By Bola BOLAWOLE
The country’s leading opposition political parties descended, last week Saturday, on the historic city of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state, sounding frantic – and they were right! The existential threat they said confronts them is more real than imagined.
Our people have a saying: when you see an elder running in broad daylight, if he is not pursuing something, something is pursuing him! In the case of the opposition party elders in question, not only are they pursuing something, something is also pursuing them!
At the last count, up to five of them are said to be desperately pursuing the presidential ticket of the opposition in next year’s presidential election. The incumbent, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, would have none of that! Armed with all manners of political cudgels and legal subterfuge, Asiwaju is pursuing and scattering the opposition in different directions – and he makes no secret of it!
Ibadan – what an apt place for such a conglomerate of endangered opposition politicians to seek refuge! John Pepper Clark’s laconic poem of the same name, Ibadan (1965), goes thus: “Ibadan/Running splash of rust and gold/Flung and scattered among seven hills/Like broken china in the sun.”
Let’s try and “appreciate” this poem like we were wont to do in our secondary school Literature class. In the present circumstances, the opposition politicians are RUNNING helter-skelter; both the elderly among them and the young (SPLASH OF RUST AND GOLD ), FLUNG AND SCATTERED in many directions (some of them are cooling their heels in custodial detention; others in “open custody” with EFCC and INEC’s sword of Damocles swirling over their head), far beyond SEVEN HILLS , home and abroad, with no respite in sight, like BROKEN CHINA (PDP is broken, Labour Party is broken, ADC is broken, NNPP is broken, which one again?), all in broad daylight (IN THE SUN), and under our very nose; nothing is hidden, in a dare-devilry manner, challenging us to dare the opposite if we can!
Ibadan, the political capital of the south-west! What a historic venue for a gathering of politicians desperate to break what they now see as weaponized defections, the danger of one-party rule, and creeping fascism! It was here in Ibadan, in January 1952, that the country’s first historic defections took place in the Western Region House of Assembly; the cross-carpeting that ended the ambition of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, after conquering his native Eastern Nigeria, to also add Western Nigeria to it as icing on the cake!
Pluralism is the soul of democracy. Thus did Chief Obafemi Awolowo become the Leader of Government Business/Premier of the Western Region, making possible the many “firsts” that his government later achieved: Free education, first television station in Africa and some parts of Europe; Liberty Stadium; Cocoa House, the tallest building in West Africa; the Government Reservation Areas, the Business Districts and Industrial Development Areas; the farm settlements, the University of Ife, among others.
Three years ago, a group of journalists on tour of Oyo state were shown relics of the Independent Power Project started by the Awolowo government still standing within the precincts of the Government Secretariat in Ibadan. If only democracy had been allowed to survive much longer during the First Republic!
Ibadan – Home to some of Yorubas most iconic and controversial politicians – Adegoke Adelabu aka Penkelemesi; Adisa Akinloye of the AMA Champagne fame; Richard Osuolale Akinjide aka Mr. Twelve two-thirds; “eccentric” Dr. Omololu Olunloyo; strongman of Ibadan politics, Busari Adelakun aka Eruobodo; and the Oga pata-pata of them all – Lamidi Adedibu – the “Generalissimo and Garrison Commander of Ibadan politics”, so crowned by sitting President Olusegun Obasanjo!
Is Engr. Seyi Makinde, the Oyo state governor, cast in the mould of any of these his forebears? Appearance says no, but his tenacity, the single-mindedness of purpose with which he has pursued the project of standing against Tinubu/APC’s conquest of the opposition, says otherwise. He is the last man standing of all PDP governors, just as Tinubu was the last man standing of all the south-west’s Alliance for Democracy governors under the hammer of Obasanjo at the beginning of the current Fourth Republic.
Makinde does not speak in his closets. He thunders in the open. He was the host of the gathering of opposition politicians that sent a clear and unmistaken signal of “prepare for war” to Tinubu and APC last Saturday. Depending on which side of the divide you pitch your tent, his allusion to “Operation Wetie” has both been vilified and applauded. For those against, it is incitement to violence, reckless and unworthy of someone holding the high office of a state governor. But for those supporting, it is a timely reminder of where and how the rain started beating us, to use David Mark’s exact words at the Ibadan meeting. It may be that we would heed and pull back from the edge of the precipice!
