By Dele Sobowale

“You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.”—Louis Howe, 1871-1936, VBQ P 192.

On Election Day, November 26, 2016, in Ondo State of Nigeria, with an official population of less than six million people, the Police deployed twenty-two armored vehicles, the Army an undisclosed number, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps added 15,000 men the Police 26,000 conventional police officers.

The US, with a population approaching 300 million, on Election Day deployed no single soldier and no police officers were placed on special alert anywhere in the entire country.

If what took place in Ondo is what we consider a peaceful, free and fair election, irrespective of who is ultimately declared winner, will somebody please tell us innocent Nigerians when the politicians declare war? From Aso Rock to Idanre Hills in Ondo State politicians did all they could to ensure that peace would not reign in Ondo State for years to come.

Indeed, the state “could no more avoid its fate than a plump mouse dropping between the claws of a hungry cat – several dozen hungry cats, to be exact.” (John Fowles, in THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN ). She is plump mouse quite all right as an oil producing state with loads of bitumen and fish. Hungry and corrupt politicians can no more keep their hands off her than area boys from loads of cocaine.

Money is the opium of the Nigerian political classes and for it they are prepared to do anything – however destructive and unpatriotic. We have just seen it demonstrated in Ondo State. That is sad enough. But, Ondo State is only the dress rehearsal for many more such battles, arson, pyromania and willful destruction of properties and our democratic system – which has failed to mature after seventeen years of return to civil rule.

We are in danger of returning to “square one” – to that day we set out on yet another journey to create a free and democratic society. Nigeria, the largest collection of black people on earth has just proved Trump right. We are not ready for democracy and can only destroy what others have labored to build – just as we are demolishing our own.

Non-partisan Nigerians watched with apprehension, which turned to horror, the twists of the political and social daggers that were inevitably going to tear the peace of Ondo State to shreds for decades to come.

Some of the authors of the atrocities we now read about live in the relative security of Abuja and Lagos; their kids are probably far away out of Nigeria – in countries where patriotic politicians don’t turn politics to warfare. They are ruining lives for their own benefit and on account of their inordinate quest for more power to plunder from Lagos to Borno and from Cross River to Sokoto.

Yet, chances are, when the fires they have started gets too hot, they will dust their passports and run away – leaving the media and small political actors to bear the brunt of the reprisals which follow. Chief Akinloye and Umaru Dikko escaped to the United Kingdom when Abacha announced the coup which brought in Buhari in 1984.

The most vocal agitators for the “actualization of June 12” either betrayed the cause by joining Abacha (Kingibe, Babatope and Ojo Madueke) or they fled into exile. Sufferheads like Alhaji Kola Animasaun, late Pini Jason, Nnanna Ocheoroma and myself – among media people – were left holding the bag and going to detention many times while the main actors were receiving protection in foreign lands as political refugees. They are back at it again in Ondo – where the ambitions of two men, one in Lagos and the other in Ondo State, to impose the next governor had created the background for all the mayhem we are now experiencing.

What might be described as opportunism of two-facedness is at play here. Being still in one political party and working to undermine it has suddenly become accepted by millions of Nigerians who behave as if history will end with this election. Like their forefathers who sold their fellow human beings to slavery, they are selling the nation for small change. As it is now, the soldiers, the police and the helicopters might as well remain permanently in place because reprisals will start once they are withdrawn and they will be bloody.

More disturbing is the fact that, after Ondo, unless the politicians find a way to peace among themselves, every election will follow this pattern. The nation will move from Ondo to Rivers – where tempers are already white hot. When former President Obasanjo pronounced elections as a “do-or-die affair”, he unfortunately spoke the Devil’s mind. And only a mind disposed to evil could have authored that dictum – for which he still shows no remorse despite the harvests of violence, death and destruction it had brought to Nigeria.

“Quisque suos patimur manes”, Latin. Translation: “We make our destinies by our choice of gods.” Virgil, 70-19 BC.

But, it is unfair to blame only the politicians for the problems facing us in Ondo – which is also tarnishing our image worldwide. The political leaders cannot get away with their atrocities if there are no followers to help them. The problem with most Nigerians and Africans is that they can never understand the difference between servant and slave.

The heads that get bashed are seldom the leaders’ own; the young lives that are lost are not those of their kids. Irrespective of political affiliation, they all have one trait in common – they don’t give a damn whose life is lost as long as it is not their own. But, they obtain their power because many of their followers treat them like gods.

Political mercenaries were once again in hot demand and short supply. Two weeks from the Ondo State election, a 77-year old man left Lagos for Akure. He had made his reputation as rabble-rouser at election time since the days of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. His “services” were once again needed and his pocket was stuffed with cash provided by a disciple of Obasanjo who believed in “do-or-die” politics.

A day after, a young man in his fifties, was racing, hell-for-leather, in the same direction. His brief was to capture Ilaje. Neither the old man nor the young man, to whom I spoke, talked about the wishes of the people. They were recruited to help impose a candidate. They don’t even live in Ondo State and the old man is from Ogun State.

But, their “god” had called them and sent them on an errand and theirs’ was not to question whether they were engaging in a fraudulent endeavor and an unpatriotic one at that.

“Money makes everything legitimate – including bastards” according to a Jewish proverb. But, the Jews don’t know half of what some politicians and real bastards can get fellow Nigerians to do for money. If one of them pronounces that the sun is shinning at twelve midnight in Nigeria, several individuals – including columnists and Publicity Secretaries of his party would defend that statement with their last drop of blood.

They are just as ready to do so if he changes his mind and declares that it is dark after all. One of the vast fortunes of unknown origin is fuelling the fires of Ondo State – where people, who until November 26, 2016, lived as good neighbours, are now at daggers drawn.

P.S. This article was written before the election; and the peace we are witnessing can be attributed to President Buhari’s stand (whether his stand is right or wrong is another matter all together) on the APC primaries. By standing firmly behind the Chairman of APC, Chief Oyegun, Buhari whipped most APC members back in line.