Although the Ekiti governorship election of June
21 was celebrated nationally and internationally,
the All Progressives Congress (APC) acted true to
type in its refusal to accept defeat. While the US
government hailed the election as a landmark,
Mr Babatunde Fashola of Lagos called the
intelligence of the Ekiti people to question,
saying the PDP induced the people with money.
Beyond media propaganda, Fashola is just
another unskilled actor in the political arena,
bereft of the enduring philosophy for which true
progressives (the Bola Iges, the Jakandes) are
known. It was however the leader of the
imaginary State of Osun, Mr Rauf Aregbesola,
that acted the lead role in the APC's comedy of
errors. Speaking in Ikirun, penultimate Tuesday,
the new political analyst claimed that the poll, in
which the APC candidate and governor of the
state, Kayode Fayemi, lost scandalously even in
his own local government area, was rigged.
Aregbesola's lullaby: "We have not seen the
mystery of what they did in Ekiti. They rigged the
poll there. But we are looking at them. What they
did in Ekiti is not possible in Osun and we are
going to resist it at all costs."
There goes the binary dichotomy (we versus
they; saint versus sinner, light versus darkness)
for which the APC has acquired an indelible
notoriety in Nigerian politics. The governor then
inadvertently predicted his own fall: "They are
day dreaming. Osun is like a wood or tree
swarmed by ants, you cannot hold it." Any tree
which dares the ants and other miniature
creatures will decay slowly but steadily. But
perhaps Aregbesola, who wrote WAEC as his
academic qualification, as published in the papers
even though he claims to be an engineer, is not
conversant with biology.
But Aregbesola's tantrums need not detain us
here. Our main point his call for rebellion in
Osun, a move informed by a lack of historical
education. He said: "Any security agent, be it
policeman or soldier, that flouts the laws, we
would show them that we are true sons of the
Yoruba ethnic group. I said it in Iwo and I'm
repeating it here. Ekiti has gone. The state has
chosen its path. Let us forget about it. It is
democracy. Any security agent, who does not
flout the law, would be our friend. Any other one
that goes contrary to the law, we would deal with
him." He told his "State Boys" not to be rattled by
any threat from the security agencies, stressing:
"They are afraid of you. They threatened to lock
down Osun. Be ready, nothing will happen.
Remain unshaken."
In Aregbesola's reductionist world, there are no
true sons of Odua among the security agencies.
Indeed, he may not know about the Maji Maji
uprising, a violent resistance to colonial rule in
the German colony of East Africa, following a
German policy designed to force African peoples
to grow cotton for export, lasting from 1905 to
1907. The policy bred social discontent and the
people were justly angry. A rogue named
Kinjikitile Ngwale, who claimed to be possessed
by a snake spirit, however saw a golden
opportunity in the people's calamity. He gave his
followers war medicine which he claimed would
turn German bullets into water. Kinjeketile's
"war medicine" was in fact water (maji in Swahili)
mixed with castor oil and millet seeds. And so,
armed with spears and other lowly weapons, and
believing in their war medicine, Kinjeketile's
followers challenged German troops, who were
armed with machine guns. As the machine guns
mowed them down, the freedom fighters
realized their error, but it was too late. Those
who were lucky retreated, throwing away their
bottles of war medicine and crying, "The maji is a
lie!". Said a historian: "The Maji-Maji rebellion
left 15 Europeans and 389 native soldiers and
tens or even hundreds of thousands of
insurgents and innocent bystanders dead. It also
broke the spirit of the people to resist and the
colony remained calm, thanks also to a change of
governors which brought a more enlightened
regime, until the outbreak of World War I. Lions
in the area developed a taste for human flesh in
the wake of the slaughter and the Songea region
is still plagued by man-eaters."
Indeed, if the Ngoni/Maji Maji soldiers who had a
just cause to fight, nevertheless lost the battle
owing to false weapons, with which weapons is
Aregbesola, who has no just battle to fight,
planning to deal with the security agencies? How
on earth can a man who turned graduates to
labourers cutting grass with machetes under the
hot sun on a salary of N10,000 per month in the
21st century be seeking second term? What kind
of egregious insult is this? To compound matters,
he seeks to re-install himself in Government
House with a ragtag army of State Boys!
Although the security agencies that Aregbesola is
preparing his State Boys to confront are not an
army of occupation, only morons would dare
them on election day as they strive to keep the
peace and give the nation another landmark
election that would drive the nation's democracy
to greater heights. If Aregbesola is prepared to
confront erring security agencies (erring, because
they would not allow election rigging), he should
rouse members of his own family, not other
people's children, to the battle. Had Aregbesola
run a purposeful government, he would not now
be chasing shadows, heating up the polity and
stoking the fires of a foolish war, just because he
has correctly foreseen his impending defeat in
August. The Osun people, battered by his misrule,
are prepared to rout him from Government
House. They will speak with their votes, defy
Aregbesola's State Boys, and then the drums of
true leadership devoid of vile propaganda will
begin to sound in Osun. Truly, the Osun people
are people of honour (iyi), and they will prove it
in a few day's time. As for the State Boys whom
the governor has asked to deal with the security
agencies, they should keep a date with the
Yoruba Apala exponent, Haruna Isola: "Aro to
loju, to nimu, to n dite m'ara adugbo wipe k'ogun
o de, aanu won se mi."
Isola pitied the cripples crying for war. And so do
enlightened Nigerians.
*Aribisala is based in Ilesha, Osun State.
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