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Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart - Politics - Nairaland

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Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart by aderaskeey(m): 8:18pm On Jul 01, 2008
By Professor Sola Adeyeye
2 Alfred Rewane Close
Ora-Igbomina, Osun State

I very rarely take a disagreement with a friend to the pages of newspapers. Unfortunately, some friends occasionally push me to the point where silence ceases to be golden but rather becomes an unwitting collaboration with evil. It is thus, with considerable discomfort and sorrow that I must, for the first time in life, publicly disagree with my dearly beloved friend and brother, Chief Ebenezer Babatope (Ebino Topsy) who has now made it a routine to break my heart. Ebino Topsy and I go way back. We were political bedfellows. We both nursed big dreams for our country. We both recognized the internal and external factors that attenuated and hindered Nigeria’s advancement. And yes, we both shared palpable disgust against the wantonly parasitic and crassly reactionary cabals who perennially exercised pernicious stranglehold on the aorta and jugular vein of our polity. These parasitic interlopers and predatory marauders have pauperized our people and denigrated our land into a harrowing fragment of hell.

Decades ago, one would have easily assumed that Ebino Topsy and I would always inhabit the same wavelength of the Nigerian political spectrum. Even so, it is easy for me to concede the rights of anyone to a shift in ideological position. In any case, many of the rights encapsulated in the leftist sing-songs and mantra of our younger days have long been embraced as fundamental human rights in capitalist nations. As such, I pick no bones with Ebino Topsy for pitching his camp with those who, in the past, would have been the targets of his prolific pen. What worries me is that, far too often, my own Ebino Topsy has assumed the role of a laundry master, strenuously struggling to whitewash and then decorate certified vermin with a veneer of credibility. A man whose undeniable energy and intellect could have been summoned to lead a vanguard of resistance and liberation has become an unrelenting mouthpiece for those who have long demonstrated their immutable commitment to exploitative rule.

I am particularly saddened by Ebino Topsy’s current role because I cannot see how even he can believe himself. Take his attribution of Oyinlola’s putative victory over Aregbesola to the advantages inherently conferred on an Oyo-speaking politician over an Ijesa-speaking opponent. By that revisionist logic, we can now understand the “victory” of the NNDP in the election held on October 11, 1965 not in terms of rigging and sundry subversion of the genuine wishes of the electorate. Rather, it was the victory of a party led by an Oyo-speaking man (Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola) over the UPGA led by an Egba-speaking man (Alhaji Dauda Soroye Adegbenro)! Thanks to Ebino Topsy, we now understand why Bola Ige, an Ijesa-Speaking man, “lost” to an Oyo-speaking man (Dr Omololu Olunloyo) in 1983. Likewise, because the Ekitis far outnumber the Owos, we can now put FEDECO’s declaration of Akin Omoboriowo as the winner of Ondo State’s 1983 gubernatorial contest in the proper context of Ebino’s ethnocentric political kinetics. In the light of Ebino’s epiphany, perhaps we should discountenance subsequent spontaneous expression of outrage by the people and the eventual tribunal’s reversal of FEDECO’s brazen robbery as irrelevant footnotes of history!

Indeed, because of Ebino Topsy, we can now say that the protestations from the leaders, members and staff of the UPN were mere diversionary distractions. Never mind that among the loudest protestations were those of the UPN’s vibrant Director of Organization, a man named Ebenezer Babatope. Time really changes! Of course, we can also now put the Presidential election of June 12, 1993 in the proper context of Babatope’s ethno-linguistics. Humphrey Nwosu must have been drunk when he recently told the world that (Yoruba-speaking) Moshood Abiola prevailed over (Hausa-speaking) Tofa although more Nigerians speak Hausa than Yoruba. But perhaps, we should leave the ridiculous for the sublime.

It is true that, even in the most advanced countries, there are always ethnocentric undertones in electoral contests. Even so, it is no less true that whenever the elections are free and fair, Yoruba people have always given their mandate to those of liberal progressive bent. Yoruba people have never allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by those who seek to use sub-national ethnic sentiments to divide and conquer. Thus, Chief Bola Ige resoundingly trounced Chief Richard Osuolale Akinjide in every Ibadan constituency in 1979. It is instructive that Akinjide’s Oyo-speaking people more than quadrupled Ige’s Ijesa-speaking people in that election! Twenty years later, Bisi Akande became the Governor of Osun State not because of the numerical strength of his Igbomina kith and kin who constitute only two of the thirty local governments of Osun State. By contrast, a common factor of the 1964/65, 1983, 2003 and 2007 elections was that politicians who had lost in previous free and fair elections subsequently imported repressive apparatus of the Federal Government to undermine the electoral sovereignty of our people.

