In the affairs of men, history has a way of repeating itself in ways indicative of a divinely ordained karmic cycle of events. This should easily serve as a proper guide in the activities of humankind. Sadly, if history has taught anything consistently, it is that humankind hardly ever learns anything from the repetitive cycle of events. Blinded by the pettiness of bile, selfishness and greed for primitive acquisitions, many great men have fallen from Olympian heights with such a significant thud that left their empires, nations or city states in ruins.
The current happenings in Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has revealed its recently sacked national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as one of the many great men who will go down in the annals as having failed to learn from history. Rising from little beginnings as an artisan and textile worker to achieving great things in life, Oshiomhole reached the pinnacle of his lifelong career of trade unionism when he emerged the president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in 1999. As democracy almost always births capitalism, Oshiomhole’s ascendancy to the leadership of Nigeria’s largest and most powerful trade union organisation coincided with Nigeria’s transition from military to civil democratic rule in 1999, with the accompanying shift in its mixed economic system to a market-driven economy.
Buoyed by the new atmosphere of political freedom in democratic Nigeria, Comrade Oshiomhole emerged as a pseudo opposition figure to the Olusegun Obasanjo administration for its rapid transition to an entrepreneurial capitalism without adequate social safeguards for Nigeria’s rural poor and urban working class people. Endowed with the gift of oratory, Oshiomhole’s eloquent elucidations of the welfare and general interests of Nigerian workers and his fearless confrontations with the government over some of its pro-business but anti-people policies, endeared him to many Nigerians. His fame as an uncompromising champion of the interests of the masses was easily converted to huge political capital that saw him emerge as the governor of his home state of Edo in 2008.
Comrade Oshiomhole, an outsider to the ruling political establishment of Edo State, rose to political prominence through a combination of the grace of divine providence and the will of the Edo people, without the help of a godfather. Rather than sustain and deepen the progressive democratic culture of the Edo people, which allowed for an outsider to be elected governor, Adams Aliu Oshiomhole decided to establish his own political hegemony over Edo State, with him as the all-powerful godfather.
Upon the completion of his second term as governor in 2016, Oshiomhole made it very clear that it was he, and not the people of Edo State, who would decide who the next governor of the State will be. And so it happened that Oshiomhole plucked Godwin Obaseki from political oblivion, anointed him as his chosen successor, foisted him on the Edo State APC and bulldozed him into Dennis Osadebe House as governor through all the possible means of democratic subterfuge. By this mafia-like political brinkmanship of anointing and imposing his preferred candidate as successor, Oshiomhole had hoped to retire into the life of a godfather to whom Obaseki, his successor, would compulsorily be paying obeisance to as a grateful godson.
However, the expected was not to be. If Oshiomhole’s brinkmanship followed a familiar pattern since 2007, then Obaseki’s rebellion against him has largely been the consistent end result of the godfather/godson arrangement throughout the 21-year history of the present Fourth Republic.
Since 1999, Nigeria’s democratic political leadership recruitment process has steadily degenerated into a criminal franchise of power-grab for self service. With patronage from the public treasury as the only source of reward for partisan political participation, in the absence of a sustainable good governance structure for the generality of the Nigerian people, outgoing governors have devised a means of holding on to power through anointed proxies in order for them and their cronies to continue to benefit from the spoils of their political conquest through state patronage. Interestingly, in the political underworld of Nigeria’s kleptocratic rulers, where debauchery, greed, selfishness and treachery reign supreme, there is no honour among these set of thieves and survival is only for the fittest. In a polity devoid of principles of morality, strength of character and fidelity to any ideals of good governance, godsons with the power of the purse easily rebel against godfathers with the full support of the army of professional politicians whose loyalties are only to their pockets. And to obliterate any trace of political influence of the godfather, a godson will usually go the extra mile to totally destroy and bury them politically.
From Abia to Enugu, Lagos to Kano and Borno States, the stories of Orji Uzor Kalu and Theodore Orji, Chimaroke Nnamani and Sulivan Chime, Bola Tinubu and Raji Fashola, Bola Tinubu and Akinwumi Ambode, Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso and Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, and Alli Modu Sherrif and Kashim Shettima respectively, the history of the Fourth Republic is replete with instances of political fatalities between godfathers and godsons. If Oshiomhole had learnt any lesson from this karmic cycle of Nigeria’s ugly history, he would have avoided travelling the futile road to godfatherism.
If Oshiomhole can be excused for failing to learn from the experiences of other godfathers before him, his failure to learn from his own experience with Obaseki is an unpardonable attraction to fatalistic political self-immolation. If Oshiomhole learnt any lesson at all from his Obaseki experience, he would not have embarked upon another futile journey to wrestle power from his estranged godson by personally propping up the candidacy of Osagie Ize-Iyamu, his friend-turned-foe and then friend again, as his preferred candidate this time around.
Oshiomhole does not need a soothsayer to tell him that Ize-Iyamu, like Obaseki before him, will rebel against him as soon as he settles down in Dennis Osadebe House, in line with the rules of engagement in Nigeria’s political jungle. Willing to be bitten twice without being shy even for once, Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole who, until recently, was the national chairman of the ruling APC, is about to invest all his powers, influence, time, energy and resources in another fruitless and loss-grossing venture of godfatherism in his attempt to impose Ize-Iyamu on the people of Edo State once again. And what makes Oshiomhole’s case very pathetic in this instance is that by going back to his vomit of four years back, he has given indication of being ready to eat his harsh, hateful and derogatory words spewed on the person of Ize Iyamu, against whom he supported Obaseki in the last election. Unfortunately for Oshiomhole, Obaseki, his estranged godson, engineered his suspension from the APC, which eventually culminated in his sack as the national party chairman. As has always been the case, Oshiomhole fell from his Olympian heights as national chairman of the ruling party, pulling the entire APC national leadership structure down with him.
The lessons Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole failed to learn from experience is that the most sustainably rewarding and profitable political investment that former governors can reap bountifully from is not the imposition of candidates by democratic subterfuge but their legacies of good governance and deepened democratic culture that empowers the people to determine their political leadership at every election cycle. Former governors will always be beneficiaries of their own legacies of physical infrastructure, security, social welfare and other sustainable structures of good governance they bequeath to the people. However, they will equally be victims of the effects of their misrule and the culture of democratic subterfuge they instituted while in power. Today, Oshiomhole is a victim of the misrule and democratic subterfuge he perpetuated as the governor of Edo State.
The greatest favour Oshiomhole should have done himself as the national chairman of the APC was not use his powers to influence the disqualification of Obaseki to pave the way for Ize-Iyamu his anointed candidate, but to facilitate a very free, fair and transparent gubernatorial primary elections, in line with the rule books of his party, which will empower members of its Edo State chapter to choose their preferred candidate, without undue influence from either Abuja or Denis Osadebe House. With Obaseki’s enormous incumbency disadvantage, arising from his failure to significantly improve the lot of the Edo people in the last four years, chances were that the APC members would have rejected his second term candidacy. However, Ize-Iyamu who is a stranger to the APC, as a recent returnee from the PDP, would not have stood a chance to get the party nomination also. This arrangement would have led to the emergence of a genuinely popular candidate who would not need a godfather to deploy the almighty federal might to rig him into power and who the people of Edo State will hold fully accountable for their good governance.
Credit: Majeed Dahiru, PT