That Oshiomhole's threat to incite students and market women
By Francis Ehigiator
Within a space of two weeks, and apparently flowing from the fact that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was roundly trounced in the Ekiti State Gubernatorial elections, there has been an upping in the loud cry coming from the party's big wigs for a resort to the ways of the jungle, further accentuating the tendency by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to accuse the APC of “Janjaweed” mentality.
Either out of panic or fear, or both, three governors of the APC appear to be inciting the citizenry to violence. If the violence had been intended for the common good without the governors being direct beneficiaries, there would have been a loud and resounding applause, but because Nigerians have seen through the call to uncivilized and violent behavior, nothing has and will come out of it.
It is not beyond these men and their acolytes to propel these intentions they have mouthed with inducements; so the security forces, still under the control of the centre, should be on the lookout. Opinion leaders and traditional rulers, advisedly, should talk to their people to ensure that they are not the ones used as firewood, for the irascible plans of sick-minded political leaders.
Take the Comrade-Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, for example. Unable to contain the counter-balancing effect of the PDP in the State, and its legislature, he was heard the last time trying to prep market women and students to take over the Assembly and forcibly remove those the police have been unable to deal even in the face of a supposed court order.
Speaking with thousands of youths from Edo Central senatorial district, who came to demand for the recall of the suspended Deputy Speaker of the House, Mr. Festus Ebea, the governor, who is the Chief Security Officer of the State, told his audience of obviously rented crowd that he had been watching the pathetic situation in the House of Assembly with keen interest.
Read him: “The suspended lawmakers who went to court first have refused to obey the court order with the police watching. If I call Edo people to rescue democracy they will do so. If I call them to come and rescue me from these gangsters they will do so. Under the Police Act, the police have a duty to enforce court order, and the reason they are police is because of law.
“If you remove the law that set up the police, there will be no police. If the police, who are a creation of law refuse to obey the law, refuse to obey court order, they are the ones who are behaving like the English turkey. I cannot be governor if there is break down of law and order and the police can no longer function as police.
“I want to appeal, and ask you to also appeal, to the police to obey the law and obey court order. Democracy is a celebration of the rule of law. People are saying this matter should be settled. Do you settle a matter by disobeying court order? I watched them on television abusing the bailiff when they were served court order. When they threw the court summon at the bailiff, saying it was nonsense, the police were watching them.
“As we speak, we have enough security challenge in Nigeria. Ambitious politicians should not export crisis to Edo State. This state is greater than any one of us; it is greater than the god father, the police and all of us. I am committed to ensuring that the business in taking Edo to the next level cannot be compromised by this distraction. Edo State under my stewardship will continue to carry development to every part of Esanland. Very soon, we will release promotions to our civil servants and we will take development to the next level.”
Well said. But is there any underlying reason why the police did not act that the governor is not telling the world? And the threat to call out the people onto the streets was that not equally as irresponsible as the Police the Governor was pointing fingers of guilt at; if indeed, they are as guilty as he opined?
And if the market women and students do the heinous biding of the governor, who tells him it will not backfire on him in a state he no longer has the following and support he had in the past? Who says that up to 50 percent of the students and market women are on his side to give vent to his political hallucinations? The Comrade will do well to taper his language so that his political foes do not hide under the trigger he is about to pull to do incalculable damage to the State he presides over, and the people he claims to love.
He should be reminded that these are not the days of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) where he guided the workers by the nose, while some few pockets were fattened at their expense, including the building of sprawling estates in Kaduna and Abuja.
Oshiomhole is a politician who appears to know his onions at times, and knows that it is all about mending fences with godfathers he is eternally afraid of. The best he can do now is to ensure that he completes his term of office peacefully and move on to higher political grounds rather than hobnob with those who, in the desperate pursuit of power, want to decimate the country.
Above them all, he is in a good stead to rise higher by using his closing months to mend fences with offended persons, leave Edo State with the unequalled legacy that would surpass all his predecessors. As for those Yoruba leaders who know nothing but to insult Obas and other traditional rulers of their ethnic stock, he should keep them at arms' length for they mean no good for him.
Ehigiator contributed this piece from Benin, Edo State.