By Josef Omorotionmwan
HISTORY repeats itself once in a while. It has taken almost four centuries for American history to replicate itself in Nigeria, more specifically, in the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. We are reminded of the Biblical case of the rejected stone that later became the cornerstone.

We now know that it takes some stubbornness to propel a revolution. Once upon a time, some apparently stubborn elements existed in England. These could easily pass for today’s opposition. The British authorities needed to get them out of the way so that things could move smoothly. The 102 Pilgrims, as they were called, were bundled into the ship, Mayflower, which set sail on August 15, 1620 from Southampton, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they established the first New England settlement in what is today called the United States of America.

These men were not actually sent to the US to prosper. Indeed, if they had perished on the way or got consumed by wild animals in the New Found land, it could have been good riddance to some nuisance.

By comparison, in the particular case of Edo State, the nucleus of the ACN was basically from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which at a time had a perfect monopoly of the political space in the State. The PDP grew so large that the bubble soon began to burst. Like what happened in the British case, some elements within the party were soon regarded as too radical for comfort. The authorities reckoned that if things must move smoothly, these radicals must be sent out.

Whom the gods would kill, they first make mad. The PDP then drove a sharp knife across its throat when it called for re-registration of its members. They dispatched about 500 cards to each Ward and in most of the wards, there were already more than 2000 members on ground. The 500 cards went to the loyalists of a particular faction. In the process, we were deregistered.

At first, we attempted to force ourselves to remain in the party, even when we were clearly not wanted. We introduced spiral inflation into the system. Overnight, the Benin printers rolled out millions of the PDP membership cards that could not be differentiated from the ones that were sent from Abuja. The cards became surplus to the extent that some of us had more than 100 of them. We registered everybody, including some big goats around. There was inflation all over the place. I doff my hat and my shirt for these Benin printers.

This was an experience drawn from German history. The Germans came out of World War II totally broke.  They went into the press and reeled out billions of Deutschmark. Money became surplus to the extent that, at a point, the bank notes were no longer worth the paper on which they were printed. That was a runaway inflation.

In our case, it soon became clear that we were wasting time. For important appointments and on important occasions, they still had a way of filtering out their members for reward. There was really no alternative to the formation of a political party, which we could call our own.

Essentially, what has today metamorphosed into the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, arrived as a child of circumstance. In Edo State, little did we know that God had carefully prepared an agent of change, waiting to drive the system. All the struggles came at a time when Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole had just completed his tenure as the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and he sailed smoothly into the brand new party.

Let me say, perhaps at the risk of criticism, that but for the entry of the man,  Oshiomhole, into the party at the time he did, the equation would have been totally different. It has been argued that in 2007, people were already fed up with the PDP and anybody in the ACN could have won the governorship election in Edo State. Let me concede that to the power of the unknown, but let me quickly also add that the entry of Oshiomhole made things easier.

We also know from past experience that the PDP would always rig its way through an election. They had always done so with impunity. But when they tried it in 2007, Oshiomhole became a bone across their throat. Who else would have fought so tenaciously the battle that raged for almost two years, culminating, for the first time in the electoral history of this nation, in the restoration of a stolen mandate? Who else would have fought without compromising mid-way? The result of the Oshiomhole revolution has since spilled over to Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and the entire South Western states and the journey has just begun. The Oshiomhole philosophy of “One Man, One Vote” is also spreading across the country like a wild fire in the harmattan.

Resources do not develop a nation, but good human beings do. Oshiomhole arrived Edo at a time when the State had suffered cardiac arrest. He woke the State up and turned it to El Dorado that has since become the model for other states. Who else could have done this? Our fear as to his possible successor after 2016 may not be justified because this agent of change is also developing human capital all along.

I am casting my vote for the innocent children. The other day, I overheard them playing and they said the ACN has already won the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State. According to them, there are only three candidates in the election: Adams, Aliyu and Oshiomhole. And going by the lessons of history, sooner than later, the ACN will rule this country!