By Bisi Lawrence
The Governor of Bauchi State, Issa Yuguda, has offered his services as the manager for the electioneering campaign of Babatunde Fashola, should the Lagos State Governor decide to present himself for the high office of the president in future.

That is a rare compliment from one incumbent governor to another, though Fashola has not openly indicated that he nurses such an ambition. It is also just one of the sterling accolades that he continues to receive, ranging from foreign heads of state and captains of industry both at home and abroad.

He has shown great concern about the social progress of his domain in various ways to the admiration of the citizens, who showed their appreciation recently with an unprecedented landslide approval at the polls.

Of course, he has not delivered a perfect administration. No human administrator can boast of such a record. While presenting a picture postcard view of urban development in some areas, for instance, the landscape changes abruptly behind what then looks like only a facade of superficial finery in some areas of the metropolis. But then, even Paris has its slums and some are not so far from the Arc de Triomphe. And we must admit that the great strides with the BTS cover a lot of distance. Crime has come up against a stiff opposition within the state, while education is on the up-and-up. Lagos State is barred against the dread disease of polio ? which, in particular spurred the offer of free electioneering services all the way from Bauchi for, in all these, one can see the progressive and tireless direction of the Lagos State Governor.

He has not treated general security lightly either. Apart from the fight against crime, his support for the police and their operations in the maintenance of peace shows a consistent commitment which some states have openly emulated, but are yet to equal. In this area, however, he might have to adopt unusual strategies, given his open concern for the welfare of the citizenry. Hooliganism seems to be in the stream of daily intercourse in the city these days. The outbreaks in places like Mushin appear to be sporadic and not to be compared with eruptions in an area like Alli Iwo in the Oke-Oja sector of Upper Badia. We are talking of a place barely one kilometer from Ijora in the municipality of Lagos. Within the enclave is enclosed Gaskiya College Road from its Badia base, through Alli Iwo Street, a short outshoot of less than 100 meters in length, to Sari-Iganmu towards the Badagry Expressway. There has been no peace in this area lasting for three weeks at a stretch, for the past seven months.

Each locality has its gang, desires and ambitions. There are the gangs of motor touts, as different from the gangs representing a specific transport businesses, though a miscreant may be a member of two gangs in his area. There are even schoolboy gangs which emerge from the secondary schools in the area. When there is a clash of interests, the citizens dive for cover, sometimes not before there would have been an extensive toll of looting, and injury to life and limb. The unrests erupt in different shades but of one colour ? the breakdown of law and order, during which innocent passers-by are attacked and robbed of jewelry, and handsets, and other valuable.

With your permission I may emphasise that this is all happening in an area that is nearer to Tinubu Square than Ebute Metta, and no father from the airport than Yaba. In fact, it is classified as being in Metropolitan Lagos which, indeed, it is.

The police have engaged in several confrontations, several of them bloody and not without casualties, with one gang or the other in these clashes. As soon as an unrest begins, the police are alerted by several telephone calls. They, on their part, alert the gangsters with blaring sirens to disperse the gangs, presumably. At first it seemed to work, but familiarity soon bred contempt, and the hoodlums learnt to virtually ignore the police. After a while, they even openly confronted the peace officers, to the point of attempting a hand-to-hand combat. This led to the most recent fatality when one of the criminals attempted to disarm a policeman who was involved in restoring order during one of the skirmishes on the street. It was a show of utter disdain for established authority, such as one had seldom seen.

The only time I had ever witnessed such a disgusting spectacle was in a bank where one of the security officers, and ex-serviceman, attempted to take a policeman’s gun from him, howbeit, in jest. The policeman ended the joke right there. Very sternly, he warned the security man never to attempt an act like that in his life. He averred that it was an attack on his professionalism, and an insult on the entire police force. “If you try that again,” he said in a trembling voice. “I will kill you.” And that was what happened to that young hoodlum on the street. He was shot dead.

There had been other killings, including those of two rioting schoolboys some two years ago. With the unending disturbance, the police mounted a checkpoint within the enclave some time ago. Policemen around whom, however, the unrests freely rolled manned it. Street fights still broke out, sirens still blared, commercial life was still abruptly halted at all times of the day and night, citizens still ran for dear life. Some arrests were sometimes made, but the safety of life and limb remained in jeopardy. And then some people who had lived in the area for upwards to a decade began to remember how it used to be.

This was a relatively peaceful area. The inhabitants were very happy people who were sure of their safety within the enclave. They caroused through the night, pub-crawling among the nightspots like “Sharp Corner “, “Feed Fat”, “Ibi T’o Tutu” and others. There is hardly more than a single one still operating. The cinema houses have almost all been discontinued. But in those days, there was one organization that established a fearful control, howbeit for a benign effect, on the social existence of the community. It was the Oduduwa Peoples Congress.

The OPC laid down the law. No robbery; no disruption of law and order; no organized crime of any sort, in any area that was under their management. No one tried to confront them unnecessarily. They willingly took on any adversary. Their story is one of “from grace to grass” these days, since they had undergone persecution and betrayal from one and all, even at the hands of the people they were protecting. The Congress was established all over Yorubaland and wielded great influence, but the body was infiltrated by criminal elements, and that led to a sharp fall in its credibility and integrity. The Yoruba people , and communities like the Lagos citizenry, are the losers.

However, the good news is that we still have a vibrant remnant extant. In their lamp still burns the old flame of loyalty to the Yoruba cause. If they are recalled to life today, the Alli Iwo enclave, and all the other tumultuous neighbourhoods in the state, will simmer down to calm areas of peaceful existence tomorrow. Lagos State has an administration whose passion for the welfare of the people is large enough to absorb the unorthodox implications of such a prospect. And then we would watch hooliganism scamper after polio from Lagos State.

And then also, other State Governors in the same plight may join Yuguda on the electioneering bandwagon of Babatunde Fashola for President.

  *demolition!

Who finds sweet music in the statements of horror and revulsion deposed by Al-Mustapha, the erstwhile hatchet man of the late General Sani Abacha, whose administration has gone down in history as the vilest type of government this country has ever known? Against the backdrop of his murky career, it is very easy to put the lie to anything he says. He also knows he is fighting a desperate battle for his life and, like a drowning man, would naturally stretch out to grab any flotsam and jetsam in sight.

Our Yoruba leaders have been out in full force, also naturally, to condemn his statements involving the role of other Yoruba leaders in the forbidding saga of MKO Abiola’s death and the subsequent ploy to play it down. They say he is a contemptuous liar. Some even say he is insane, which may be true. After thirteen years in “durance vile,” it might be difficult for anyone to retain his senses in pristine condition. A comment by a well-known jurist of great repute, however, stands out in gripping connotations. DEMOLITION! That was all he would say. This Yoruba leader, now in the autumn of a remarkable political life, would not be embroiled in any unprofitable issue, articulate though he still is. DEMOLITION! That doesn’t come quietly, and it leaves a lot of dust behind.

That single word perhaps raises as much speculation as the reaction of the two chieftains of the Oduduwa Peoples Congress, Dr. Frederick Fasehun and Chief Gani Adams.

Both of them have publicly supported the position that several Yoruba leaders were implicated in the plot to shove the circumstances of Abiola’s demise under the carpet.

But as we all know, it is too bulky to be hidden away in that manner. It is clear that it will come up again, and again until the truth is unearthed. The position held by the OPC leaders looks good on them because no one, not one, of our putative Yoruba leaders has better credentials to speak on the leadership of the Yorubas than Fasehun and Adams ? NOT ONE! And you can say, “Demolition” to that.