The pulsating race to the Ondo State Government House ended last weekend, when the incumbent governor breasted the tape ahead of the other contenders. Of the 18 local government councils in the state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko won in 13, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) won in three, while Chief Olusola Oke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in two. Oke, however, beat Akeredolu to the third position, polling a total of 155,961 votes to the ACN candidate’s 143,512.
Mimiko garnered 260,199 votes. The way my phone was bombarded with congratulatory messages after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the results on Sunday, you would think I was one of the candidates. Well, in a way, I was. A week earlier, I had stuck out my neck in this column, saying no man, but only God could cut the Iroko (as Mimiko is popularly called). I had said the incumbent Ondo State governor could only lose his seat, if God decided to hack him down, if people of the state deserted him at the last minute, or if both unlikely situations occurred. But I added that I didn’t see it happening. And it didn’t happen.
God stood by Mimiko, the people in Ondo State formed a bulwark round him, so they re-elected him for a second term in office. But did the opposition rattle the governor while the race lasted? Did the storm ruffle the leaves and branches of the Iroko, even if its roots stood steady and sturdy? It was no picnic, no tea party, as the Labour Party candidate slugged it out with the rampaging forces of the PDP and the ACN. With the PDP, the onslaught against Mimiko was understandable. He had dislodged the party from power in 2009, when the judiciary gave the left leg of fellowship to Olusegun Agagu, declaring him a usurper. So, PDP understandably had an axe to grind. But the ACN? It was an ego battle. A revenge battle.
The National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, claimed he had supported Mimiko to win back his mandate in 2009 through the courts, spending “millions of pounds” in the process, with the understanding that the Ondo State governor would then join the ACN. Mimiko reneged, allegedly. So, for Tinubu, the aim was to run the man out of town, and show who was the boss. It was a contest between the Iroko and the Lion of Bourdillon (as Tinubu is called).
You now know who got worsted between the two. What are the lessons from the Ondo elections, for both the victor and the vanquished? Many. When you have been elected into office to serve the people, please serve them with all your might. Work while it is still day, for the night cometh when no man can work. The night is the time for re-election. If you spend all the day carousing, gallivanting round the world, and serving yourself, and you want to start working at night, because re-election draws near, it is too late in the day. The people will simply do you in. Mimiko served Ondo people, and in my reckoning, he served well.
I’ve been to the state a number of times, and I’m a witness to the good works in education, healthcare, urban renewal, preservation of the environment, agriculture, and many more. He hit the ground running after his inauguration in 2009, and acquitted himself quite well. Naturally, no drummer can please all dancers, so there will be areas the governor has not touched, or done enough. But by and large, he did well, quite well. But imagine if he had not worked, and just jerked out of stupor few months to election? He would be a sitting duck before the opposition forces.
The electorate would simply have him for dinner, and clean mouth thereafter. The lesson? Serve, and serve well. Make hay while the sun shines. Be faithful to the people, and they will be faithful to you in return. It is an eternal lesson for all public office holders, whether they desire re-election or not. Use the opportunity you have to serve the people well, and they will never be ungrateful. They will never forsake or forget you. And when political enemies come like a flood, the people will raise up a standard against them. Another lesson. When you have the people with you, you can sleep through the storm. However boisterous or tempestuous the waves may be, you sleep merrily on, and even snore if you like.
With the armada unleashed on Ondo State by both the ACN and the PDP, tell me how any incumbent governor could survive, unless he had the people with him. PDP came for a pound of flesh. The ACN came with vengeance, waving the flag of economic integration of the South-west. And Ondo is the only state outside the bag in the region. It was truly do or die. The fact that Mimiko survived exemplifies the Yoruba saying that: “people are the cloth we wear.” Without the people, you were lonely, “alone and palely loitering,” to use the words of John Keats, the British poet. Are you a politician? Never joke with the people.
Never ever treat them with disdain, flippancy or levity. And they will be there for you in your hour of need. When the coyotes come, and even tear your dress, they will be your covering. Yet another lesson. Never ever pigeonhole the electorate. Don’t think because they did your bidding in five other South-west states, they will do it again and again. Each state has its peculiarities. Because Bola Tinubu and the ACN wanted Ondo so desperately, it was easy to cast them in the mould of a conquering army, actuated by anything else except altruism.
They were after Ondo’s oil money. They wanted Ondo to be a vassal of Lagos State. Your treasury will be at their mercy. And of course, Ondo State people resisted the incursion. Mimiko and Labour Party succeeded in building an army of opposition to the take-over bid, telling the people that their resources would be carted away to Bourdillon in Lagos, where Tinubu lives. All is fair in love and war. The electorate, therefore, resisted the invasion by ‘foreign troops.’ If you ask me, Tinubu and the ACN have done a lot for the South-west, liberating the people from the slave camp of the PDP. But ironically, the loss of Ondo is being seen as another kind of liberation, this time, from the ACN.
That tells you that a liberator can turn into a captor or slave master very easily. And that is why Tinubu should have chosen his battles very carefully. Yes, the ACN has every democratic right to have contested for the governorship of Ondo State against Labour Party, but must it be a case of ‘the hen upturned my medicine bottle, I will break its egg?’ No. If the average Ondo person saw the wisdom in economic integration of the South-west, which could be better lubricated by having the region under one political party’s banner, he could not reconcile it with the acrimonious campaign orchestrated by Tinubu. The bid for Ondo State was too virulent, too venomous, malignant and malevolent. And it cast Tinubu too much as an aggressor, simply out to win a personal battle.
The Ondo people felt it was not really about them, but about Tinubu’s bruised ego, and a quest for revenge. So, they refused to be used as cannon fodder. Can our politicians, therefore, separate political and personal battles? For the sake of the region, reconciliation would be necessary between Mimiko and Tinubu in the near future. But with all those toxic words exchanged, won’t it be an uphill task? Tough, really tough. Again, the ACN candidate, and how he emerged. By all means, Rotimi Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is an accomplished person.
A former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), he is a man of repute. But a partisan politician? We did not know him as one, neither did Ondo people. Many other ACN candidates were out in the field, working towards getting the party’s ticket, and then suddenly Akeredolu got handpicked from nowhere. When those who had worked their fingers to the bones protested, they were told to go to hell. No, that was not the way of democracy. Naturally, those candidates would work against ACN, both from within and outside, and Akeredolu himself turned out to be a rather weak candidate.
He got beaten by Mimiko in his polling unit, and in his Owo local government, he had approximately 46.1 percent of the votes, while Mimiko had 38.2 percent. Compare that with Mimiko’s Ondo West, where the governor won 69.2 percent of the votes, Akeredolu won 15.9 percent, and Oke, the PDP candidate, 14.7 percent. You go to war with your best troops leading the assault, which the ACN did not do, to its own sorrow. Now that Mimiko has got a second term mandate, what is my advice for him? Don’t rest on your oars. Serve the people as if your life depends on it.
Don’t spurn the criticisms that attended the campaign from the opposition. Look at each point on its merit, and do the needful. Only God could have cut the Iroko last Saturday, and He decided not to do so. Stay true to that God. Let me conclude with this text I received last Sunday from George C. Erugo, who lives in Owerri, Imo State: “Governor Mimiko’s victory has earned him additional title of the Bone Crusher, considering the calibre of politicians he defeated. It shows that Ondo electorate has clear direction. He should endeavour to fulfil his campaign promises.” Hmmm. Iroko the Bone Crusher. Just ensure you also crush poverty in Ondo State. Crush joblessness, crush misery and despair. Replace them with prosperity, elevated quality of life, hope and joyfulness. And you will be our hero forever.
TheSun
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