By SOLA EBISENI

CERTAIN revelations therefrom cannot be ignored. In several respects, it followed the patterns, but an improvement on the Ekiti election that preceded it. At the last battle in 2018, Senator Ademola Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke of the PDP won on the first ballot with 353 votes polling 254,698 with Gboyega Isiaka Oyetola of the ruling APC having 254,345. The Independent National Electoral Commission, however, declared the poll inconclusive and ordered a rerun in seven polling units with a total of 2,637 votes.  

The INEC ultimately declared Oyetola the winner with a total number of 255,505 and Adeleke 255,023 votes. The impression that Adeleke was robbed was not limited to the people of Osun who swore that the River goddess of Justice, Fertility and Multiplicity after which the State is named will some day avenge for the Dancing Senator.

The main point here, however, is that only a total of 510,528 voters determined the fate of the people of the State compared with last Saturday’s where Adeleke garnered 403,371 votes to defeat the incumbent governor, Gboyega Oyetola who scored 375,027 votes in a larger turnout of 778, 398, excluding the votes scored by other political parties.

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At end of the Muslim Sallah (Ileya) Festival that preceded the election, my people who celebrated it at Osogbo, especially the very political Saheed, brought news that Adeleke would win the election. They reported that the people of Osun were poised to make a statement that indeed Adeleke was truly their choice in the 2018 election. Last Saturday, they made it so eloquently loud for the avoidance of any prevarication by anyone, including INEC.

The most remarkable and welcome development in the Osun election which might be the turning point in the Nigerian political development going forward is the spartan determination of the youths to seize the momentum of power for the determination of the destiny of their generation. Without meaning any offence and in line with our culture, the South-West provides the fertile grounds for the blossoming of that tree of liberty. S’oro soke on my mind.  

It is not surprising that the arrows have not only been finally pulled out of the quiver from the State of the Living Spring, in which our source, humanity and universal civilisation are located, the arrows have been decisively shot from its pinnacle (Osun le Tente) to every part of the Nigerian territory. In this new consciousness of this generation, to discover its mission out of its lethargy or ignorance of its duty to itself, such primordial sentiment, like religion as a deadening opium of clear reasoning, has no place.  

Without being insensitive to the feelings of others, religion has never mattered in Yorubaland and never shall it in a glorious culture where faith is personal between a couple and among siblings.

 In Yorubaland, we say only Olodumare, the most Supreme Being, is able to determine who truly serves Him and no fanatic can arrogate the power to defend or fight for God, Jerubbaal! The two dominant parties of APC and PDP have their fair share of internal combustible strife which erupting molten magma was manifest by the absence of the expected faces at their mega and final rallies. The noticeable cracks snowballed into such deep craters that the candidates of the two parties were virtually left to their individual popularity and acceptability with the people.  

Had the PDP, for instance, made the mistake of not fielding Adeleke, the result of the election would have been different from the victory of last Saturday; but it certainly suffered the same fate as befell it in Ekiti for jettisoning Segun Oni. Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State is not the only one whose socio-political environment is deluged by the Obi-dient phenomenon; the noise is deafening at least in the Southern half of the country and it has since taken over the social media to explain the showing of the Labour Party in the Osun election.  

They are quick to let the world know that the support of the youths in every election would be for the personality and not any political party as they could see no real difference in the Nigerian political parties with regards to ideologies and programmes. Methink structure is indispensable and that was eloquent in the capacity of the gladiators. Geopolitical considerations also played its role in the election.

The 30 local governments of the state are evenly shared among the three senatorial districts. Since the return of democracy in 1999, the state has been ruled by Chief Bisi Akande (1999-2003), Olagunsoye Oyinlola (2003-2010), Rauf Aregbesola (2010-2018) and the incumbent Adegboyega Oyetola since November 26, 2018. While Akande, Oyinlola and Oyetola are from the Central zone, Aregbesola is of the East Senatorial District.  

The crisis in the Osun APC gained gear in 2018 when Governor Aregbesola acceded to the cries of the Osun West to succeed him. He thus rooted for Alhaji Moshood Adeoti, the Secretary to the State Government, as his successor while Adegboyega Oyetola, his Chief of Staff,  got the nod of the ultimate Godfather. Aregbesola was said to have succumbed on the understanding that Oyetola would only do a term. It was not clear if there was consensus among the gladiators on this understanding as Oyetola, with the ring firmly on his finger, insisted on having his full terms of eight years. The rest is now history.  

The point is that the dancing Senator of the Adeleke dynasty, whose elder brother, Isiaka Adeleke (Serubawon), the first civilian Governor of Osun, who invented the family’s trade mark cap, is the new Governor of Osun State. He is from Ede in the Osun West Senatorial District; it is neither coincidental nor accidental. Won ti gbe kini yi fun won, awon l’okan. Ki eku ile gbo ko so fun t’oko.

Nigeria, we hail thee.

Ebiseni is Secretary General, Afenifere.