“Oriade LG should do what it did in 2011 to temporarily halt Oke’s march to what now appears as legislative immortality. If there was an Agunbiade joker in 2011 that delivered poetic justice to Wole Oke when he breached the agreement, there should be someone to rally behind again in 2027 on another platform and pour in a bloc vote to wipe away what is now becoming an ancestral shame.”
Years back, Nigerian Tribune had an iconic agbowo’pa (debt collector) in her employ. Everyone called her Mama Ojewuyi. She retired long before our kind considered the easy-does-it club.
Whenever Tribune managements of her time felt the debt profile, mainly from advertising, was questionably astronomical, she would be deployed for forcible retrieval through staff members who covenanted for the debtor advertisers. I was then in the Abuja Bureau of the newspaper.
Though she wasn’t the only one in the department, Mama Ojewuyi was the head and had a unique way of reminding those suspected of deception, that their stories about the debts still unpaid, were cock-and-bull(s..t) tales.
Like a musical note, she would deliver her line in Yoruba language; “die to ninu nkan oni nkan,….(redacted) percent la ni e mu, ke feyi toku sile fun oni nkan (the Awolowo family), die to ninu nkan oni nkan”.
Then Tribune was giving an unbelievable percentage as commission on advert (and still does) and Mama Oje would be reminding that greed should not be in the mix after a generous due had been given to the involved staff members. She wanted justice in sharing, so the owners of the company, the Awolowos, too, can reap where they sowed. Of course, she wasn’t really loved by crooks in the system then, but the Yoruba had already warned that straight shooters don’t usually have cheering crowd in their corners.
I could do Mama Oje’s sing-song for five-term, sixth-term-seeking member of the House of Representatives, representing Obokun/Oriade Federal Constituency (also known as Ijesa North Federal Constituency), Hon. Busayo Oluwole Oke, and it would be apt, only that I don’t know if the chubby-cheeked, controversy-loving 59-year-old, will dance to it or if he dances at all.
Oke, from Esa Oke, ancestral home to Nigeria’s own Marcus Cicero, the inimitable Ige, despite his underwhelming national and even state profile, is unarguably one of Nigeria’s longest-serving members of the national lawmaking body, and it beggars belief that his face is not easily recognizable in sizeable political gatherings beyond his Osun base. He could be that dingy in carriage and dismal in persona, despite his efforts at carving a gobi (Yoruba traditional cap) niche with his initials (BOO) strewn to them, which he has now dumped for President Tinubu’s “unbroken chain” style.
Days back, Dr. Umar Ardo, a northern megaphone, dissected the president’s cap design as “the Infinity”, symbol, urging Nigerians to wake up and smell the coffee. He wanted Nigerians to embrace his concern and conviction that the Asiwaju cap design, which is now the choice cap style for APC stalwarts starting with the national chairman, is communicating a “rule forever” agenda.
In this nomination season, the “Infinity” will definitely reign everywhere because it is one straight power line for the ruling party. The President is the party! Shikena.
Since Oke strategically, days back, sealed an eye-popping, head-scratching appointment as the Director General of the gubernatorial campaign of APC in Osun, both the party which is in opposition in the state, and his federal constituency have been quaking. The lawmaker had won all his previous elections on the platform of the now-disappearing PDP but defected early to APC the moment Adeleke’s handwriting appeared on the wall with Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.
The widespread discontent that followed his emergence as the most-trusted to steer his “new” party to victory in the August poll, is being viewed as his rejection by party faithful he met on ground, a problem compounded by many of his followers in PDP refusing to decamp with him.
The disgruntled APC tokan-tokan (committed members) are taking cudgels to their leaders, particularly Gboyega Oyetola, for putting a decampee in charge of their campaign, which is being mostly interpreted as a vote of no confidence in them. But Oyetola and his caucus appear not to “send” the grumbling and the disgruntled. To further rub it in, two former opponents of Oke whom he defeated whilst still in PDP, are now made his deputies in the APC campaign structure. No better way of saying, this guy pass una.
But the fire in Oke’s backyard may not be easily quenched. He represents two local governments, his Obokun and Oriade with headquarters in Ijebu-Jesa. Just like in many other cluster constituencies, the rotation question and agitation has always been there and it would seem there was a balance until Oke showed up on the scene, upturning every scale of balance and marching through a third, fourth and fifth term, like a matador! Now he is seeking a sixth, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the agonies of the Oriade people. He is playing the superiority game the Yoruba will couch as “eni ba juni lo le juni nu” (the top dog can do and undo).
Incidentally, Oke’s Obokun LG is the junior partner in the arrangement with 10 wards to Oriade’s 12 and with far fewer votes, meaning that Oriade LG determines who represents the federal constituency.
