I am a participant in the process and evolution of the political developments that birthed the Lagos and Western states politics of 1998 to date and therefore can speak with a measure of authority.
I will however limit myself in this article to the Osun aspects of the story. This is necessary in view of the falsehoods, disinformation, misinformation, outright mischiefs and slanders that characterised most of the narratives on the matter.
In order to put the records straight, therefore, I decide to chronicle the facts of the debacle in the progressives’ family in Osun to the best of my knowledge and ability.
The need to recover Osun and the other Western states outside Lagos became sacrosanct immediately the progressives lost those states to the establishment party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in 2003. Lagos, the only surviving Western progressives administered state, assumed the leadership and driver of the process. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his team of argonauts went to works to actualise the objective.
A Board of Treasury meeting for the 2004 Budget in Badagry was the foundation of the struggle. This was the foundation of all that later transpired in the region in different shapes and forms.
The political struggle to reclaim Osun began in 2004. It was an epic struggle in every sense of the word. Lives, limbs, destinies, fortunes and dreams were lost, shattered and reclaimed. Indeed, history was brilliantly made in a way that only a few moments could have rivalled.
As momentous as this era was, a major beneficiary of this epoch was unknown, unseen and mysterious throughout. This person, Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola, is a brother (or nephew) of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This mystery is a story on its own for another time.
Gboyega Oyetola came to the consciousness of Osun progressive politicians few weeks after the inauguration of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) government in Osun when Ogbeni Aregbesola announced his appointment as his Chief of Staff among other immediate officers of his administration. The tension generated by bringing this unknown face to a very prominent position in government was allayed because of the excitement of the reclamation of the government, the charisma of the governor and lack of deep understanding of the role of a Chief of Staff in an executive system of government.
Everyone accepted the choice of the COS, rallied round the administration and focussed on making the administration successful. Our mysterious COS went on to become a de facto governor, previewing, preparing and submitting all memoranda, proposals and submissions to the governor and processing all approvals for implementation. He was the Prime Minister in the administration.
Ogbeni instituted several novel but unique programmes and innovations. Among them was the open countdown to the end of his administration. From the first day of his second term in office, he installed electronic countdown clocks at the reception of the Government House, the Executive Chambers and The Governor’s Office. These electronic boards boldly announced daily the days left for the administration in the saddle.
Eighteen months to the end of the administration, the state was buzzed with permutations and speculations on the successor to Ogbeni Aregbesola as the governorship candidate of the Party. One clear fact is that no one in the party averred to Oyetola making the mark. Why? Osun, like most other Western states, has a tradition of rotating the governorship slot among the three senatorial districts – West, Central and East. The incumbent, Ogbeni Aregbesola, was from the East Senatorial District, The two immediate former Governors, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Chief AbdulKareem `Bisi Akande, were from the Central Senatorial District. The three governors altogether had chalked up about 20 years less six months in the office of the Governor. The popular belief or expectation among both party members and the general public in Osun at this period was for the successor to come from the West Senatorial District for equity, balance and fairness. The Central Senatorial District has had a back-to-back 11 and half years in power, of the 19 and half years between the three immediate past governors. The only stint of the West Senatorial District in power was the 18 months of Gov. Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke as the Governor in the short lived diarchy of General Badamasi Babangida.
With very many eminent aspirants like the former Chairman of the party and the incumbent Secretary to State Government, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti, incumbent Speaker of the House of Assembly; Rt. Hon. Najeem Salam, Peter Babalola, Engr. Olalere Oriolowo, Mr. Adegboyega Alabi, etc. from the West Senatorial District, no one gave a serious consideration to the muted murmuring of an Oyetola bid for the ticket.
Although the popular sentiment in the Party and town was for the successor to Ogbeni Aregbesola to come from the West, Aregbesola himself maintained a stoical silence on the matter. He only confided in his few confidants and whoever was confident enough to engage him on the matter that only two personalities would determine his successor, Chief Bisi Akande and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This position he maintained till July 2018 when Asiwaju told him during a courtesy visit Aregbesola made to him in Abuja during which he directed that Oyetola was his choice. Ogbeni thereafter returned to Osun and directed all his foot soldiers to start mobilising support for Oyetola. This was the situation of the choice of a successor for Ogbeni.
Soon after the choice of Ogbeni was made public, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti and his large followers pulled out from the Party. If we recall that the former Secretary to the State Government was the foundation Chairman of the Party from its AD days to AC, ACN and APC period, his influence in the party was huge. As a matter of fact, the entire structure of the party in Ilesa West Local Government Area collapsed and went with the former SSG. Such was the case all over the state with varying effects and intensity.
This undisguised fact firmly exposed the often repeated LIE that Ogbeni did not support Oyetola’s candidacy.
In spite of serious protests, defections, bitterness and disaffection from the Party leadership which Oyetola’s candidature brought to party members and the general public, Ogbeni stuck to Asiwaju’s choice and staked it out.
