizen, my wife could be the first lady, my family could be the first family and everything about me could be first.
I just did not sleep and wake up one morning to start fantasizing about being President Seye Babalola. I actually have taken a keen interest in the way things are going in my country this election year. I have decided to stop the apathy that has characterized many of our democratic adventures by the citizens of this great country (once was and will again be).
Prior to the various party primaries in mid-January, newspaper spaces were taken up by adverts from different aspirants, as they were called then. Messrs Atiku Abubakar and Goodluck Jonathan were the major ones in the much-maligned Peoples Democratic Party, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and Attahiru Bafarawa were the major contenders in Action Congress of Nigeria while the others had no, one or two aspirants of their own.
In all their campaign advertorials, I found not one issue worth mentioning. It was adverts upon adverts by one fictitious group or the other. Senile old men allowed themselves to be used while the ones who were supposed to be vibrant, intelligent young ones were not left out. Different women groups queued behind their benefactors (mostly in cash) and rolled out adverts paid for with state funds or stolen cash as the case may be.
I would actually spare the aspirants of other parties and face the two men who fought ugly in the PDP which has earned new names two of which are Power Drunk Party and according to Atiku in 2006, Poverty Development Party. Both GEJ and Atiku left issues and started campaigning based on zoning, indictments and other petty issues.
One newspaper put it that they fought dirty and ugly. I put it that they fought stupid and senseless. If the campaign points of Atiku and Jonathan are worth what would make one the President of Nigeria, now tell me why I cannot be President. I’ve got ideas, I’ve got what it takes. I may be wrong, and you may even knock me, but I think I’m even more sensible than they both were at the height of their power struggle.
Ask Goody J, sorry I mean GEJ, what he actually has to offer us all. I would not mention Mr. Atiku because I know his head is as blank as the word itself. He only wanted to be President so that it would be said that Atiku Abubakar was President, inordinate ambition and all that. My sympathy used to lie with Jonathan but of recent, I don’t see why I should vote for him or any one yet.
I’ve simply not seen any manifesto that impresses me enough to vote for anybody as my President. If all what they use as campaign points, their 7-point agendas and their 77-point addenda, is what we’ve been hearing since my primary school days, tell me why I cannot be President. Mr. Jonathan has the sympathy of people because of the way he was treated prior to his ascendancy. He has the sympathy of youths because they see him as one of them (at 53 years of age).
GEJ has it all going for him – people, incumbency and a whole lot of other factors. It is his chance to make history. One of my friends will quote “History will be kind to me, for I intend to be good to her”. Will GEJ be good to history? It’s his call.
For now, if all we have been hearing is what they have all got to offer, I am sorry; my cousin’s one year old son could even be President because I am too qualified. I’m outta here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMA!!!