The question then is, how has Oke managed to play Jacob with the Isaacs in Oriade? How has he managed to get the winning votes from Oriade, which has been kicking since 2011 when Oke should have relinquished the seat to the “marginalised” LG? Can we really blame him for knowing his onions and practically getting away with murder, obviously aided by Oriade insiders?
Cracked walls will certainly have lizards visiting. And to demonstrate his confidence and superiority, the loss of the general election in 2011 to an opponent from Oriade on the platform of another political party, didn’t deter his return in 2015, clinging on, till date. That is how to be a comeback king.
But the morality question can’t be thrown away on the basis of being adept at political brinksmanship, though Oke would not be offending any known electoral law, showing up at every election cycle and appropriating what should be for all, as long as it’s legitimately done.
For the sake of everything Omoluabi, you can’t go on playing the tortoise ad infinitum, answering “Everybody” to keep what should truly be for everybody. If the reverse is the case, will Oke, as a political leader of Obokun LG, accept the current arrangement he is foisting on the constituency, including even shutting out others with interest in his Obokun base?
Jesus says we should do unto others as we want others do to us. And to think the whole constituency is practically out with a knife for him over alleged abandonment!
Without doubt, Oke representing a constituency for 20 years and aiming to make it 24, is a big deal in Nigeria’s budding democracy, but it pales into insignificance when legislative longevity is globally viewed.
The longest-serving member in U.S. Congress history is Democrat Representative John Dingell from Michigan who served for almost 60 years, from 1955 to 2015. His history-making counterpart in the Senate is Senator Robert Byrd, also a Democrat, with 51 years, five months and 26 days of service.
For those currently serving like Oke of Nigeria, the dean of the American Senate and its president pro tempore emeritus, 92-year-old Republican Chuks Grassley of Iowa, sits pretty atop, running his eight term that will terminate in 2029 when he would be 95, God sparing his life. He has also not written off a ninth run of another full term of six years.
Grassley is currently the oldest sitting U.S senator, the longest-serving Republican in congressional history and the sixth-longest-serving U.S senator in history, already in the 45th year of his representation which started on January 3rd 1981!
Who is Oke trying to emulate among these history makers?
In 2003, when Oke first took the seat, he was just an impressionable 36 year old. How he mastered subjugating the majority and holding them down for two decades in an easily-revolting Ijesaland, should be a study in conquest and a positive for his politics. But now that the majority are pushing to throw off the yoke like Esau, only time will tell how longer the “slaving” will last.
The cries of the Oriade people remind of the nebulous Omo Eko Pataki, a self-serving guerrilla gathering of bellicose Lagos Island elite, seeking a so-called redemption and reparation for their politically-displaced people. Maybe they need to first consult Oke on the politics of minority ascendancy before trying to harass the manifestly-majority non-indigenes they are trying to tackle. After decades of noise, the question is what did they come back with, in their ululating against the chief non-indigene himself, who took over Nigeria from Lagos. The street will say, gba fo’ga e (concede when outclassed).
For a man of ambition that Wole Oke is, only one person in APC can halt his sustained stroll over the senior partner in his constituency; the undisputed national leader of the party. With his strategic placement leading APC campaign to dislodge Adeleke, the chances of that presidential intervention are nil. President Bola Tinubu himself is a master of imposition, though he reportedly told some of his boys recently that the party’s votes are dwindling due to disgruntled members sitting out general elections once their preferred aspirants are shut out through the culture of forceful imposition (packaged as consensus) as witnessed in the emergence of APC gubernatorial candidate for Osun. He allegedly told them the other option of direct primaries would be the way to go. What is not known now is whether he is baiting or serious, considering he is a grand master of political subterfuge. It is also unclear if the direct thing would be limited to Lagos or at least, across the South West or even nationally. With BAT, nothing seems certain.
In places like Oke’s constituency where consensus has been outright rejected, the minimum APC can do is allow committed old party members stake their chances against decampees in direct primaries. That would be fair; that would be justice; that would be compensation for keeping faith.
For the groaning Oriade, the president’s advice about power should serve and guide them; nobody serves power à la carte, they will have to plan for it, target it, snatch it and run with it, considering that it should have long been their turn, though Oke is understandably disputing the rotational gentleman agreement. This is also a lesson for those being promised a single presidential term. Let nobody return crying in 2031.
Oriade leaders should also purge their walls of geckos and flush out those cracking their unity walls. Those reportedly selling the council for a bowl of porridge should be identified and handled (not violently please). If justice won’t be found in APC, the LG should do what it did in 2011 to temporarily halt Oke’s march to what now appears as legislative immortality.
If there was an Agunbiade joker in 2011 that delivered poetic justice to Wole when he breached the agreement, there should be someone to rally behind again in 2027 on another platform and pour in a bloc vote to wipe away what is now becoming an ancestral shame. And to think the APC senatorial candidate for Ife/Ijesa; our beloved Buoda Fadahunsi, is also from Oke’s Obokun LG. How about that for fairness.
