February 26, 2009
“The illegal rule of Dr. Olusegun Agagu as governor of Ondo State ended in ignominy on Monday as he was stoned out of Akure the state capital….The erstwhile governor…had holed up in the Government House…where he watched the proceedings at the Appeal Court…He was alone and forlorn as other government officials..had vacated their erstwhile official residences.…Agagu left the Government House in company of his brother.…When the motorcade got to Oja Oba a few meters from Government House, some youths recognized one of the cars in the convoy as Agagu’s and subsequently swarmed round them shouting: “Ole, thief, ole, thief…”
- THE SUN NEWSPAPER, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
The quotation at the head of this article is indeed the fitting epitaph for the Agagu impostor administration in Ondo State. Thankfully, it was brought to an end this week, by Nigeria's Court of Appeal, in a landmark judgment described by Chief Wole Olapekun, as “the best of the very best”. He told the judges that they “have carried out a revolution” but might not even know. “It is a redemption of our democracy. The court of Appeal has never been greater than it is today”, he added.
But beyond the legal description is the more serious terrain of politics. The response around the world of politics has been near unanimous in the reception of the verdict in the courts as well as the unambiguous affirmation of the victory of Olusegun Mimiko as the authentically elected governor of Ondo State. An effusive Adams Oshiomhole, governor of Edo State, who also had to win a most historic victory in the courts, said that Mimiko’s victory signaled the commencement of “the process of electoral reform” in Nigeria. Beyond the rhetorical flight of fancy, it really should not only signal the commencement of electoral reforms, but the emergence of a significant political process of alignment and building of an alternative political platform to challenge the PDP behemoth.
Let us be clear about this, everybody in Nigeria who is politically conscious, knew that the PDP did not win the Ondo state governorship in May 2007. Olusegun Agagu was an impostor, rigged into power by Maurice Iwu’s INEC. It was only the PDP, through its publicity secretary that was surprised that the thief was separated from a stolen good, when it expressed regrets that Agagu was thrown out of the Akure Government House. If we are honest with ourselves, who does not know that the PDP did not win a single state in Nigeria’s south west during the last elections? A leading member of the PDP from Ogun state confirmed to me a few months ago, that his party lost Ogun state to the ANPP, but the abracadabra of INEC/PDP turned things around.
Related to this factor, is the fact that given the demographic geography of Nigeria, it is not likely that the PDP will ever allow free and fair elections in Nigeria into the foreseeable future, if a political realignment that throws up a serious progressive political party did not take place. What do I mean here? Any political observer should be able to see that that in the major centres of population in Nigeria, they don't vote for the PDP: Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Onitsha, Maiduguri, Kaduna and so on. It means that there is a platform of alternative politics that can be mobilized to challenge the PDP, if elements in the political opposition are serious. The state of Nigeria under the PDP has become cause for serious concern for all patriots, sufficiently for a genuine effort at building the alternative platform we are talking about.
But it must also be clear to all, that the PDP realizes how disgusted Nigerians have become with its rule, it’s just that it has to cling on. Maurice Iwu has been retained, despite the protestations of credible individuals and organizations like the Nigeria Bar Association and the Nigeria Labour Congress; and the controversial electoral czar is already talking of the commencement of a new electoral cycle, which stripped of subterfuge, means that they have commenced plans to rig the 2011 elections to keep the status quo. There are also talks that the Uwais panel’s report has become the basis of intense political maneuvering; the PDP hawks are asking President Umaru Yar’adua not to implement the far – reaching decisions recommended so as not to jeopadise the ability of the PDP and its Siamese twin, INEC, to continue to rig elections. Afterall, the agenda remains to be in power for the next 60 years, whether the Nigerian people consent in their own enslavement or not!
