By Isaac Olusesi
There cannot be any moral dilemma here. Turning all the magazine, armoury of censure or condemnation on the protesting pensioners, we’re just fighting HIV, and looking away from the more spiteful, hateful, deadly malignant COVID-19, the thin- skinned and terminally lethargic blackmailers armed with the mandate to the pensioners to embarrass Oyetola on repulsive enterprise to make the state ungovernable, yet the mischief makers, covertly, pleading conscience not guilty and acquitted or exculpated, supposedly waiting to be discharged.
The fascinating, alluring thing, albeit engagingly repugnant, repelling and bewitching, is that protest and blackmail are compellingly an irritant nuisance of politics to be tolerated because the duo cannot be completely done away with in any democracy. Oyetola knows this empirical fact very well and at the Tuesday protest, he smiled his unique smile, a sly, almost an imperceptible parting of the lips at both corners of the mouth and exclaimed: “I am daily working on your matter, only be patient,” he told the protesting pensioners.
But the protest, with the hell of it, was against the logic of Oyetola’s facts and his overwhelmingly utilitarian figures on government expenses on the state pensioners. Consider these lines: “…the government has continued to release on a monthly basis the sum of Fifty Million Naira (N50,000,000:00) to clear outstanding gratuities of pensioners under the old scheme while a sum of One Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N150,000,000:00) is being released monthly to take care of pensions under the contributory pension scheme.
“It is also on record that the state government has processed the bonds of retired junior officers in the public service who have between One Hundred Thousand Naira and Two Million Naira (N100,000:00 -N2,000,000:00) to collect and have since started receiving their bond certificate.’’
Oyetola has a goodwill pact with the entire people of Osun and in the instance particularly, with the state pensioners, their classes, or generational classifications and political leanings, notwithstanding. They ought to know and they know that he has never visited tyranny or launched any offensive against any part of the state. Or inflicted any dark supremacy on the governed to deserve any such worthlessly embarrassing street protests against his government.
Oyetola has a saner reason: “Force can be all conquering but its victories are short lived,” so said Abraham Lincoln. Honestly, Oyetola is conscientiously purposeful, responsible and responsive, explainable in Wole Soyinka’s “a tiger does not go about proclaiming its tigerish.’’
What comparative implications?
In the throwback accoutrements of similar protests in Osun, the reactionary potentate, cited in the last edition of this piece, was voted in as a butterfly but fledged into untamable hawk in the Oke-fia hatching house of power, combined with the remoteness of God and the unassailability of an ancient king, in the Osun democracy, not too long ago such that to criticize the potentate or organize any protests while he held sway, was to risk a treacherous crime, with his barbarian military parade background mentality, devastatingly exploits in power that made his government practically read monstrous tales from some remote banana republics.
Contrastingly, to access Oyetola is not to risk blasphemy and to criticize him is not to challenge a god. He takes criticisms and sieve to find correlative suggestions and healing solution, if any, just as he keeps a safe distance from political jesters, political poets, political seers, political chroniclers, political praise-singers, political dancers, political guards and any such political paraphernalia to build personal myth or shield from the governed. Yes! He’s not arrogant and has not shown any wiser than the state propensity to make whoever thinks away from him a fool or malcontent.
Oyetola, of superior intelligence who keeps the hair on his body glued to the skin and who does not like controversies flapping about him like a bat, remains charmingly unfazed by the protest. He did not trade words with the pensioners when they came and did not truncate open discussion with them; he did not show any contempt for the protest and did not shrug his shoulders to signal that the protest did not amount to a hill of beans; and he did not deny them the satisfaction of knowing how much deep inner convictions of full worry, full attention, full empathy, full love and full care he has for the state pensioners.
And Oyetola rather sought the pleasure of the retirees in the state “to continue to reciprocate my understanding of you and not relent in supporting the present administration which is passionately committed to your welfare.’’ That was after he had gratified them with the fact that, “the government has paid over four thousand (4,000) pensioners between 2018 and now and has expended Forty Billion Naira (N40bn) to cater for the welfare of retirees in the state.’’
In truth, additionally, since November 2018 when Oyetola mounted the Osun saddled horse, salaries and pensions have continued to be paid as and when due; arrears inherited from the last administration are steadily being paid; and government has never defaulted in the payment of pensions and gratuities.
By the truth, the protesters got up excitedly, satisfied but getting back to the take- off point was like breaking the Kainji Dam, debilitating, meaning that in these days of global economy meltdown when having 3square meals a day is hard to come by, the pensioners should spare themselves of superfluous, needless stress and cultivate understanding of Oyetola, justifiably working on our senior citizens’ welfare when he’s sustainably silent; and sustainably silent when he’s justifiably working on them. Let the state retirees agree with me here in most convenient confidence and see the Niagara of stress free, cool breezes in your backyard.
Data based, informed protest cannot give our retirees any bad image; the survival, and good image of Osun senior citizens remain intact, irrevocably on the front burners of the government. It cannot be otherwise. Get it! The Governor is consistently sweating to ease life and living for the state retirees.
And truly, democracy is a social contract. The ballot box with ballot paper gives the man at the poll the power to turn a new page of same chapter or close the book.
The former, graphically Oyetola, destined for the new page- the 2ndTerm and of same chapter- APC, holds the key to the continuity of Osun development superlatives, exceptionally of high quality, dotting the length and breadth of the state. It’s apt for the governed to open to Oyetola’s new page by voting for him at the next governorship election in the state.
The former is just desirable for continued good governance in Osun.
While the latter, ‘close the book,’ is evidently retrogressive: continuity to veer, growth to deviate, development to stray and the governed to swing with a ring of dangerous uncertainties.
The latter, undesirable
for Osun.
(Concluded)
OLUSESI writes at the Foot of Most Merciful. Most Gracious. All-knowing.
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