Now this is for my Mum. The one who as my people will say, poured blood on my head some years ago. I’ve been counting the hours to this wonderful day since we shouted ‘Happy New Year’ on the 1st day of this year.
Momma is first in quite a lot of ways. Her birthday is the first in the family every year and she of course is the first girlfriend I have. Add that to the fact that she is the first and the only wife my Dad has and you see why I am so effusive in praising her.
I remember in one of my status updates on Facebook in 2009 that I wrote “Comparing my wife with my Mum would be purely suicidal”. I knew perfectly what I was getting myself into. I knew it was bound to provoke some reactions, and that it did.
Mum would not get tired. No she would clean and pack, pack and clean. Put things in order. What have I told you about this sweet lady of 50-something. She tries her best to make people happy, even if that infringes on her own happiness.
I’ve thought of a way to celebrate my Mum today. I have come up with the perfect way to do that-let blogosphere join me in wishing Momma a very great birthday. She is a gift to humanity, a blessing to womanhood and a perfect example to motherhood.
At the risk of sounding immodest about my Mum, she is simply exemplary. Do I even have to be modest about her? I don’t think so because if I fail to blow her trumpet, who will do? The things I have seen her do have put me in good stead in tackling some issues.
I’ve had cause to test the waters, asking one or two folks about her. I understand her weaknesses and excesses and I try really well to help her overcome them but what i heard from these people was enough to discourage me from continuing with that. At least, everyone has their weaknesses.
Which of you can cook like me? She never ever formally forced me to come into the kitchen to learn but I did not realize I had picked a few tips in cooking until I got to the boarding house sometimes in the mid-90s and I had to cook rice for one of my numerous seniors back then. The guy, son of the popular Eruobodo, Chief Busari Adelakun, made me his regular cook.
I did not know I was the perfect cook until I went to the university and I had to make my meals. My roommate thought he had monopoly of culinary skills until I showed him ‘what my Mama taught me’. He actually abandoned the cooking for me to do because he had a feel of Mum in my meals.
I got to far away Taraba state in Northern Nigeria and my culinary endeavors endeared lots of people to me. I just had to cook even when I did not want to. Who taught me how to do this? Momma of course. I remember one of my friends back then in Takum, the town where I served, saying I may have to marry his Mum or he would have to marry mine to ensure that he had great meals.
I ain’t all about food. You can imagine having all sons, no daughters and trying your best to mould them into food things. I remember her doing my laundries while I was in high school. I will never forget the pride with which I always walked to the rostrum at the end of session party while in Oritamefa Baptist Nursery and Primary School to receive the prize for the ‘Neatest Boy’ while in Primaries 3,4 and 5.
Momma is the classical example of the African woman – the daughter (to her parents), the wife, the mother, the friend, the daughter-in-law, the sister-in-law I can remember. I really am proud of her, and so is ’Yinka and ’Nifemi. I cannot imagine having another.
I perfectly remember late 2007 and early 2008 when she was on crutches occasioned by a fractured ankle in a domestic accident. Momma still got up after some weeks and with the P.O.P on her leg was walking around the house to make things tick. She would enter the kitchen and cook. She would still manage to join me in the poultry, supervising and looking on.
I was brought up to appreciate people and the one I have to appreciate today is the one who taught me all of that. My mother is never tired, she works her fingers to the bones and is the first to get up in the morning. She is never ashamed to get dirty and does not care even if you hurt her, she’ll be right there for you again.
I’m grateful to the Almighty that I am celebrating her alive. I am thankful to God that I am writing this for her to see while she lives many more years to carry children that will be borne by me and my sibs. It is a real pleasure having you as my MOTHER.
I might never have told you this Mum – I am happy to celebrate you today, we are so proud of you. You are a blessing to humanity. I love you, we love you, your excesses, your flaws, your strong points. We appreciate everything about you. The song for you today is Asa’s ‘So Beautiful’ in which she eulogized her Mum.
And so Mrs. Adesola BABALOLA, my Dad’s beauty, my mother, our Maami, our girlfriend, the wife of four of us, like Dad would say, words and writings will never be enough to express our feelings for you. We celebrate you today, eku odun o. Igba odun, odun kan –happy birthday, may you live very long to see many more good years.

HALF-BAKED… OR NOT?

The Nigeria of these days is rather amazing. It is one that is quite disheartening. We toil and struggle to go to school in this present day Nigeria, yet we are derided and called different names, addressed in different uncomplimentary ways, ways unbefitting of people of our standing.

People of the generation before mine went to school in Nigeria when it was convenient to go; they went at a time when one would be very happy to be a student of tertiary institution. They were students when dear Mama Naija was great enough to cater for her youths, cater for her students.

They did not bother about cooking their meals while in school; they never bothered about doing laundries. They did not go through the stress and hassles of transportation on campus or having to live off-campus because the edict establishing their school made it non-residential, like some of our new institutions of higher learning.

The students of these present-day Nigeria go through a lot of stress. Apart from having to gain admission in manners harder than that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, they face a lot of problems. Lectures are fixed arbitrarily, fixed in manners that are only comfortable for the lecturers without any bit of pity for the students.

The lecturers get to call the students all sorts of names. They do these for reasons best known to them. Students are hounded and victimized, they are grounded and vilified. They only find solace in the hands and hearts of some colleagues of like minds and of course, their sponsors and loved ones. It may even be one of the reasons students are engaged with ‘that very close someone’, they may need to share their burdens with one of them who is ready to give a shoulder to lean on.
Now who is to blame for all these katakata (confusion)? The generation before us had it so good. In some parts of the country, it was free education at all levels. With the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the saddle of leadership, one had no cause to worry about going to school, or not. It was a matter of not going and feeling so inferior to those who have gone.

