By Ayo Orishe
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said the outcome of Osun gubernatorial elections is a lesson to those who elevated persons with moral baggage and questionable character to “unmerited national prominence.”
Soyinka, in a statement, Sunday, said the voice of Ajibola Ige, slain Minister of Justice, resounded from beyond the grave by the All Progressives Congress, APC’s defeat.
“Those who conspired to catapult his destroyers to unmerited national prominence, to insult the memories of the living, and jettison basic ethical constraints, have been justly served,” he declared.
Soyinka said the outcome was a lesson that speaks to other zones of rightful public expectations, equity, and just entitlements.
According to Nobel laureate, “It is a lesson that speaks to other zones of rightful public expectations, equity, and just entitlements.
“One despairs but continues to hope that there are still receptive minds in which such lessons will germinate.
“If we may adapt a wise saying from the ancients: the beast of burden, nicknamed Equity, ambles its mined course to destination but, sooner or later, that donkey arrives.”
Soyinka metaphorical statement may be the assertion that was made by Senator Femi Okunrounmu who said in 2019, that Tinubu worked against Ige’s presidential interest in 1999.
Okunrounmu is a member of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, had said then, that contrary to what has been in public domain it was actually the “National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu who spearheaded the plot to deny the late Chief Bola Ige his presidential ambition.”
He added that Tinubu worked “surreptitiously to ensure that Ige did not emerge winner of the primary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) because of his (Tinubu) ambition.”
Okunrounmu also said that there were several reasons for Ige to have won the primary, “especially as Pa Abraham Adesanya’s deputy, who took part in appointing members of the electoral college, all Ige needed was only two votes from the nine elders, because once you get 1–2 votes out of 23, you have won.
“The elders included Alayande, who was a commissioner under Ige. Another was Adewale Thompson, who was the Attorney General under Ige. So, if he only got those two, he would have won.
“This is exclusive of people like Odebiyi and Ayo Fasanmi, who were very close to Ige.”
Okunrounmu’s accusation would make more sense when he said that Tinubu distributed money to delegates to vote against the late Bola Ige.
“I happened to know and it was widely rumoured then that Bola Tinubu distributed money to some of them to vote against Ige because of his (Tinubu) ambition.
“He had this overriding ambition to become the Yoruba leader and he felt the person in his way was Ige. He wanted to more or less suppress Ige; he didn’t want him to emerge as presidential candidate.
“Tinubu worked against Ige.” The Afenifere elder said.
Curiously, Tinubu has become one Nigerian politician that prides himself, as to having the capacity to buy political favour at any cost and this has earned him, the nickname – ‘billion van.