“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
–George Santayana
When on Friday, October 28, people took to the streets in Ondo State to protest the emergence of Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim as the governorship candidate of a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party in the scheduled November 26 governorship election, I suddenly had a sense of déjà vu. Indeed, the political impasse in the Sunshine state and the violent protests evoke frightening memories of the same tragic event 33 years ago when the two main rival political parties of the Second Republic, the National Party of Nigeria and Unity Party of Nigeria, threw the state into chaos, violence and bloodshed. This writer was barely a teenager then, but the barbarity of that era was too vivid to be forgotten.
The tragic event that engulfed the state might have happened more than three decades ago, but the current political situation in the state can provoke the same reaction. Ondo State must not be allowed to travel down this bloody, sad road again. The state has always been the hotbed of political restiveness. A study of Nigeria’s turbulent political history would also reveal how political crises engineered by politicians would ultimately spin out of control and consume the entire country.
On two occasions, political crises and other transgressions of politicians led to the collapse of the First and Second Republics. Fortuitously, crises in the then Western Region in 1964-1965 and Ondo State in 1983 played a role in aborting a nascent democracy. The present crisis in the state similarly poses a potential danger for the nation’s democracy. The political impasse in Ondo has historical precedent and must be viewed with the same lenses as other crises.
As a province of the former Western Region, the state was the scene of violent politics that led to the crisis which engulfed the region in what is now infamously referred to as the “Wild, Wild, West” crisis. The region erupted into violence when the loyalists of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief S.L.A. Akintola engaged in a bloody feud over the disputed 1965 parliamentary election. The violence, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in the region, followed a disagreement between Akintola and Awolowo. Historians have written about how the worst violence in Nigeria’s political history contributed largely to the fall of the First Republic when the military struck in the first coup of 1966.
The fallout of the Western Region crisis also led to a series of tragic events: The counter-coup, the pogrom that led to the mindless and heartless killing of over 30,000 Igbo in the north and the eventual civil war that led to the loss of millions of lives. Today, the crises of our nationhood can be traced back to the tragic twist of the First Republic. Eighteen years later, another political crisis reminiscent of the First Republic played out again. The Second Republic which was barely four years and three months old was truncated when the military struck again in December of 1983 to bring to an end another corrupt and violent civilian regime. Once again, Ondo State which had been carved out of the old Western Region as one of the five states created by former military ruler Yakubu Gowon erupted into an orgy of violence during the election of that year. One of Awolowo’s protégés, Adekunle Ajasin, was contesting re-election under the umbrella of the UPN. His deputy, Akin Omoboriowo, who had also fancied his chances had defected to the ruling NPN.
He was backed by the federal might of the Shehu Shagari-led government. At the election, Ajasin had a clear lead, but the NPN, intent on taking the state from the UPN, had put Omoboriowo in a clear lead as the result was being announced. Then, the inevitable happened. The widespread protests that followed the announcement of Omoboriowo turned violent and the state became a war front. Political thugs and supporters of both parties turned the state into a theatre of war.
There were fear and apprehension as people loyal to one of the parties were targeted and killed. Houses were torched. The security agencies were powerless in a bid to rein in the perpetrators of the violence. In the end, Omoboriowo was driven out of the state and spent some time in exile. The 1983 violence was a repeat of the Western Region crisis. The effect of the violence was instant. It provided a further excuse for the military to put an end to a Second Republic that was already wracked by monumental corruption.
I went this far to provide a background to the current stalemate because it has the possibility of spiralling out of control like the previous ones with their attendant consequences.
On October 28, Nigerians saw how a crooked process by politicians could lead to a predictable violent end. Obviously, the situation in the state has not been handled with equity and justice by the two political parties at the centre of the impasse. On the one hand is the Peoples Democratic Party which has been the ruling party in the state since 2003. The party has not been able to put its house in order. After years of inept leadership, the party has become so polarised that it has started to implode from within.
With a few days to go to the election, it remains to be seen how the crisis that hangs over the state like a sword of Damocles would be resolved. Already, the Court of Appeal has constituted a panel to look into the impasse. As it is, the panel has to sit and resolve the crisis before the election holds on November 26. Already, the two parties are talking tough. But the PDP has itself to blame even if the party has been promoting the conspiracy theory that the APC is behind the crisis so it benefit therefrom going into the election. Even the APC is not free from its own internal crisis. The party is going into the election a divided entity while presenting the façade of being united. The crisis generated by the emergence of Rotimi Akeredolu at the party’s primary over the candidate purportedly “favoured” by the party’s leadership, Olusegun Abraham, is still a sore point for the party. Both crises from the two leading parties are capable of throwing the state into chaos.
Indeed, another worry going into the election is the conduct of the election itself. The pre-election violence is predictive of what may happen on Election Day and when the votes are eventually counted and winners announced.
As expected, both factions are talking tough. A spokesman for Governor Olusegun Mimiko has spoken about how the people of Ondo can defend themselves. That to me sounds like a call to arm. On the other hand, the APC has vowed to take the state back from the PDP by all means necessary. These veiled threats are recipes for violence. Politicians in Ondo must tread carefully. One also hopes that the crisis is resolved by the Appeal Court panel so that the people can have two recognised candidates going into the election. All agencies involved in the election must also play fair as Ondo cannot afford another violent political circle.
Twitter: @bayoolupohunda
Punch
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