By SALAM MUSTAPHA OLAMILEKAN.
I have come across a tantrum spewed by a questionable member of the embattled Peoples Democratic Party(PDP)/ACCORD Party in the Oriade Local Government Council Area of Osun State, one Pelumi Olajengbesi Esq, who resides in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), where he is a practising legal practitioner. It is disheartening that the political toddler has desperately been on the look out to unduly impress the Adeleke Political Dynasty, Ede, in his fierce desperation to clinch the House of Representatives ticket under the degraded PDP/ACCORD Party in the next dispensation.
Much as I won’t fault Olajengbesi in his fruitless efforts to market his verifiably difficult governorship candidate, Governor Ademola Adeleke, I will take an exception to the willful dragging of the APC topnotch governorship candidate, Asiwaju Bola Munirudeen Oyebamiji, popularly known as ‘AMBO’ whose name has become a household name across the nooks and crannies of Osun State, all in a way to play a fast one on the Adelekes that he is their dependable adherent. The truth must be told that the cantankerous and belligerent Olajengbesi can still make his point or pass his message like a virtuous Yoruba entity without necessarily getting at the credible and stellar candidate of our party, AMBO, through needless outbursts.
All efforts by the sycophantic political neophyte of questionable nativity of Ijesaland as exemplified by the strangeness of his surname proved abortive as it only exposed him as an entity having nothing to do with virtuousness which the freeborn Yoruba sons and daughters are known for. If truly Olajengbesi is a politician with a hindsight, he would not need a soothsayer to disclose to him that his favourite governorship candidate is merely living on a borrowed time in the office by virtue of the protection of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the good people of Osun State have discovered that his best in the past three years is not desirable to optimally develop the state.
Has Olajengbesi forgotten that Governor Ademola Adeleke, his political idol, has broken a record from the rear of becoming the first incumbent governor in Nigeria to be rejected by other political parties from joining their parties for lack of any value? No political party would have anything doing with a governor whose stock in trade is possession of baggages capable of polluting the existing image of such a party. Olajengbesi should not pretend not to know that his political idol was rejected as many times that he showed the desperation to join the APC.
It is a pity that a legal practitioner in politics could descend so low to be part of a concerted effort suspected to be dubiously hatched in the Ede country home of the Adelekes to unjustifiably hit at the APC forward-looking governorship candidate, AMBO, who is currently making waves in the political theatre of Osun State, and the immediate-past governor of the state, His Excellency, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, the maiden Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, who squeezed water from stones to turn around the fortune of the state during his short four-year stint as the state governor.
Were Governor Adeleke to be the governor of Osun State between 2018 and 2022 when the federal allocations of the state were at its lowest ebb, there was every propensity that he would have been stoned by the governed as his actions and inactions in the office have exposed him as a mere spender on frivolities and not money maker. Thanks to the ingenuity of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who increased the federal allocations to the states in multiple folds beyond the imagination of some governors. It has been naira rain all the way.
That someone who is professionally exposed can decide to join forces with an entity who is not among the first eleven in the authentic and genuine political arrangement of the state over his desperation to be fielded as the House of Representatives candidate for Ijesa-North Federal Constituency that is as good as dead on arrival speaks volumes of what his type is capable of bringing to the table if he should have his way. Olajengbesi should perish the thought of contesting to emerge even as a counsellor in his domain as when iron rusts, what should be the plight of the wood?
I am enjoying the needless diatribes of Olajengbesi and his cohorts against our governorship candidate and the minister of Marine and Blue Economy as it is making a statement that they are the nightmares of the verifiably rudderless and embattled Adeleke administration which is fond of digging the gutter when the entire state is on fire. How is it the fault of Oyebamiji and Oyetola that the Olajengbesi favourite governorship candidate is manifestly deficient of the needed attributes required to provide qualitative governance in the state for over three years’ running?
I quite understand where Olajengbesi is coming from as there’s no way a child can be beaten and denied the opportunity of crying as Olajengbesi has formed the habit of ceaseless ranting through the social media. It is apparent that it is the collapsed aspiration of contesting the House of Representatives seat that has been responsible for turning the dejected neophyte politician into an object that constantly badmouths AMBO and Oyetola. The earlier it occurs to you that your current political plight and that of your rattled principal is beyond redemption, the better it would be for you.
That you have missed the opportunity of either smelling or becoming any elected political functionary in your constituency in the next dispensation is a foregone conclusion as you have missed your footsteps in this regard. Perhaps, it is only if you are divinely favoured that it can occur to you to go back to the drawing board against the post-next dispensation and devise the productive route to go. Is it when your principal is not yet sure of under which party he is seeking his re-election that a mere you would be categorical on your fate in this regard?
It is quite unfortunate that the politically confused and wanderer could be refering to the APC governorship candidate who is well read, imbued with cognate experience as a two-time commissioner for finance, former managing director of OSICOL, immediate-past Managing Director/CEO of National Inland Waterways Authority NIWA, after he had successfully made his mark as an accomplished banker who had rendered meritorious service to his employers in this regard in about five banks, as a lackey to the highly revered Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Alhaji Oyetola. There’s nothing to qualify Oyebamiji as a lackey in the jaundiced estimation of Olajengbesi if not an idle talk.
Assuming without conceding that Oyebamiji is a lackey, it is the belief of the discerning minds that a lackey is far better than a satellite human being who is pathologically challenged which has been the reason the state is being run aground for the past three years. It is saddening that Olajengbesi could, out of envy, compare the robust curriculum vitae of the APC governorship candidate with his own who was a commercial dancer, perfume seller and dispatch rider in Atlanta, United States of America with no clear record of any academic attainment.
It is my realisation and observation that it is a tree that bears bountiful fruits that human beings constantly throw cudgels at which is the current plight of Oyetola and Oyebamiji in the hands of undesirable characters like Olajengbesi and his cohorts who are fulfilling the collective mission of ‘bring them down syndrome’ to score a cheap political point which has become a mirage.
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*SALAM, a Comrade, is the chairman of Integrity Group of Nigeria, Osun State chapter*
