“You don’t run after a snail. When you are ready (to make it a cuisine) you pick it up and put it in a bag” – Comrade Adams Oshiomhole
–Cited in Festus Adedayo, Nigerian Tribune, Sunday, 21 June, 2020.
However the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State eventually pans out, the protracted political battle between suspended chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, and the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, seeking reelection on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, will be long remembered. What began as a political bush fire that could easily have been put out billowed into an inferno driving Obaseki into the waiting hands of the PDP leading to the suspension of Oshiomole, and a factional crisis within the ruling APC which has resulted in the dissolution yesterday of the National Working Committee of the party. The elongated drama, still unfolding, which defied several reconciliatory moves, reminds one of the expression mutually assured destruction. First used in the early 1960s by Donald Breham, the term refers mainly to an anticipated reciprocal use of nuclear weapons by opposing sides resulting in such massive destruction that both the aggressor and the defender will be consumed in the process. As known, the coinage eventually became a theory of deterrence since no country was prepared to take the risk of disappearing from the map of the world just for the fun of it or to prove a point. Regrettably, however, in the current context of Edo State and as the opening quote sourced from Oshiomhole’s Twitter handle suggests, hardline position and militancy replaced conciliation and consensus seeking, landing both combatants in a terrible mess.
In standard boardroom practice, once two senior managers engage each other in a heated and escalated conflict which frays the fabric of the organisation, the two personnel are gently eased out, in order to save the institution from embarrassment and possible disintegration. It is a great pity which speaks volumes about the contentious nature of our polity that the Oshiomhole/Obaseki tangle assumed the scale and ferocity which it did thereby leading to tragic and unforeseen consequences. Even if Obaseki were to be reelected governor for a second term, the crisis has diminished him to the extent that he was forced to do a somersault by resigning from the APC on which platform he was elected in 2016. Of course, it can be argued that in a political culture which pays scant respect to party fidelity and decorum, this is not necessarily a grievous transgression; nonetheless, it raises the issue of trust and the never ending, shifting, and vacillating nature of our politicians and their party switching habits. In this sense, those who see Obaseki as a game-changer may well reconsider their assessment, considering the fact that he has acted not distinctively, but like one of the crowd. If Obaseki loses the election, in a setting where electoral integrity is hard to find, he may well descend into little more than a footnote in the larger historical canvas in which he has participated. As for Oshiomhole, once viewed as a reformer whose labour background will inaugurate a pro-people, pro-job, and a bottom up politics, the basis for holding on to any such expectations has been finally dashed. Even before this crisis, Oshiomhole had come under criticism for the way he had conducted the affairs of the party and remarkably blamed for the electoral losses of the APC in Zamfara, Bayelsa, Rivers, Bauchi, among others.
This columnist has had occasion to remark on the nature of the language employed by him in describing opponents, language hardly calculated to win friends and influence people. As I recall it, on that occasion, he began a narrative with the expression that “God will punish Obasanjo for doing this and that”. True, in the heat of war, finesse may not be the first order of business; that notwithstanding, national leaders should consider themselves role models in taste, decorum, propriety and civility even when they are under provocation.
To return to the issue at hand, in his influential book on the politics of the First Republic, distinguished African politics scholar, Prof. Larry Diamond, argued that one of the reasons why that republic collapsed in infamy had to do with the lack of restraint on the part of major political actors who forgot or refused to take into account the narrow and slippery character of the terrain in which they operated. There is a world of difference between driving up a treacherous slope, to amplify the point, and cruising on a broad highway. To bring the analogy home, had the political warriors in the Edo imbroglio considered the terrain in which they clashed, had they taken account of the wider ramifications of their several duels, perhaps they would have chosen a different strategy more conducive to their political careers and national wellbeing. Alas! That was the road not taken and the outcomes stare us in the face at several levels. There is also the related issue of godfather and godson politics which regrettably continues to define and afflict political behaviour in the country. Notwithstanding the fact that the carcasses of godfather politics gone haywire abound around us, politicians continue to delude themselves that it is the way to carry on.
There is no need to bore the reader with several examples of godfather politics that came to grief, suffice it to mention that it is a signature tune of our political underdevelopment, corruption, and ‘arrangee’ mentality. In particular, it speaks to the top heavy nature of our political parties, dominated by party barons and the so-called moneybags, who have little or no use for internal democracy within and outside the parties. It also shares borders with prebendal politics popularised by emeritus Prof. Richard Joseph, typifying a scenario in which political actors preemptively allocate to themselves, juicy portions of the national estate. It did not help matters that in the ongoing crisis, Obaseki complained that his travails are a consequence of his failure “to share the money”. If this is true, are we to believe that someone has now been located who is prepared to share the money? For as long as our politics is marooned in the cesspool of booty sharing, for so long will it exclude the people, who ought to be the epicentre of our democratic strivings.
This brings us to another regrettable aspect of the political storm, namely, that it fails to situate itself in the context of the majority of Edo citizens but chose to highlight ego-driven and reckless personality clashes. Had the issues at stake revolved around the politics of uplifting development, getting people to escape the poverty trap and the welfare of the people generally, it will have been more edifying. Getting people enlisted, one way or the other, in politics that does not improve their lives in any way is merely recycling the failures and fiascos that have kept us rotating on the same axis for many years. Hopefully, other states and flash points will learn the necessary lessons from the current imbroglio and save us the kind of ugly spectacle that does not speak directly to the sufferings and woes of the people.
END
Be the first to comment