Last weekend, the gubernatorial poll in Ondo State took place. This was after so much heat and bold talks by the various contestants. The result of the election has since been announced, and the winner acknowledged. He is Olusegun Mimiko, incumbent governor and member of the Labour Party (LP). The concluded poll was more than a mere gubernatorial election. The future of ethnic politics was linked to it.
The main plank of Action Congress of Nigeria campaign was tied to regional integration. The Party’s candidate – Barr. Rotimi Akeredolu SAN confirmed this much during the debates that preceded the election. He said the ACN felt strong about all the states in south Western region coming together under one umbrella. My subconscious was tickled when he said it could be difficult to achieve standard development across the board if some of the states operated under a different political platform.
This argument could to some extent be plausible. Yet, the deduction one gets from this position is the fact that the call or agitation for regional integration is clearly another euphemism for institutionalization of ethnicity. This is the truth! As the Campaigns that went ahead of the poll intensified, keen observers and they were many, held their breath because of the knowledge of what was involved. They knew it was a clash not basically of great ideas, but between resurgence of ethnicism and broad outlook. The issue became of greater concern when Mimiko was branded a renegade, who had a character trait, different from what was natural to his immediate environment.
To this extent, his defeat or victory held out some significance. If the ACN had won, the desire of the regionalists in our midst would have received a big boost. Those who want Nigerians to vote along ethnic lines before a national consensus can emerge would have had their triumph. And this, to all intends and purposes would have been too bad for our national development. Ethnicity anywhere in the world is part of politics. Even in America, the Negro complexion of President Barack Obama, makes the demands for excellence far higher.
This we know. Ethnicity as necessary as it may be could become dangerous for development when courted as a deliberate pillar for the development of a multi-cultural society. Part of the reason Obama emerged the leader of the world, is the fact that the deliberate relegation and dehumanization of blacks in the main and other minority groups, in that order, was beginning to cut deep into the ropes that held the American society together. From what some of us know, America, few years from the time Obama got to the White House would have been a theater of the kind of developments that would have to a great extent rubbished the position of that nation as a world leader, and bastion of democracy and possibly hasten its fall from the pinnacle of high respect and regard it currently enjoys. So what is it that I am saying? Ethnicity is important, good and necessary.
A man can’t deny where he comes from. In societal anthropological application, race is a major factor. It is used for many important issues. What should happen? Ethnicity should be acknowledged but not recognized. There is a difference between the two. In administrative terms, you don’t cultivate or nurture it; if the intention is to build a society with less friction, you only set out policies that make diversities throw up the strength inherent in them. Some of such policies given each development level could be in affirmative actions, which don’t seek to disrupt the main lines. So to some degree, the outcome of the Ondo polls is a serious blow to tribal irredentism. More than this, it is a serious setback to Bola Tinubu, his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria and the aspiration to concentrate action on the South-West front mainly. I had wanted to do a piece on the mistakes Bola Tinubu was making some months ago and somehow the period was the occasion of his birthday, so I decided of my accord to ceasefire. Why? Bola Tinubu is a great Nigerian.
His resolve to throw his lot with progressives, even after he has crossed many huddles, to become rich, is very instructive and inspiring. For Lagos that I know very well, to experience such a transformational change under his watch and guidance shows he surely is a liberator of great dimension. That he decided to join few courageous citizens to confront the military when others ran away, shows he can make great sacrifices. Beating former president Obasanjo in the political game, to keep his Lagos and then to expand to take other four states from the conservative Peoples Democratic Party (in control of the federal government) is a political masterstroke, which only a political genius can make happen. Tinubu began losing it when the achievements interfered with continuous good reasoning. His open surge for the Asiwaju of Yoruba crown was unnecessary. It opened his flanks and sleeping envies were thrust to the open.
I am not sure the formidable Awo dynasty spread over vast area and professions is happy with him just like many other staunch Yoruba who climbed the height of fame before him. Tinubu has his boys which is good; but in power I have not seen signs of that all important ability to co-opt and allow others, who initially may not have believed in the revolution but have resolved to flow with it. At the national level, I have not seen an ambitious plan to make ACN a truly national party. The party does not campaign in that ferocious mood we see within its traditional enclave outside the South-West neither have deliberate efforts been made to bring in persons from other ethnic groups with clout. All we see is a sprinkle, and those we see, don’t appear to have been encouraged to carry fire. So in places outside the South-West, ACN has become the alternative, when the first choice fails.
I have told friends that ACN’s best defence would have come in the form of solid attack in other states of the federation. This would have come in form of making ACN strong by its contents across board and better still use it as a nucleus for the next biggest party; and the clamour for change of power at the centre would be guaranteed. But this appeared not to be the thinking. What I see is this principle of strategy of what we have we hold. The Ondo outing has shown that that position was not only vulnerable, that it could indeed be broken into and dismantled. I foresee Labour Party that is Mimiko combining with an already strong-in-the-zone PDP to do the complete damage.
This would be the trend. What can save the situation would only be a superlative performance by ACN governors, new resolve to bring in more men and serious but deliberate romance with the people at the grassroot. Good politics is about men. This is something the opposition in our nation don’t often know or aware but downplay. Would Tinubu survive the onslaught? That is the big question. I know the conservatives work like wounded lions when they are wounded. Would the noisy opposition, who like plenty talk and little action stand the conservatives as 2015 approaches? Me I don’t know.
TheSun
No comments:
Post a Comment