By Tony Afejuku
Let me state urgently that I am dwelling on the current topic very much against my good sense of judgment. I had promised myself as far back as Friday, August 9, 2019, that I would no longer comment on Edo politics, particularly on the bad quarrel between Adams Oshiomhole and Godwin Obaseki – respective ex-governor and current governor of Edo State as we all know. I made myself my stated promise after weighing accurately the good and evil in the engendered bad quarrel between a god-papa and his god-boy. Besides, I had (and still have) friends, acquaintances, former students and even relatives as well, who belonged (and still belong) to the circles of the faded or falling or fallen rose and the still fragrant and radiant and scentful rose of Edo politics of your dream and inspiration.
How would the respective circles take my point-to-point remarks and observations? Would those who would find my impartial, truthful statements unfavourable not throw themselves with furious fury at me? But why should I let this bother me when I enjoy the confidence of the Spiritual Masters of Merit who enjoined me to keep the law of silence with respect to revelations and further revelations relating to Edo politics in particular and other national matters. (I know Edo politics inside-out and better by far than any commentator and columnist in the land, but I, indeed, must yield to the Masters). I am maintaining the spiritual law of silence, but the revelation published here on Friday, August 9, 2019 still stands.
Now I must stop beating and hovering around the bush and dwell on Adams Oshiomhole whose excessive tantara President Buhari rightly halted last week’s Thursday. The APC’s humiliator-in-chief was humiliated last Thursday by the one and only GMB perhaps the most taciturn political leader and helmsperson ever of our country, who, rightly or wrongly, can act decisively when he means to act. Why did President Taciturn or President Taciturnity tell Adams Oshiomhole, the former chairman of GMB’s ruling party that his time as chairman was up? Why did President Taciturn halt his cherished taciturnity to put an end to Oshiomhole’s antics and tantrums at last? As we were informed, GMB, the true and supreme leader of the ruling party, was not at all at ease with the manner Godwin Obaseki was disgraced and humiliated out of the APC.
Rightly, or wrongly, I have always seen Adams Oshiomhole as a braying person and politician of bravado without prudence. For example, he demonstrated this without qualms in the way(s) he handled the screening of the APC candidates who vied to be the banner man of the APC in the coming September 19, 2020 Edo Gubernatorial Election. From Adams Oshiomhole’s diverse comments relating to the screening exercise and who would be APC’s banner candidate in the election, it was crystal clear that he, imprudently, had made up his mind, no matter what, to axe Obaseki out of contention (and out of the party as well – presumably). He announced with glee that Obaseki would not have the right of first refusal as the undeniable incumbent and re-seeker of the post of Edo State’s governor come Saturday, September 19, 2020. In any case, according to the humiliator-in-chief, there was no guarantee that as an incumbent governor that Obaseki would retain his post. It was a fair comment, but Oshiomhole’s logic was borne out of his uncontrollable and irredeemable hatred for Obaseki on account of what all of us know. But the god-papa’s approach was incurably defective. The screening committees he set up to screen out Obaseki did a pretty dirty job.
On Friday, June 19, 2020 on pages 20 and 21 of Vanguard newspaper the now dissolved National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress published, as an advertorial, the “Report of the Screening Appeal Committee for Edo State, Governor Nogheghase Obaseki Submitted Saturday June 13, 2020 to the National Working Committee (NWC) at the Party’s National Secretariat.” The report bewildered and bemused and, frankly, bored me. I nodded my head, several times, in anguish when I saw the name and signature of a professor among the five signatories of the “Screening Appeal Committee.”
Who was this professor questioning the degree that the University of Ibadan deemed Godwin Obaseki to have been rightly and meritoriously awarded? Who was this professor indeed who was allowing Chief Justice Oshiomhole to be using him to humiliate our premier university by a certificate-less humiliator-in-chief called Adams Oshiomhole? Who was this professor indeed who could not tell his co-signatories that he would and could not sign their bogus report in which capital was made out of little typographical errors? Who was this university professor indeed who couldn’t point out to his fellow “Screening Appeal Committee” members that little proof-reading errors were errors that were less than mole hills that they should not make mountains out of? I could tear the report into shreds point-to-point, but of what use would it be now that the humiliator-in-chief has himself been chiefly humiliated rightly by our president whom the imprudent Adams Oshiomhole unwittingly humiliated?
Furthermore, why were Oshiomhole and his fellow travellers not clever enough to realize that a degree certificate was not (and is not) relevant for Obaseki to be governor going by the extant law relating to the post? One word more: Why did the screening committees in the name or guise of impartiality not publish the respective details of the other applicants as they did Obaseki’s? Did the details of the other applicants not contain grey areas? In any case, why did the humiliator-in-chief announce to the whole world that he would go to court to challenge the PDP in court if the opposition party accepted Obaseki as its candidate for the September 19 gubernatorial elections? Curiously, the day the humiliator-in-chief announced what he announced in this regard was when President Taciturnity humiliated him big time. What an irony of power and of life! Man proposes, God disposes. This universal saying is familiar enough to us.
Well, the powerful man has surrendered to the real man of power. I don’t believe or trust him. In any case, further humiliation awaits him big time. Let him embark as he may or will on his current work-in-progress. The rest is silence…. Phew!
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
