The twists to politics have gone bizarre, haywire and assumptions, ultra, infra in a non election space in State of Osun, Nigeria. As aftermath, the failed attempt penultimate Saturday, on the life of Governor Gboyega Oyetola must be scouted out ineluctably within the party system in the state, with its leadership having the sword of partisan wrangling from the scabbard as belt and braces, explicable by the tactical eruption of violence predetermined to scuttle, truncate permanently the Oyetola governorship, still in the embryo of the constitutional 4+4=8years tenure in office for him. Truncation by assassination, warts and all! What? Dirty! Incongruous! Unimaginable! And inauspicious for Osun politics and development!
The tyranny, in Osogbo, state capital amidst Oyetola’s democracy compliant solidarity walk with #EndSARS protester, had weird and wild absurdities in brazen violence at the protest ground, pandemonium sparked, with the sponsored political thugs in unrighteous indignation, their adrenalin pumped fast, forth and back, restive and in a twinkle, there was sudden breaking, bouncing, burning, battering and bulleting by political thugs as anything in sight became, like in all mob actions, a ready target and people ran helter-skelter, zig-zag from brute force and criminality of the ill-begotten moment. The governor was spirited out to safety and no single shot or canister was heard from his security architecture, unlike in a counter insurgency. The tyranny on the sitting governor of Osun must be condemned. And it is unreservedly condemned here for more reasons than one.
One. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny but the power seekers, dangerously after his seat are hell bent at supplanting him in office “to enable the supplanters in office get angry anytime without the rest of the state not being able to answer back,” in the words of Albert Camus, the French writer and thinker in his book, The Fall. Albert won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. The tyranny, unwholesome in incidence and magnitude, the rotten kind of unbridled ambition extant in the dissatisfied, the agitated, was articulated in the wrong direction. Opyetola is doing well, very well on his desk and Osun is moving ahead in all development ramifications.
Two. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. Has his governance of Osun ever for a day reduced to the application of tyranny, brute force to have warranted corresponding payback in the Hammrahi-Moses “an eye-for-an eye.”? The answer is no. Big No! And in the particular #EndSARS protest for which the tyrants had deceitfully in accusatory defence mechanism foretold the failed tyranny by their forewarning to the APC-Oyetola government against masterminding the earlier alleged attacks on #EndSARS protester. Balderdash! A direct campaign of calumny. Whereas the accusers, the tyrants were unsuspectingly soonest to strike and cause the curtain to fall on Oyetola.
Three. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny as he never for a second launched any offensive against #EndSARS protest. How? The nooks and crannies of the state, not configured into any network of official or extra official spies on anybody or group; the doors to the Police detentions across the state, not flung open; and neither did the detention population burgeoned with new intakes on the heels of the legitimate protests. The #EndSARS protester’s fundamental human rights did not get any state basing; and civil liberties, civil rights activists were neither throttled nor strangled.
Four. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. The gamut of tyranny could inflict, slam acute depression on the Osun well acknowledged value integrity, dignity and socio-political discipline, coded Omoluabi Ethos, with the tyranny’s unimpressive, inordinate implications for reaction generation and accompanying distortion of normal life, reversion of societal gains, misdirection of aggression and such other illogical disguises mounted by squabble characters, with gargantuan tragedy in human and material terms, coasting grief, sorrow, tears and death to so many innocent homes in Osun. God forbids.
Five. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. The fact is between Oyetola and Osun youths, a good number of them on #EndSARS protest, there is a pact. I can vouch that Oyetola as a father honestly expects to see the youth, acquiring a certificate of excellence in any worthy endeavour, not a certificate of death; and he sincerely expects to see the youth’s golden fleece, not a wooden casket. He has not failed in the role of loco parentis. As a humanist, fated in the ability of Osun youths to chart own course within the ambit of the law, 0yetola is proud of the state youths, “60per cent” of them voted us into government and had embarked on peaceful road walks with us several times in the past, delivering with us a better and prosperous Osun,” Oyetola recalled.
Six. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. As governor, he has not shirked his responsibility of providing sufficient avenue for the citizenry to realize their potentials or be at their best to contribute to the development of the state without fear or intimidation. He lays very high premium on fairness and justice, giving concrete expression to them that put paid to any propensity, penchant for tyranny in Osun. And the state movies on the wing of justice.
Seven. Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. He detests any tepid handling of #EndSARS protest and does not stall or temporalize the path to social justice. Evidently, the APS-Oyetola government was not on any dilemma over the sponsored political thugs’ explosion of contradictions and ruins during #EndSARS protest. For instance, senior officers of the government were at the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park, also at the Abere State Secretariat Gate and pledged government solidarity with the legitimate protest’s cause, and their demands, forwarded to the Presidency were met by Mr President.
Implying, Oyetola had been part of the peaceful protests except the last 5days when the protests were hijacked by sponsored political thugs, occupying Osun space with cutlasses, hatchets, cudgels and black power, and uttering inanities, and panting, fretting with huge beads of perspiration on the forehead with wrinkles that bewitched their ages while shooting sporadically, that punctured the peace of the state to a breaking point. While the government and party raised the alarm.
And Oyetola is undeserving of any such tyranny. Had he, in a democracy declare his might on the sponsored political thugs as no government could be so benevolent to have its authority undermined, then the oppositions would have assumed that the government was too hasty; and if the government had moved cautiously as it were, then the assumption would be that the government was too slow. And in the respective cases, the opposition further assumptions would be that the government had hurried justice or delayed justice. Harvest of opposition assumptions, ran riots. Infra!
Not in any heir apparent to #EndSARS protest but something, with exactitude attracted political thugs to the genuine protest the way the nectar attracts butterflies. The political thugs, the renegade or nincompoop, the avaricious, gone berserks and crowded on the street, too glad to be noticed, seeking such concessions as easy living, quick pecuniary gains with decency thrown overboard while hoisting at full mast the flag of political masters’ false values of scandalous opulence, dark, on the common good in #EndSARS. But the Osun publics did not oblige the pulling down of the #EndSARS project, a monument of great significance at the mart of political thugs’ wretched whims and caprices to please and be pleased.
Take a breath! The APC government is not leaving the thugs untouched. Not sparing the disbanded SARS either.
And “By this week, we shall be setting a Judicial Panel of Enquiry in line with the directives of the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osibajo to investigate cases of abuse and brutality by the disbanded SARS.
This panel will also investigate yesterday’s (Saturday October 17, 2020) attack,” said Governor Oyetola, a resolute man, pushing full steam, and a profoundly articulate mind, so articulate that his measured and calculated silence can become devastatingly eloquent, yet in his silence. That is the Oyetola art here.
#EndSARS protest is one protest, too many.
OLUSESI is Assistant Director, Directorate of Publicity, Research & Strategy All Progressives Congress (APC) State of Osun