It was easy to go to school; they made it easy for you. You just wanted to be in school and work your socks off. You wanted to work your fingers to the bones because you knew it was all about lots of reading and then some, or lots of socializing, depending on where you belong.

That has changed now though. With all sectors progressively deteriorating, education and morals also gave way. Schools became a shadow of themselves right from primary to tertiary. Private institutions now top the chart and the mere mention of you attending a public institution sees you looked down upon, as if those that now send children to private schools attended one.

All that does not bug me anyway. The major thing that pisses me off is having someone refer to me derogatorily as ‘half baked’. The folks responsible for the decline are those that parade themselves as reformists. They are the ones now crying and shouting, panting and puffing that they want to reform the educational system in my dear country.

They will not come out straight to address issues; they will not come out plain to say that they and their fathers caused the rot. The fathers will only call us names while the sons nod in agreement. They will just raise their voice to get the silly attention they desire from the media.

The generation before mine wants to impose standards on my generation, standards of back then without actually making everything they had available to us. They had it so good, they enjoyed every basic necessity from water and electricity to good roads, they had all the equipment needed for practicals in their laboratories and will not go and rent a skeleton in town, like what obtains today. Everything worked in their favour.

I can go on and on about everything they had and how it was in place while they were growing. Let’s place both generations side by side. How many truly brilliant students get scholarships these days? How many?

If you showed a bit of promise back then, you were considered for scholarship. These days, you are not considered if you have nobody in the corridors of power. Everything was on merit then but what do we get now? They employ someone worse off than you while you walk about the corners of your neighborhood in your well-worn slippers and trousers, waiting for a miracle to happen.
Employment opportunities waited for them back then after their school. In fact, as a high school graduate, you were accorded respect. God help you and you finish Polytechnic or University, a good job and then a brand new Peugeot 504, 505 or Volkswagen beetle car was waiting for you. You had no stress getting the cash needed to get settled.

Place the Naija youth of today in the same shoes and you’ll see wonders. What we get however is the exact opposite of what they experienced, yet they show-off their agbada and babanriga in front of the television cameras and belch nonsense that we are half-baked. They forget that they caused it all.

After the pre-independence and first generation of leaders came those ones we can call bastards. They destroyed our common heritage and today, they shout themselves hoarse because they see a newspaper guy and a television lady, they have nothing to say but they want their face to be seen on TV and newspaper pages, saying something. That ‘something’ which in many cases is outright rubbish and balderdash.

Have they bothered to ask themselves why Nigerian youths thrive in well-organized societies? They will not. It is a question too hard for them. There is a particular Vice-Chancellor in Nigeria today. His school is in the place that calls itself the north, despite being closely affiliated with the South.

A lecturer who was a colleague back then questioned the guy’s moral right to do some things which he presently does. He said they had full chicken for their meals and the day it was reduced to half, this particular VC, then a student, led the protest. He is today one of the voices that stifle student uprising. He is the one who champions double-standards and injustice in his school today.

How much did they pay in government institutions back then? Today, we are made to pay through the nose. Sometimes last week, the papers were awash with stories of an institution neighboring the one earlier mentioned. They increased their fees to N100,000. Yet they come out and shout that the economy has been destroyed.
While I was in that school, I did not pay up to N30,000 as my fees for the five years I studied there. Yet we say the students are interested in getting rich quick while forgetting that we give them no choice because they are from indigent homes.
They have made education a luxury for people that are struggling, it is totally out of their reach now.

Mission institutions are not left out. The story I heard was that they were the ones that were readily available for everyone back then. The St. Andrews and St. Joseph schools, the Anwar-ul-Islam and the Ansarudeen (popularly called AUD) schools, were cheap enough for everyone. What do we have now? Costly schools some people dare not near. Yet they open their mouths and call us half-baked. Who baked us half way? No be them?

Leave me, let me vent my anger. I’m bitter at these people. Why should I suffer in school for years only to be called ‘half-baked’? In my first year, well over 5,000 students cramped inside two halls to receive lectures. In my second year, we had to wait for one set to finish their practical before we did our own. In my third year, we had to take lectures in the laboratory, because there were not enough lecture halls available for use.