In the meantime, the country staggers through each day like a hopeless drunk, under a regime which is clearly out of sorts in every direction one bothers to check. Does anybody even recollect that President Yar’adua had threatened at the beginning of his lack lustre regime to declare a state of emergency in the power sector? No emergency was declared, almost two years later; the power supply situation remains dire for industrial, commercial and domestic consumers. Thanks to the honesty of the Minister of Power, Rilwanu Olanrewaju Babalola, we now know that our power sector has just been an adhoc terrain for years, which allowed the massive fraud perpetrated during the Obasanjo presidency (incidentally one of the leading individuals in that shameful period of fraud, Olusegun Agagu, has just lost his immunity; but will he ever be called to account?). The Minister told DAILY TRUST last week that “the fact is that the power sector has no master plan, “there is no power plan yet”. So when Yar’adua was huffing and puffing and threatening to declare emergency, it was merely a hollow gesture, meant to deceive the Nigerian people! And this is the power sector which everyone knows must be gotten right before any serious national development can be contemplated.
The mantra of the two years since President Yar’adua came to power is to grow Nigeria's economy by 2020, to become one of the top twenty in the world. It is either a monumental delusion or the regime does not even understand the meaning of the commitment it is making. There are no serious plans; there is no road map; the role of education is not adequately appreciated; industrialisation is not seen as a strategic sector for concerted national development; research and development is not given a pride of place as basis of national rebirth, which in turn will valorize the contribution of national intellectuals. The list can go on and on! The Nigerian people get a feeling of being deceived by a government which does not have popular legitimacy in the first place and whose body movement deepens suspicion that it is committed to the old ways of doing things: rigged elections using a compromised electoral system.
It is this background which explains the jubilation nationwide, each time any of the judicial verdicts go against the PDP. Olusegun Agagu had holed up in the Akure Government House, apparently deluded that he might somehow retain the position. But things have changed somewhat and that is not because the regime in power facilitated them: Obasanjo, the battering ram, is no longer in circulation to order a brazen injustice; the sitting president cannot muster such audacity and the judiciary was willing to be counted on the side of righteousness. The way he was booed on the streets of Akure where 24 hours previously, a crowd might have been rented to give him a ‘tumultuous reception’, showed just how hollow the pretence of these political paper weights is! It is also an object lesson to others in Nigerian politics that carry on like local tyrants just because they sit atop the money belonging to the Nigerian people.
It is an interesting co-incidence that Olusegun Agagu’s expulsion from governorship comes during the week that General Buhari is reaching out to a broad section of Nigerians about what his own political future should be. Never mind the stiff formalism of his letter distribution around the world of politics, I think it is good that Buhari has chosen to reach out to patriots around the country. I have written about this in the past, that he must abandon the poisoned chalice called the ANPP. What Nigeria needs is the construction of a new political platform which brings on broad all Nigerian patriots who feel a commitment to a process of national liberation, from the damage which the years of PDP rule has wrought on our country. There is no choice that can be more appropriate today, if Nigeria is to take the tentative steps towards democratic renewal. The sacking of the impostor, Olusegun Agagu from Ondo State’s governorship should be used as platform for patriotic Nigerian politicians to construct a process of building hope for the Nigerian people. This is the time to build and consolidate for 2011, if we don’t want an even worse electoral process down the line!
RE: THE PDP COMMITTEE ON THE RE-ELECTION OF ENG. SEGUN ONI
THE PUNCH newspaper of Wednesday, 25th February carried a full page advert from the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, which listed a team “to ensure the return of PDP candidate, Eng. Segun Oni to the Ado Ekiti Government House”. It contained some of the most recurrently controversial figures of the PDP years of locust in Nigeria: Bode George; Jerry “AGIP” Gana; Richard “12 2/3” Akinjide, just to mention a few. The only persons they didn’t add? Olusegun “Do-or-Die” Obasanjo and Maurice “Best Elections in the world” Iwu! Those who don’t know should open their ears: PDP is on the move again; the ballot will certainly be rigged- unless the Ekiti people are vigilant!
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