By Kola Olabisi
If a good thing is done at the wrong time and a bad thing is done at the auspicious time, one needs not be a genius to know that the result will be irredeemably catastrophic.
There has indeed been an interesting passing phase in the political firmament of Osun State being a governorship election year that was held on 16 July 2022 where the political national umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), declared Senator Jackson Ademola Adeleke, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner over that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Governor Gboyega Oyetola.
The state became a cynosure both nationally and internationally because of the associated scary tension that the heaven might cave in from this part of the planet during the election. The common supplications in churches, mosques, traditional worshippers’ temples and among the atheists was for the election to be violent-free.
Lo and behold, God Almighty was magnanimous to have answered the prayers through the various media of divine communication. But surprisingly, the result of the election was more like “the more you look, the less you see”.
Since the suspiciously-flawed governorship election results were rolled out and announced by the INEC to the chagrin of the keen followers of political events in the state, the contextual space has been witnessing exchange of fierce tantrums and brickbats between the PDP and the APC gladiators, the two leading political parties in the contest.
A partisan election in Nigeria is a process which begins at registration to voting and subsequent litigation in the court of law, which has its offshoot at the tribunal up to the Supreme Court in line with the guidelines in the Electoral Act. There cannot be said to be a summary winner of such an election until all these mentioned routes are explored.
Eleven days ago, Adeleke with fanfare inaugurated his lame-duck 37-member transition committee with a stranger than fiction long list terms of reference where he totally abdicated what might be his roles as a sitting governor with a snag of his successfully crossing the Rubicon of the remaining part of the election hurdle at the tribunal and the Supreme Court.
Part of the strange Adeleke ‘s terms of reference is that the transition committee should fashion out what would be achievable by his dreamt administration in 100 days and one year. These strange tasks that the transition committee is saddled with, which is dead on arrival as the motive, is expressly suggestive and confirmed the fact that the PDP governor-elect is largely clueless and bereft of what his statutory functions would be in the office as a state governor, beside the glamour of the office with a long convoy of vehicles and deafening siren-blaring!
If I may ask our Mr Governor-elect, what would his roles be with the 37 wise men engrossed in questionable transitional agenda which, at the onset, is unfortunate to be heralded into existence as a challenged creation?
The answer is simple, our Mr Governor-elect would be busy gulping champagne, dancing like an ant and frolicking with women of easy virtues in a similar manner that he was sighted in a private jet with his elder sibling and others where he was dancing by wriggling his waist and jumping up and down like a fearful overfed frog, which is being chased by a veraciously angry snake shortly after the governorship election.
What could be Adeleke’s motive for showcasing an event where he was gulping champagne and dancing in a private jet, if not to mock and insult the sensibilities of the people of the state? This to me was a cerebration of an inconclusive victory without a modicum of moderation that has successfully done a greater damage to the reputation of the Mr Governor-elect whose euphoria of his alleged padded victory is still a mirage to him.
I pity the members of the transition committee, among whom are personalities that I hold in high esteem for their attainments and credentials outside reactionary politics. They were lined up like a set of convicted armed robbers awaiting execution or better still like a group of members of the Super Eagles anxiously awaiting their unknown plight in a pending football match! The sight was pathetic with a task to squeeze water from the stone.
The Adeleke Transition Committee was inaugurated to fail because of the combative posture of Mr Governor-elect and his team towards Oyetola. Adeleke and his team should be reminded that any result-targeting transition committee should ideally be a two-way affair.
Nothing tangible can be achieved by the said committee without the co-operation of the Oyetola team unless the contents of the findings of the committee would be based on mere hearsay, which has no basis in the contemporary requirements for running an effective government.
By and large, the hasty inauguration of the transition committee by Mr Governor-elect appears that he is putting the cat before the horse. Is it the inauguration of a transition committee that should be his priority attention when he is expected to be assembling the best crop of lawyers who would defend some of the weighty allegations against his pyrrhic victory in all the constitutionally allowed courts to adjudicate over his victory that has been perpetually intoxicating him like his preferred champagne?
If Mr Governor-elect does not know that an election is a long process for some obvious pathological challenges, one expects that someone among those who enjoy his proximity should educate him better so that it would not be submitted that his only point of attraction that make his supporters mill around him like ants do to sugar is because of ubiquitous Naira, Euro, Pound Sterling, etc as self-confessed by Jackson during his campaign sometime ago.
The gloomy situation surrounding Adeleke’s pyrrhic governorship victory can be likened to an infant who snatches a car key from an elderly man. But lo and behold, the joy of the infant’s misadventure is shortlived as he could not move the car because he is vastly inexperienced to drive! Of course, the car was taken away by the elder who is a grand master in the act of driving.
In peace I come while I still remain an unrepentant apostle of “it’s not over until it is over”.
Olabisi is the Media Adviser to the Osun State APC Chairman