Of the over 10 aspirants that obtained the nomination forms for the gubernatorial ticket and the selection primary, only four of them, including Oyetola, stayed back to participate in the primary. One of the aspirants even competently litigated on the matter.
A keenly contested direct primary was conducted under the supervision of Governor Abdul Azeez Yari of Zamfara State.
To be sure, Alhaji Adeoti pulled out from the Party really when it became obvious that an indirect primary consisting of elected delegates (who had been previously chosen at the time of electing the officers of the party when the influence of the former Chairman was pervasive) was no longer possible. Direct Primary was made possible by the STRENUOUS efforts of Ogbeni and his team at the National Secretariat and leadership of the Party. The efforts to change indirect primary to open and direct primary for the gubernatorial ticket is a story on its own. Suffice to say that that decision was a landmark and decisive.
Of course, Oyetola secured the gubernatorial ticket of the Party and went on to win the general election to become governor.
Yet some people still peddle the irrational misinformation of Aregbesola’s opposition to Oyetola’s aspiration. From the records of political parties’ primaries in Nigeria, could any gubernatorial aspirant win and emerge the party’s candidate without the support of the incumbent Governor of the Party? Come on, let us be serious, it is simply insane to expect any aspirant to defeat the candidate of the incumbent governor of his party. It flies in the face of logic and reason. Where the various commentators obtained their warped and false opinions on this matter is benumbing. It is FALSE in every material particular that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola withheld his support for Oyetola.
Going forward, it is instructive to state that because APC’s strength had been decimated in the acrimonious processes leading to its primary, it could not have a straight win in the first balloting as it lost by a few hundred votes. It was sheer fortune that there was a rerun because of some skirmishes and disruptions of elections in some seven wards, which made INEC pronounce the election inconclusive. After the rerun, APC was declared winner and was affirmed so eventually by the Supreme Court.
It is on record that after the negative judgment of the main Election Petition Tribunal, a group loyal to Aregbesola, Osun Concerned Citizens, held the largest protest ever witnessed in the history of Osogbo against the judgment that Oyetola should be sacked for Ademola Adeleke. The protest was so impactful that even the spokesperson of the Governor had to deny it, perhaps in deference to the coming appeal then.
The concocted fallacy that Aregbesola never wanted Oyetola to become Governor subsequently became the foundation of a sinister conspiracy to efface Aregbesola’s political imprint in Osun, and actual vindictive-governance paradigm to reverse and destroy all his legacies. At every time when men and women of goodwill astonished by the sad turn of event intervene for genuine reconciliation, more fallacies were fabricated, including for instance that it was Ogbeni that tried to get Oyetola killed during his #EndSARS appearance.
The details of the effort to thwart all genuine reconciliation efforts by Oyetola and his stalwarts, and their continual recruitments of forces simply to further hostilities against Ogbeni, against everything he represented and against all who are following him; the division of the party along these lines throughout the government of Oyetola, the persecution, arrests and shootings of Aregbesola’s followers and campaign office and on Ogbeni himself during visits as Minister, all remain facts to which all living in Osun today can testify. A man described by Chief Bisi Akande as a “wolf in wolf’s clothing” was recruited into the “progressive” fold, and indeed made it to the National Secretary of a “progressive” party all in line with the insane anti-Ogbeni conspiracy.
Aregbesola backed a candidate in the APC Primary with Oyetola, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti (former SSG under Aregbesola, from Iwo). His candidate lost in the primary due to the shenanigans of a primary that was not allowed to hold. After the primary, despite the clearly undemocratic process and outcome, Ogbeni never subsequently made a statement against Oyetola, his government or the APC. Ogbeni was not only not invited to the campaigns, it was on record he and his followers were publicly warned to stay away as Oyetola personally and his followers boast everywhere of their confidence in victory (with no need whatsoever for Ogbeni) in the upcoming election. It is a testimony to the unimaginable level of their meanness and mischief that it is the same Ogbeni (who was not even in the country during the elections) that they turned around to blame for their ignominious loss.
That malice and mischief continue to this day with the repeat of false narratives for only God knows what objectives, as those that openly promised one million votes for Asiwaju in Osun and alienated Aregbesola from the process, turn round to blame him for their woeful loss in the presidential, senatorial and state assembly elections thereafter.
In conclusion, they claim they have suspended Aregbesola from APC, still there is neither respite nor rest of mind for his traducers due to their self-inflicted afflictions. However, despite the relentless churning out of falsehoods against Aregbesola and continued persecution of his followers, Aregbesola and his followers in Osun are focused and determined to deepen progressive politics in philosophy, principle, and practice and return it to its roots in Awoism as they press on with their Omoluabi Progressives movement. They are willing to work with anyone who embrace that goal as the clear salvation of progressive politics in Osun, the Southwest and Nigeria. This is the time tested and sure way forward to establish an egalitarian, and people-friendly and people-centred government.
Ademola Yaya
Ademola Yaya is a columnist, author, policy analyst, pro-democracy crusader and communications specialist.