Ibadan – Where the almighty Bola Ige, our own Cicero, fell to the simple but superior strategy of the political minnows he had underrated! OMO WA NI , E JE O SE! was the simple refrain that sent Bola Ige out of the Agodi Government House, paving the way for Olunloyo to become the first Ibadan SHON OF THE SHOIL to govern Oyo state. Don’t underrate Ibadan! You do so only at your peril!
When the opposition politicians gathered in Ibadan, their only consideration could not have been to feel comfortable in a friendly territory or environment – for there must have been many of such all over the country – they probably were sending a coded message to the Jagaban (the head of warriors), that they were ready – and able – to confront and beard the lion right in its lair, the south-west being Tinubu’s home base, as it were! Battle royal!
Ibadan, epicentre of OPERATION WETIE and the WILD, WILD WEST (1962 – 1966) events that later spread to the nooks and crannies of the south-west, leading to a chain of actions that eventually led to the collapse of the First Republic.
Gov. Makinde’s allusion to the events leading to that catastrophe, no doubt, sent shivers down the spine of many, causing trepidation and raising an alarm. Is the sky truly ominous? Are we on familiar terrains? Have we learnt nothing from history? Or is this mere scare-mongering? Is Makinde crying wolf where there is none? But better to err on the side of caution! It will be too costly to repeat the mistakes of the past.
But what exactly does the opposition want? What aileth them? The communique issued at the end of their one-day meeting says it all. It reads:
“That we shall resist all machinations by the APC to foist a one-party State on Nigeria and fight for the survival of multi-party democracy in our country.
“That despite the onslaughts and manoeuvrings of the ruling party, the APC, to impose President Bola Tinubu as the sole presidential candidate in 2027; we shall field candidates and contest the 2027 presidential and other elections.
“That we shall work towards fielding one presidential candidate for the 2027 elections, which shall be agreed (upon) and supported by all participating opposition parties to rescue our nation and her long-suffering masses.
“That the INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, having shown bias and partisanship in favour of the ruling APC, should not conduct the 2027 general elections as Nigerians across board have lost confidence in him and his capacity to guarantee the required neutrality to deliver free, fair, transparent and credible elections. His continuous stay in office is vexatious and capable of triggering widespread crises in our nation.
“That the National Assembly should immediately review the Electoral Act, 2026 to remove all sections that threaten the sanctity and integrity of the elections and (which also) run counter to constitutional provisions.
“That all leading politicians that are being detained or harassed on bailable offences be released with immediate effect and (be) allowed to exercise their fundamental rights of participation and inclusivity as Nigerians.
“That we consider the recent guidelines released by the INEC as obstacles deliberately engineered to impose conditions and deadlines on opposition parties. We therefore demand that INEC extend the deadline for primaries till the end of July 2026.”
Knowing as we do that talk is cheap but performance is Herculean, the question must be asked whether the opposition politicians can walk their talk at Ibadan, especially on the vexed issue of agreeing on a sole presidential candidate among its numerous contenders, to face the incumbent in the 2027 presidential election. Or will personal ambition and self-interest continue to trump the need to work together, which was orchestrated at their Ibadan meeting?
While it can be argued that many of the opposition politicians are the architects of their own present difficulties, will it not also be self-destructive to throw the baby away with the dirty bath-water?
The Ibadan meeting – and its declaration – raised the hope of many, especially those who tremble that the country totters on the road to one-party rule.
Political parties may all have become nothing more than mere Special Purpose Vehicles for the sake of contesting election; in the absence of ideological departmentalization, political parties are nothing more than different fingers of the same leprous hand; meaning that real choice, in the absolute sense of the word, may not exist for the electorate who are constrained and constricted to choose from political parties of the same decadent ideological persuasion.
But bad as that is, matters are made worse, indeed insufferable, if making a choice within this limited space is again denied the electorate. It is in this regard that I think opposition political parties, for whatever they are worth, should be allowed to breathe.
I close with the famous slogan from one of my heroes, the Chinese revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong’s 1956-57 Hundred Flowers Campaign, which says: “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” And the Igbo proverb made popular by Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart (1958): “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one should say no to the other, let his wing break.”
That is democracy in action!