In my fourth year, we used primitive tools for our practicals. In my finals, I had to combine my research project with class lectures, there was finding no balance. I graduate after all the stress and still get labeled ‘half-baked’? Total nonsense!
Me I get luck o. Some folks did not even see their laboratories or how it looked like. They struggled all through school for no fault of theirs. They had extra year or years as the case may be because one dumb fellow say they are not serious. One dumb man, called a lecturer says more than three-quarter of his students are not serious and he fails them. Is that not a half-baked lecturer? Nemesis catches up with people and has caught up with this ‘bad news’.

I have sworn that if anyone, I mean anyone from the sixties, seventies and early eighties refer to me as half-baked, I’ll give that person a piece of my mind. Tell him or her it’s their generation, a generation of waste and rape, that set the tone for what we experience now.

Is there anyone who calls you that derogatory name (half-baked)? Tell them you are righting their wrong. I’m outta here. Let me go do something that will improve my mood.

SENATOR(?) DORA AKUNYILI

Quite a lot is happening in Nigeria these days. From the deaths to the funny politics, it just leaves you scratching your head to know which of the things to actually do the writing and blogging on.
Events have actually overtaken some of them but it does not mean I cannot still reflect on them, or does it? From the Sanusi versus House of Representatives thing, to the Atiku consensus thing and even the various verbal wars going on all because of the 2011 general elections.
This week however, some other events joined the already long list. The first noteworthy event this week was the passage of elder statesman and father of modern Nigeria, Pa Anthony Eromesele Enahoro at the age of 87. The man sure lived a good life, leaving his marks on the sand of time, even if the ruling class has made the Nigeria of his dreams a mirage.
Joining Pa Enahoro later in the week was one of Nigeria’s foremost Fuji musicians, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Barrister. He was said to have died earlier in the year only for the press to recant. We thought the worst was over but it was not to be as Barry Wonder finally bade the world bye. My tribute to this wonderful duo will come in due course.
The other event that interested me and I’m sure, a few others is the resignation of Mama Dora. Prof. Akunyili, resigned her post as Information Minster to contest as a Senator come 2011. That in itself was the major attraction for me this week.
With all due respect to Pa Enahoro and Barry Wonder, I’d prefer to talk about Mrs. Akunyili for now. i’ll then come back to do a tribute for the departed. We are still on the same side with Akunyili while the celebrated duo has taken their bow, breathing their last.
I had earlier read during the week that the former NAFDAC boss would resign to contest but I just read the story in passing. It finally happened and there was this banner headline two days later – “Akunyili Resigns”. I saw Mama Dora all smiles, handing over to Mr. Labaran Maku, her erstwhile Minister of State who has been promoted.
I don’t know what prompted the patriot who has served meritoriously while in NAFDAC. The amazon who laid her life on the line in the war against fake drugs leaving the Ministry for the hallowed chambers, that is if it is ever hallowed. I shudder at the thought of Prof. Akunyili rendering herself useless in the Senate.
I had always known Mrs. Akunyili would one day join mainstream politics but I did not know it would be in a fashion like this. I did not expect her to vie for a Senatorial seat. I did not even know it would be like this. She has made her decision and no one can change it.
Someone asked me the post I expect her to vie for if not the Senate considering the fact that there is no gubernatorial election in Anambra, her home state in 2011. I actually am not a fan of Akunyili in the Senate. I would rather have her in a place where she’ll have more impact.
I do not want her to join set of people in the National Assembly. I’d have loved to see Dora in better company than in the Red Chambers where those self serving bigots hold sway. I do not want to believe Mrs. Akunyili is drawn to the Senate by the megabucks Nigerian Senators earn. I just want to trust her sense of judgment, fold my hands and see what will happen.
Something tells me Akunyili is preparing herself for something bigger and only wants to start from the Senate. It all remains to be seen though. I hope she would not be dragged in the mud along with the others.
Meanwhile, as we all await the unfolding of events, I rest my case and see if one more appellation would be added to the ones Professor Dora Akunyili already carries.
On a final note, I want to celebrate the departed- Pa Anthony Enahoro, the last of the titans and Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun. They made impacts on the lives of people around them and quite a lot of good would be said about them.
I need you to ask yourself what would be said about you when you die. Enahoro has done his bit, Barrister has done his bit, make sure you do your own.

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…