By Lanre Adewole
Years back, Nigerian Tribune had an iconic agbowo’pa (debt collector) in her employ. Everyone called her Mama Ojewuyi. She retired long before our kind considered the easy-does-it club.
Whenever Tribune managements of her time felt the debt profile, mainly from advertising, was questionably astronomical, she would be deployed for forcible retrieval through staff members who covenanted for the debtor advertisers. I was then in the Abuja Bureau of the newspaper.
Though she wasn’t the only one in the department, she was the head and had a unique way of reminding those suspected of deception, that their stories about the debts still unpaid, were cock-and-bull(s..t) tales.
Like a musical note, she would deliver her line in Yoruba language; “die to ninu nkan oni nkan,….(redacted) percent la ni e mu, ke feyi toku sile fun oni nkan (the Awolowo family), die to ninu nkan oni nkan”.
Then Tribune was giving an unbelievable percentage as commission on advert (and still does) and Mama Oje would be reminding that greed should not be in the mix after a generous due had been given to the involved staff members. She wanted justice in sharing, so the owners of the company, the Awolowos, too, can reap where they sowed.
Of course, she wasn’t really loved by crooks in the system then, but the Yoruba had already warned that straight shooters don’t usually have cheering crowd in their corners.
I could do Mama Oje’s sing-song for five-term, sixth-term-seeking member of the House of Representatives, representing Obokun/Oriade Federal Constituency (also known as Ijesa North Federal Constituency) Hon. Busayo Oluwole Oke and it would be apt, only that I don’t know if the chubby-cheeked, controversy-loving 59 year old, will dance to it or if he dances at all.
Oke, from Esa Oke, ancestral home to Nigeria’s own Marcus Cicero, the inimitable Ige, despite his underwhelming national and even state profile, is unarguably one of Nigeria’s longest-serving members of the national lawmaking body, and it beggars belief that his face is not easily recognizable in sizeable political gatherings beyond his Osun base.
He could be that dingy in carriage and dismal in persona despite his efforts at carving a gobi (Yoruba traditional cap) niche with his initials (BOO) strewn to them, which he has now dumped for President Tinubu’s “unbroken chain” style. Days back, Dr. Umar Ardo, a Northern megaphone dissected the president’s cap design as “the Infinity”, symbol, urging Nigerians to wake up and smell the coffee.
He wanted Nigerians to embrace his concern and conviction that the Asiwaju cap design, which is now the choice cap style for APC stalwarts starting with the national chairman, is communicating a “rule forever” agenda.
In this nomination season, the “Infinity” will definitely reign everywhere because it is one straight power line for the ruling party. The President is the party! Shikena.
Since Oke strategically, days back, sealed an eye-popping, head-scratching appointment as the Director General of the gubernatorial campaign of APC in Osun, both the party which is in opposition in the state, and his federal constituency have been quaking. The lawmaker had won all his previous elections on the platform of the now-disappearing PDP but decamped early to APC the moment Adeleke’s handwriting appeared on the wall with Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.
The widespread discontent that followed his emergence as the most-trusted to steer his “new” party to victory in the August poll, is being viewed as his rejection by party faithful he met on ground, a problem compounded by many of his followers in PDP refusing to decamp with him.
The disgruntled APC tokan-tokan (committed members) are taking cudgels to their leaders, particularly Gboyega Oyetola, for putting a decampee in charge of their campaign, which is being mostly interpreted as a vote of no confidence in them. But Oyetola and his caucus appear not to “send” the grumbling and the disgruntled.
To further rub it in, two former opponents of Oke whom he defeated whilst still in PDP, are now made his deputies in the APC campaign structure. No better way of saying, this guy pass una.
But the fire in Oke’s backyard may not be easily quenched. He represents two local governments, his Obokun local government and Oriade with headquarters in Ijebu-Jesa. Just like in many other cluster constituencies, the rotation question and agitation has always been there and it would seem there was a balance until Oke showed up on the scene, upturning every scale of balance and marching through a third, fourth and fifth term, like a matador!
Now he is seeking a sixth, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the agonies of the Oriade people. He is playing the superiority game the Yoruba will couch as “eni ba juni lo le juni nu” (the top dog can do and undo).
Incidentally, Oke’s Obokun LG is the junior partner in the arrangement with 10 wards to Oriade’s 12 and with far fewer votes, meaning that Oriade LG determines who represents the federal constituency. The question then is, how has Oke managed to play Jacob with the Isaacs in Oriade?
How has he managed to get the winning votes from Oriade, which has been kicking since 2011 when Oke should have relinquished the seat to the “marginalised” LG? Can we really blame him for knowing his onions and practically getting away with murder, obviously aided by Oriade insiders?
