Home Truth With Goke Butika

‘If a woman does not try two husbands she may not know the nagging one’

THIS week is very pregnant. Last Monday I met with Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola in company of the newly-elected executive members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Osun State council, of which I happen to be the Assistant General Secretary and we had an interesting encounter right there in the executive chamber of Bola Ige House. In as much as I would have loved to discuss the issues that transpired between us, other topical issues were begging me to shove it aside.

As I was preparing to fill my column for this week, the rumour of death of the ailing President Umar Musa Yar Adua spread like wild-fire during the harmattan season and that literarily compelled me to hang up for the reality. I could not afford to be discussing stale issues when the news-making one is raging. So, I tarried awhile until the President’s spokesman, Segun Adeniyi eventually told the nation that the President is suffering from pericardium, a heart-related disease.

The story of the worst health condition of the President temporarily overtook the news making the wave about the recapture bid of Osun state for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming rerun elections slated for December12 this year. Notwithstanding, the issue must be discussed because a condolence letter from Ekiti State to Osun State from some of the stakeholders from the former demanded our urgent perusal. Or else, we will all be guilty of the grave consequences.

I do not like to treat double-barreled issues, because I always want to strive to achieve your understanding on any treated topic, but please pardon me this week for coming up with the double-barreled ideal and I promise to touch each of the short-listed issues very well. Collectively, I have elected to headline this week’s piece with a conglomerate words: MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

Let us learn from history here. The First World War ended in 1918 with the defeat of Germany and the Germans were angry that they were made to pay victorious Britain and France for the defeat. From the ruins, one violent party called NAZI emerged.

Adolf Hitler eventually emerged as its strongman. He deployed his oratorial and intellectual prowess to rebuild German armies and he blamed the challenges facing the defeated Germany on the Jews.

Whereas, Japan that helped Britain and France in defeating Germany was also angry that she was excluded from the sharing of expansionism agenda of the duo’s forces. Hitler took the advantage of the cold war between the Britain and France called (Allied) on one side and Italy and Japan called (Axis) on the other side, to negotiate with the latter and the axis was further expanded to Hitler.

Just like the PDP of Nigeria, Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia and nobody raised an eye brow, until Hitler invaded Poland and wiped out over two million Jews in a death camp in Sobibor.

Japan was equally advancing in the East of Asia, while Italy under Benito Musolini was annexing other areas in the bloc. As a matter of fact, the AXIS had invaded part of North Africa and France. In fact, Ethopia, Belgium and Netherlands fell to Hitler without firing a shot. It was the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the naval base of United States of America by Japan that reportedly forced the US to join forces with the ALLIED, the combination of Britain and France.

Unknown to the world that a new baby had been given to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the then US President in form of nuclear warheads, as the ALLIED forces battled Hitler’s expansionist agenda in France, the Soviet Union waged serious resistance against Hitler’s armies of occupation in its territory. So, Hitler had two solid forces to contend with and he eventually lost the battle and he committed suicide, but Japan chose to march-on until the air strike led by the US dropped nuclear warhead in Hiroshima and Nagazaki, two major cities in the then Japan. The massive destruction recorded forced the war to an abrupt end after six years, precisely in 1945.

What I intend to bring out of this, is that the war recorded over 55 million casualties, mostly non-military population and the outbreak of epidemics in Japan was very devastating. This history was to forewarn the expansionism agenda of the PDP in Nigeria, because when our people are finally pushed to the wall; we may not be able to determine the number of causalities. Who knows whether the country itself could be the first causality?

Just because of a rerun election in Ife/Ijesa Senatorial District in Osun State, the PDP decided to bring in a serving governor with no record of credible election, Mr. Segun Oni of Ekiti State to be the campaign manager for the sacked Senator Iyiola Omisore in Osun State. Apart from the burden of history on the part of the governor, what could have been the rationale behind the move?

I do not want to belabour the obvious; we are all living witnesses to the fact that Omisore was very instrumental to the mirage called violent election that brought Oni back to the Ekiti State House. As a matter of fact, he flew in the same helicopter with the discredited erstwhile Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro to Ekiti at a crucial hour to formulate Ido-Osi magic (where the number of votes recorded superseded the number of voters) that gave the embattled governor his pyrrhic victory. So this is the pay-back time.

Imagine, Oni that could not win an election in a free and fair contest would now be campaigning for Omisore.
The by-and-large of the story is that there will be no credibility in the forthcoming rerun senatorial election in Osun East Senatorial District, but violence of Ido-Osi magnitude would be unleashed in the area with the insignia of office of the governor and the result would just be announced like the case of Oni in Ekiti and the compromised Resident Electoral Commissioner, (REC) who is going to serve as returning officer would simply say: Let the aggrieved go to tribunal.

The riot act in this is that, nobody has monopoly of violence and if the people elect to make their will prevail, insignia of office of very few gun-wielding political mercenaries may not stop them. INEC may also be a casualty in the process and the country may begin a journey to Golgotha from there.

I know and I stand to be corrected to say that Omisore and his friend, Oni have violent tendencies and do not believe in any credible means of winning elections, but the World War 11 started with the over-ambition of one man and by the end of that story, over 55 million people were sent to their early graves. I am not in a position to determine who wins what in any election, but as a stakeholder in the polity, I am deeply concerned about the Frankestin monster called do or die election in this country, because I know that the end to the regressive method is fast-approaching.

Let us speak about the ill-health of the President. I would have chosen it first, because it is affecting the whole country, but proximity compelled me to treat the rerun poll palaver first.

Truly, people deserve the kind of leader they have. Yar’Adua is a proverb on Nigeria. This man had always been very sick, to the extent that he could not campaign in most states of the Federation during the 2007 electioneering campaign and we complacently allowed him to be foisted on us by a civilian dictator, Olusegun Obasanjo and now his sickness has made us sick collectively.

Understandably, the President is human and he is susceptible to fail health just like anyone, but for God’s sake, the constitution stipulates that the Vice-President could act if the President is incapacitated or infirm.

Now, Umaru is both infirm and incapacitated, unfortunately, we have a Second-in Command, Goodluck Jonathan who has no clout to coordinate government businesses and the nation is empty in term of leadership.

Instead of Jonathan to throw himself into the job, he is loitering on the corridor of Aso Rock; supervising the rigging machine of the PDP in all states and simultaneously waiting for his name Goodluck again to give him presidency on a cheap template.

Remember, this man had never won any election all his life. He was given a governorship seat when his boss had problems with Obasanjo and his military loyalty to the ex-president also landed the vice presidency on his lap, I think.

So, let us pray that Yar’Adua survives because Jonathan is worse. If the ineptitude of Yar’Adua is chastising Nigeria with whips; Jonathan will surely chastise us with vipers and scorpions. Have you ever seen Jonathan declaring his assets publicly? Have you ever seen him championing the anti-corruption drive? Has he explained how his wife was caught in a money laundering act? Yar’Adua is bad as a Nigerian leader not as a person, but Jonathan is worse.

Are we not sick? The seven-point agenda has given way to the sickness of the president. Who will dare talk about 6,000 megawatts, when the President is still struggling on the surgeon’s table in Saudi Arabia? Who would negotiate the useless concept of deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum with the labour, when the only topic is the survival of the President? Have you heard anything again about the visionless 20:20:20? So, we are all sick indirectly.

In that wise, the ill-health of the President would further compound the problems of the electoral reform, because he is the only one who believes in the concept of electoral reform in the PDP. Now, that he is infirm, the Vice-President may have a way of throwing the federal might behind the election riggers in Osun State and things may end up in Mutual Assured Destruction.
Meet you next week.

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