Every society has its distinct way of apportioning or meting justice to offenders. Eskimos sit around their sinners or transgressors and remind them that despite their crime they’re still loved. In plenty Islamic cultures criminals are stoned to death. In the bygone Persian civilisation criminal justice system included family members of victim.
Governor Adam Oshimhole should see us who comment on him as the Eskimos who gather around their misbegotten ones to tell them that upon their sins they’re still beloved by their community. But how much longer we shall continue to love our prodigal has a limit to it. We want him to succeed where others have failed that’s why we spend our tight schedules discussing him.
If Edo state governor, Adam Oshiomhole fails in the end, it would be for his lack of moral and situational willpower to do the right thing at the right time. Not because he’s lacking in leadership expertise. His failings would be that he used more of his head than his heart. That is, applying more of his IQ rather than emotional intelligence that tells him to be his brothers keeper in Edo state and to love his citizens as himself. Leading a state is no rocket science. This brings me to the wisecrack that says: (If someone’s altitude is right his altitude would be high). Mr. governor should attune more to moral uprightness and the abundancy to sympathise with the down and out in society. At this juncture, he needs more of his heart where empathy lies: not much of his head where tricks reside.
If we peep into governor Adam Oshiomhole´s life from way back when he was a labour activist, we would see a picture of a man who had the mania to pal along with rich and famous in society for all the whatnots. He never cared those days whether he mixed and mingled with corruption heavies home and abroad. He went along merrily with all kinds of flows even for the wrong reasons. This same old habit that refused to die-hard is a recent pointer to his involvement in the Harvard/Governors Forum scandal that has tainted him black. His best bet is to stop the knockabout and concubinage with corrupt and cluesless PDP power mongers and concentrate on the oath of office he took to bring sunniness into the lives of Edolites.
Mr. governor would not race Edo State and its citizens to the bottom of hell because he came from civil activism background. It’s not true that a background of civil activism is visa for institutional and leadership failures. Nelson Mandela is a core activist and there has not been report that he failed as a leader of South Africa. Mandela’s decision not to go for a second term in office brings to mind Albert Einstein another great activist who refused point blank the offer to lead the State of Israel in the immediate aftermath of its creation in 1948. Einstein’s activism ran via his role in Israel’s creation, to his criticism of Adolf Hitler and his opinionatedness that a world without religion is the clarion call.
What dooms or lustres a leader has nothing to do with his past life as a social crusader. Activists are like every other person with his or her highs and lows. It’s worth of note here to say that most social crusaders of all times whether as leaders or the led, maintained a high moral ground to the end. They never wavered come rain or shine, even if they have to face twenty-seven-year jail or assassination for their altruistic goodness to society.
Time shall tell whether Mr. governor will fall by the wayside wanting as a onetime social crusader who failed woefully as a governor of people. But unlike, most people who moved the crowd to attain social justice - I dare say that Oshiomhole is having problem defining himself. He is trying hard to ascertain whether he’s still the-once socialist believer or a crass capitalist who collect taxes however and put profit before people. The earlier he comes to the realisation of who he’s, the better for his posterity and Benin City. The split personality that has come to dog him is not the stuff of which legends are made. Social crusaders who made it into the hall of fame know what they want from the word go.
Leave aside the fact that he’s trying to come to terms with the puzzle of who the old activist is, from who the by-now governor of Edo state is. Let us now concentrate on what John Adams, a onetime president of United States opined years ago: "In matters of fashion, swim with the current. In matters of conscience stand like a rock."
The governor’s fattest problem is the kind of company he keeps. Evil communication, they say, corrupts good manner. If he wants to be a stand-up man when the roll is called after his tenure, he should stop bedfellowing with corrupt same set of people who wrecked Edo asunder. And on the other hand, supposing he’s looking forward to being the fall guy in the end - then, he shouldn’t change his ungodly flirtations with the same set of Luciferians who wrecked Edo State and Nigeria-wide.
I pray ardently to Modesty that governor Adam Oshiomhole succeeds as a governor. The stake is very huge and the time is running out.
S. Njokede writes from The European Union
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