Just
like the All Progressive Congress (APC) which was driven by very poor judgment
to ask him to pilot its affairs, there is no doubt that having Mr. Adams
Oshiomhole as the national chairman of the ruling party was a horrendous
mistake, which, by the way, should surprise no one, given that there is hardly
anything the APC has got right since 2015 when Nigerians naively (or, more
appropriately, blindly) stampeded themselves into inflicting
the malformed party on themselves.
*Oshiomhole |
But
Mr. Oshiomhole has not always been like that – a huge liability to the people
he is leading. As the president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), he was
admired by many Nigerians, including this writer. He had the facts and eloquence
as he confronted the government about the plight of the masses. He was often
unbeatable and it was such a delight to listen to him. I would recall that I
sometimes quoted him in my column, especially, during the Obasanjo regime. When
then he indicated interest to go to the Edo State Government House to function
as governor, he easily won the support of people, even beyond the state.
As
governor, Comrade Oshiomhole had for quite some time managed to put up a very
impressive appearance, a people-friendly mien, until, perhaps, his memorable encounter
with a poor widow who had displayed her wares at an “unapproved” place by the
roadside to eke out a living for her family (apparently, because she was unable
to afford a stall at an “approved” place) helped him to unravel. As the woman
tried to appeal to the supposed champion of the masses to be compassionate
towards her because she was a poor widow, the “people’s comrade” screamed with
all the rage, disgust and strength he could muster: “You are a widow!!
Go and die!!
Nigerians
were shocked beyond description when the video of the egregious incident hit
the social media. The national uproar it provoked must have got Mr. Oshiomhole
so terribly panicked. His well cultivated image was on the verge going up in
flames before his very eyes. With fierce haste, he got his aides to hit the
streets to frantically search for the woman. Soon, they found her, probably, at
one small corner, bemoaning her fate. They hastened (some might say, dragged)
her and her son to Mr. Oshiomole’s office and before long, pictures of her and
the governor sharing very steaming tea in oversize mugs in the hot afternoon
flooded the country. The comrade also tried to placate her with a gift of N2
million – to enable her to hire a shop instead of selling on the roadside
again. It could also have been a compensation for her seized (and, probably,
damaged wares). Oshiomhole equally promised to offer her an employment (even
after he had given her money to hire a shop to continue her business!).
*Oshiomhole with the widow he asked to 'Go and Die!' |
After
the flurry of gestures, the comrade must have gone home that day so highly
relieved that the poorly scripted farce was a very good and effective damage
control. We never heard about the woman again.
Now,
nobody is against any measures undertaken to instill orderliness in the conduct
of private businesses in the state. But such measures must be implemented with
a human face, not like some kind of vendetta. And like Oshiomhole himself even
admitted, “…even in anger, one could still achieve the same result
[one] set out to without provocative outbursts.”
Mr. Oshiomhole had
flown the flag of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to become governor. Soon
the ACN merged with other political groups to become the APC, which came into
office as the ruling party as Oshiomhole’s tenure as governor was ending.
Sadly, the APC came into office without any
preparations, with no blueprint and without the slightest idea of what it
wanted to do with the power that had suddenly and surprisingly fallen on
its lap. Having unduly raised the hopes of Nigerians with tantalizing promises
that freely dropped from their mouths like overripe fruits during the
campaigns, especially, from their presidential candidate, General Buhari, loud
concerns about their ability to govern began to rapidly increase.
And as Nigerians continued to express grave
disappointments about the incredibly slow pace of the newly installed Buhari
regime, especially, how a president declared winner in March was yet to make up
his mind about whom to appoint into very critical positions even by August,
someone must have whispered into the president’s ears about the urgent need to
deftly administer an “opium” to the populace to immediately instigate a mob
hysteria that would automatically change the dominant narrative about his
howling unpreparedness and steer the national discourse to his favour even
when he was yet to kick-start any form of governance.
And before anyone knew what was happening,
pronouncements about massive corruption (not necessarily fight against it)
began to drop on Nigerians like a hailstorm. Soon, Governor Oshiomhole stepped
into the arena with his carefully executed media trials in which he promptly
accused, prosecuted, sentenced and verbally lynched selected officials of the
previous regime, a development that soon gripped everyone’s imagination and
virtually overshadowed every other concern about an administration that
appeared totally blank and lost in the middle of nowhere several months after
it was declared “winner” of an election. His performance almost helped him to
overshadow even the more garrulous Information Minister.
