~Debo Akinbami, PhD
The previous week, in Akure, a vanguard of the old guys met. It is the ancient wing of the political renegades within the All Progressives Congress; the elders commissioned by the minister to fight Governor Aiyedatiwa, in Tinubu’s name. The alliance consists of ex-political office holders who plotted to perpetuate themselves in power ad infinitum. They are embittered that the incumbent Governor, by leadership style, helps the younger generation to take their places.
The said gathering, on the exterior, was to galvanise support for President Tinubu; and, when flipped, to prosecute poisons against the governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa. Their latest assignment was to renew the plot to discredit the Governor’s honest efforts to heal the party of its recent bruises over the primaries; the same situation that the minister mobilised his ilk to cause.
Governor Aiyedatiwa, had, in consultation with the Governor’s Advisory Council – a body housing consequential political stakeholders in the state, put up a reconciliation committee, to fix sundry flaws, so that Ondo’s wing of the All Progressives Congress can forge a formidable front for President Tinubu’s reelection. But seeing that the Governor’s efforts in the direction of peace are already sprouting results, the rebellious elders picked a revolt.
In Yorubaland, we learned that the elderly cannot be around and watch things go wrong. In this instance, the scanty elders, who should ordinarily be part of the conciliatory process, preferred to wage a war; to castigate the Governor out of malice and praise the minister who manipulates them. These oldies do not just watch things go wrong, they take active part in messing up the party.
The vulnerable class, assigned to malign the Governor is not blameworthy. The man who manipulates them should be blamed. The man who assigned them to the tedious task is clever. He understood that they were disgruntled and vulnerable and he timeously took advantage of their grouse. He swiftly harvested them, grouped and gave them a tag to bear their angst. The schemer does not need their energies; he needs their frailty. To have them make malicious comments that he weaponises.
Each time the unwary elders are influenced to paint a poor picture of Aiyedatiwa, the press is deployed to push the narrative and the portraits are collated to convince Abuja enablers that the Governor does not mean well. Meanwhile, it is not all the elders that are afflicted by sweeping naivety. Some of them are financially strained and need the minister’s seldom stipends to stay afloat. Others are willing tools for propagating the minister’s cloaked political ambition.
A part of these old boys are pawns in the crooked hands of a serial beguiler, all falling to the antics of making a governor of the minister. To prosecute the unripened governorship ambition soaked in Tinubu’s name, fictitious groups now litter the space, with titular variations. To this end, the minister has desperately clustered the state wing of the party. He formed all sorts of groups in the name of Tinubu’s, waiting only for the presidential election to close so that he could convert the clusters into campaign structures for gubernatorial ambition.
This is the same ploy that gave birth to the cluster of the unruly elders who are not ashamed to be on ruinous errands. They are happy being tools at the hands of a rebellious player than to genuinely cooperate with the Governor to brighten up the party.
The old guys deserve our pity, if you ask me. They have been deceived by the smart guy who is busy taking advantage of credulous persons as raw materials for a sinister ambition. The jaundiced elders are aware of the minister’s acts of indiscipline but they have sold their minds out already. And, unless something drastic is done, their consciences may be mortally imprisoned.
The minister does not care a hoot that the immediate past Governor hailed from his part of the state and that it is not yet the turn of his enclave to be Governor. He literarily wants to be governor before the incumbent’s term lapses, hence he adopts mutinous acts. He boasts to all comers about how President Tinubu will anoint him as Governor after his own election. In his political calculations, the incumbent may not favour his bid, so he has to pull him down at any cost.
To be Governor, the minister invests more resources in making Aiyedatiwa look bad than he does to the assignment he’s saddled with. He befriends whoever has an axe to grind with Governor Aiyedatiwa. It does not matter whether the grouse is necessary or not. He does not just want to be governor; he wants to make the man he plans to succeed unpopular and make himself the Messiah to be desired.
The minister does all to frustrate the peace efforts in the party. It’s the same goal the elders who pay obeisance to him are leading. He does not care about the effects of all these on the chances of the party at the presidential election. The elders who should know better, did not tell him that he is bruising the party as he is bruising the governor who leads it. The party of the president is doing everything legitimate to win. It is consolidating its solid achievements in governance, but its failure to call the minister to order is leaving a stone unturned.
In spite of the chachinery, however, Governor Aiyedatiwa opts for peace. He keeps mending fences as renegades are breaking them. He is fixing the party that the minister has badly fractured with mischief. He wants the president to win overwhelmingly. The Governor would rather concentrate his energies on winning for the president. He is taking all distractions in stride, as though he is helpless. He is not. He knows just how to put a stop to the shits, and at the appropriate time, he will.
***Dr. Akinbami is the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor of Ondo State on Public Communication.