By Wole Olujobi
I read oga Ben Oguntuase’s rejoinder to my essay entitled “Of Yahoo Politics and Ekiti 2022 Guber Poll Gambit” and I chuckled under my sleeve.
I had thought that a rejoinder to my essay, particularly coming from the sort of Oga Ben, would be a candid response to the central theme of the story, to wit; elaborate, dishonest and systematic corralling of the unsuspecting members of the public into a devious scheme couched around a fake Lagos largesse, to create fortune around the misfortune of these unsuspecting new recruits for a self-serving agenda to build a new PDP that will chase Fayose from PDP for a new helsman to take over.
Instead, Oga Ben lapsed into a tirade and idle shadow-boxing in his unwarranted attacks on Fayemi and dismissing me as working for my pay.
True, Fayemi is my leader and employer and so my paymaster. At least a labourer deserves his wage. Oga Ben got and still getting his under his strategic paymaster too.
I am not ashamed of receiving reward from Fayemi, particularly with my background as an active participant in the struggle to free my state from the stranglehold of desperados that were killing and maiming the innocent Ekiti people in the criminal struggle to seize control of power between 2007 and 2010.
Sir, we both suffered for June 12. My paper, The Guardian, was closed down for almost 10 months by the late despot, General Sani Abacha. In the end, it was the patrons of SDP themselves that sold the party for half-pence to some Nigerian potentates.
Another coalition of interests emerged from the ashes of SDP to form another party and so Nigeria moved on. It is nobody’s business if some people with fluid political philosophy (the nomadic politicians) coalesce to pursue a self-serving agenda for political rehabilitation and domination.
What is our business is to raise questions about the ill-motivated scheme to dubiously railroad unsuspecting members of the public into an unconscionable agenda that holds no promise for them and their future.
Oga Ben spun a stunt in his dishonest escapist declaration when he said that Asiwaju Segun Oni went to Minna like other Nigerians to pay a birthday visit to IBB.
Oga Beeeeni! When was IBB’s last birthday? IBB was born on August 17, 1941 and so IBB’s last birthday was August 17, 2021.
Nigerians sent their birthday greetings to IBB in August last year, but you are now telling us that it took Engr Oni nine solid months later (April 2022) to pay IBB visit on his birthday! Haba! Was Oni’s second host in Minna, Abdulsalami Abubakar, according to media reports, also celebrating his birthday?
What of Ikpeazu, Makinde, Wike and co, all PDP leaders, that your principal also reportedly visited? They were also celebrating their birthdays and so Oni visited them, or to present a report card to PDP leaders on the successes recorded so far in clandestine recruitment into PDP to encourage Ekiti poll financing?
Oga Ben also threatened to advertise Oni’s achievements and i wonder which achievements he was talking about.
Those uncompleted projects across the state or the substandard solar lights that went dead six months after commissioning? Edumare gbami! Ekiti and indeed Nigerians are no fools.
They still remember the years of anguish that Ekiti State was subjected by the people that Oni himself described as crooks. We have in our closet loads of misdeeds by Oni during his tortuous years of ‘government by force’ he led in Ekiti State.
My response here is purely personal; not the view of APC or its candidate. But we in APC will generously serve you the reminder of the SDP candidate’s past if personal attack as you did in your rejoinder is what you prefer, particularly as you did against Gov Fayemi who came to stop the rots your principal created, and we are proud that Fayemi administration’s footprints are in every community in Ekiti State, including yours.
APC and her governorship candidate, Mr Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), has said, and he will continue to say, that his campaign shall be issue-based.
His campaign will be centred on how to grow Ekiti State as a development hub. We will be seminal in our approach to human capital development in Ekiti State.
The roadmap to Ekiti growth will be widened to incorporate all aspects of human development. That is the honourable and productive path we have chosen; no distraction.
But if the opposition chooses “bolekaja” path to play with our intelligence again, then they can be sure that we will react in equal measure. We will have no choice than to rewind Ekiti people to the detailed era of the hacking of their limbs in the mindless struggle for power by power dealers that ended up bequeathing the legacy of waste to their state.
I say again: the people that are being recruited into SDP for Lagos manna will be disappointed because there will be no Lagos booty to share. It is all a scam to scheme for power control in PDP after consolidating ground in SDP for final defection to PDP to lead a national party in Ekiti State. Mimiko did it in Ondo State.
We understand the game. For those new recruits that are already caught in the web of deceit, you are doomed in your ignorance, for you have fallen for the scam to recruit you into PDP to fight a battle that will cost you your political future.
Olujobi, aka igirabata writes from Ado-Ekit