But it would seem that
Oshiomhole’s acting soon got into his head and badly overwhelmed him and he went
into a frightening overdrive. He brazenly announced to Nigerians that when he
accompanied President Buhari to Washington, some Whitehouse officials had named
to them a key member of the Jonathan regime who had stolen $6 billion from the
country’s treasury. He insisted that the person must be brought to book for
that horrendous heist. But till now, neither Oshiomhole nor any official of the
Buhari regime has told Nigerians the name of the very government official that
made away with this humongous sum, despite the fact Oshiomhole had gone ahead
to repeat this allegation several times.
Although, it is being
speculated that Mr. Oshiomhole emerged as the APC national chairman because of
the backing of a powerful APC leader, there is no doubt that his running mouth
(which had in no small measure helped the APC during its desperate period)
might have helped to favourably project him for the plum job.
But soon, it became
clear that the same mouth that had aided his ascendancy had become his undoing,
having been over-deployed and put to very unedifying uses. As the APC national chairman,
he appeared to have conceived an exaggerated notion of his role as the party’s
sole administrator, a kind of headmaster, a parallel president with sweeping,
limitless powers, with a mandate to always beat all APC officials and government
functionaries into line.
And soon, he began to
indiscriminately issue orders to ministers and to publicly rebuke them. He
warned that he was not like Buhari who tolerated their excesses that if any of
them misbehaved, he would deal with him. Unknown to him, he was indirectly
indicting Buhari for inaction and crying inability to maintain discipline in
his government and exercise control over his appointees.
Oshiomhole's serious
attitudinal issues soon began to grow out of proportion and create problems
here and there, causing him to clash with government functionaries who felt he
was overstretching his powers.
Given this background, therefore, it was not surprising
that he would soon start having issues with Godwin Obaseki, the governor of his
home state of Edo whom he had vigorously campaigned for. Obviously, the
governor was in no mood to accept his overbearing attitude and penchant to
order around people he wrongly or rightly perceived as subordinates. As their
disagreement lingered, degenerated and festered, it increased the impatience
and disaffection of his party members and that of even many other Nigerians
towards him.
Several APC leaders have blamed his
disagreeable and divisive personality for the loss of some key states by the
party.
And while he was at the national scene
flaunting what soon began to be viewed by many as his nuisance value, some fellows
went to his ward and pulled the rug from under his feet.
Some little known party members who functioned
as the executives of the APC at the ward level announced his suspension from
the party. He must have thought that as a “whole” national chairman, he would easily
be able to bludgeon his way out of the tiny fire burning under his feet, but he
was to eventually discover that it was small fires like that that humbled
elephants and tamed lions.
Shortly after an APC screening committee
ensured that Gov Obaseki was disqualified from participating in the primary
contest, Oshiomhole fell from his high horse as both the courts and his party
top echelon affirmed his suspension, which seems to have now translated to his
removal from the exalted position of power.
But at the same time,
Gov Obaseki was heralded into the waiting arms of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) under whose platform he will contest the September 19 governorship
election. And if Obaseki goes ahead to win the contest (as is being
widely predicted), that might be the end of the APC giving Mr. Oshiomhole any
further opportunity to play the role of a disastrous liability for the party.
Interestingly, Mr.
Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the same man Oshiomhole had gone all out to badly damage and
trash as a brand while campaigning for Gov Obaseki in the previous election is
now the APC governorship candidate. All the horrible things Oshiomhole had said
about Ize-Iyamu and the beautiful and wonderful ones he said about Obaseki
while campaigning for him are all still on tape and in print. These are now
what the PDP is now using to project Obaseki after a court had refused to grant
the prayers made to it to stop the PDP from using those tapes. What it means is
that whereas Oshiomhole is a member of APC Campaign Council for Edo State
Governorship election, he is in effect (through his recorded previous
utterances) campaigning for the PDP and horribly maligning the APC candidate.
What a most awkward position a man can find himself in.
Only a few days ago,
(Tuesday, July 14, 2020), Mr. Ize-Iyamu appeared in court to face an
eight-count charge of money laundering involving about N700 million which he
allegedly used to run the 2015 elections. The case was filed against him by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). That would also be another
campaign weapon for the PDP.
Even though Prof
Mahmood Yakubu’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has a
reputation for conducting weird elections and announcing strange and
inexplicable results, if on September 19, Ize-Iyamu is trounced by Obaseki,
most people in the APC will once again blame Oshiomhole for it. They will now
finally let him know that they have realized that he was a huge mistake made by
the party.
But to discerning
people, it is the APC that should hasten to realize that it was a very costly
mistake made by the Nigerian people in 2015 when they were blinded and bamboozled
by vacuous but overwhelming propaganda to give power to it, which it then used
its power of incumbency to hold on to in 2019.
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a Nigerian Journalist
and Writer (scruples2006@yahoo.com;
twitter: ugowrite)
No comments:
Post a Comment