The truth, of course, is that Brigadier Oyinlola has the misfortune of supplanting Chief Bisi Akande, a man who was described by then President Obasanjo as Nigeria’s best governor. Even the worst detractors of Chief Bisi Akande can never deny that he brought uncommon fiscal discipline and superlative visionary zeal to governance. By contrast, Oyinlola’s ascension to the corridor of power in Osun State was accompanied by an eclipse of monumental magnitude. He ushered an umbra of darkness foreshadowed by his earlier records of brutalizing and dehumanizing the helpless in Somalia. Furthermore, under Bisi Akande, the State government did not meddle with Local Government funds. The Federal Ministry of Finance 1999-2003 report and the EFCC submission to the Senate singled out Bisi Akande for commendation in this regard (see Back page of Thisday, December 7, 2007). By contrast, under Oyinlola, Osun Local Governments now have their funds siphoned by the State Government. While Akande was Governor, members of the PDP had easy access to air their views on the state-owned radio and television stations of Osun State. Indeed, Akande recognized that these media houses belonged to the entire people of Osun rather than the ruling party. His eclecticism was showcased by the appointment of a PDP chieftain, Chief Yemi Farounbi, as the Chairman of the Management Board responsible for these stations. Doing what was demonstrably good for the people, Akande did not need to fear the searchlight of a free press. By contrast, from the very beginning of Oyinlola’s rule in Osun, Osun State Broadcasting Corporation has been subsumed to the capricious desires of the PDP. Voices of dissent are muzzled and the apparatuses of state are turned into wicked engines of intimidation and victimization.

Conceited by its agility atop a tree, a monkey often orchestrates its own downfall. For most of Osun people, regardless of which Yoruba dialect they speak, Oyinlola quickly became recognized as an ill wind that could blow no good. As Hubert Ogunde sang in the days of yore, our votes became our weapons of liberation. When the election came, Oyinlola could not win a single polling booth in Osogbo, the capital of a state he had ruled for four years! It is quite revealing and supremely instructive that Osogbo is not an Ijesa-speaking community.

One can go on ad infinitum to debunk other assertions touted by Ebino Topsy in his spirited effort to lend a cloak of acceptability to a man whose rule has blighted our people. No one knows better than Chief Babatope that Obafemi Awolowo, our sagely avatar, spent considerable energy decrying and opposing feudalistic politicking in Nigeria. Today, politics in Yoruba land has been reduced to an anything-goes, survivalist and feudalistic careerism. I gave my all in the struggle to terminate military hegemony in Nigeria. Eight years later, I was not even allowed to vote for myself because the ruling party had been instructed to make the 2007 election a do-or-die affair. I was chased for about 25 kilometers by a bus load of PDP hooligans despite being guarded by armed police escorts that had been assigned for my protection by former Inspector General of Police Sunday Ehindero. Does such a climate of wanton repression not constitute a crisis? Yet, Chief Babatope says it is the AC members who exaggerate the crisis in Osun! May the Lord have mercy.
Re: Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart by noetic(m): 8:36pm On Jul 01, 2008
[Quote]
May the Lord have mercy.
[/quote]
Amen
Re: Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart by lucabrasi(m): 8:57pm On Jul 01, 2008
so sad,
not so much the political climate but ebenezer babatope being reduced to a mouth piece for oyinlola GOD wil deliver my beautiful state from the likes of oyinlola
Re: Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart by oruwe: 10:34pm On Jul 01, 2008
Ebenezer Babatope lost focus long time ago. Oyo state had only one idiot i.e Adedibu but Osun state is full of idiots e.g Ebenezer Babatope, Shuaibu Oyedokun, Omisore Iyiola, Fatai Akinbade, Isiaka Adeleke, Yemi Farounbi, Peter Babalola, Simeon Oduoye, Major Omotara, Alhaji Badmus, Olu Alabi, Erelu, Alhaji Taju and so on and so on.I wish Obafemi Awolowo wake up from his grave and see the political friends and fathers of his political son in Osun state.

I pity him.
Re: Chief Ebenezer Babatope Is Breaking My Heart by aderaskeey(m): 11:06pm On Jul 01, 2008
it is a shame that Ebino, my mentor of 1982 has become errand boy for ignoble fellows in the seat of government 26 years later!

who would have imagined that one of Papa Awo's most trusted personal aides could descend so fast into the morass of being Oyinlola's errand boy.

Awo will turn in his grave for this!

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