Osun: The Vituperations Of The Vacuous Speaker Of A Largely Illegitimate Assembly (2)

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No justice worthy of that hallowed name would endorse such elementary arithmetical scandal. Here are several other examples: In Ayedaade local government area, votes returned on Forms EC8A are totally at variance with the total number of ballots provided by INEC during the inspection of the election materials at the INEC office by Aregbesola’s legal team with Oyinlola’s lawyers, INEC officials and the security agents. To be sure, Oyinlola’s counsel tendered as exhibit R18, illegible, unsigned and unstamped Forms EC8A in Odo-Otin local government while 49 polling booths had no Form EC8A at all as evidence to back up the fraudulent, 43,606 sham votes credited to Oyinlola for the LGA. In Boripe Local government, to cite yet another grotesque example of the Guinness Book of Record-level fraud, although only a little above 12, 000 people were registered to vote, the certified true copy of   INEC Form EC8D tendered as exhibit, awarded Oyinlola  concocted 14, 997 votes. These, among others, were the collection of fraudulent results that were given legal “sanctity” by the two tribunals which gave dubious “victory” to Oyinlola.

But it is clear to every observer and the world that Oyinlola did NOT win the 2007 election. It is the certainty of this fact that is running Bello, Oyinlola and their friends scared and leading them to the desperations they have exhibited in the last three years and the vituperations that Bello recently resorted to.

In the course of seeking justice, Aregbesola and his supporters have faced the utmost injustice and glorified criminality in the hands of Oyinlola and his collaborators in their cheap attempts to stop the symbol of the Osun State people’s aspirations for democracy, justice, equity and socio-economic development from reclaiming his mandate. Indeed, if anyone should be invoking “curses” on others, it should be the other way round. What have Aregbesola and his supporters not suffered?

In the course of the campaign, the Symbol’s life has been threatened alongside those of his supporters; indeed, some have been killed. To give one key instance of the latter, Mr. Hassan Alabi Olajoku, the illustrious Ilobu-born financier of Aregbesola’s campaign for justice, was assassinated by suspected agents of the PDP in May 2005. There was the infamous Oroki Day incident in August 2006. There was the armed group attack on Aregbesola’s secretariat on April 7, 2007 in Osogbo. Dozens of the AC’s polling agents were massacred during the April 2007 elections by suspected agents of the PDP. Osogbo and Ilesa were subjected to rapacious military siege for weeks after the election as punishment for their support for AC and outrage at the infamy. In all these and several other instances, Oyinlola and his PDP collaborators have consolidated their violent rape on democracy through their criminal subversion of the people’s right to elect their leaders. A man who was never elected by the people of Osun State continues to pose as the governor since 2007. The basic rule in a modern democratic system is for every dissatisfied person or institution to go to court rather than take the law into his own hands. Aregbesola has taken such a civilized step. Is this the cause of Bello’s diatribe?

Then, there is the political dimension. What has the illegitimate Oyinlola administration achieved in the last three years, or even seven years, that would recommend it to the electorate and the world? Olagunsoye Oyinlola is one of the few public figures in Nigeria whose spectacular failure in any public, political office has been acknowledged by all and sundry as legendary. Apart from his coterie of hirelings, no one can claim that Oyinlola has ever achieved anything of value in whatever public, political office he has held in his life. How has seeking justice “distracted” the unaccomplished and noted disastrous administrator, Oyinlola? When he was not “distracted” between 2003 and 2007, what did Oyinlola accomplish? Nothing! When he was a law unto himself with no constitutional restraint as the military administrator of Lagos State, what did Oyinlola achieve? Nothing! Out of nothing comes nothing. Therefore, we can also take Bello’s conclusion about “distraction” as an unwitting admission Oyinlola’s colossal failure in Osun State.

Bello also embarrassingly claimed that Aregbesola is running the risk of giving Oyinlola a “bonus four years” by going on appeal. Is Bello betraying the latest gambit by Oyinlola to have a “third term” – like his mentor, Obasanjo, tried to have? It will fail, like Obasanjo’s bid failed spectacularly – and with a big shame!

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Or, are Oyinlola and his supporters afraid of a certain defeat and an ouster – if the Appeal Court so orders, in the end? This fear can only be based on the fact that neither Bello nor Oyinlola was elected by the people of Ede North Local Government and Osun State to be a legislator or the governor, respectively. They both stole the people’s mandate – which is why they have found no rest since 2007, as Bello has betrayed. As our elders say, neither standing upright, nor stooping can be comfortable for a man who swallows the pestle.

Bello has again betrayed the emptiness of his mind in his recent vituperations against Aregbesola as the latter returns to the hallowed chambers of justice to reclaim his mandate which was brazenly stolen by Oyinlola and the PDP with the connivance of INEC and some security forces. Osun State has been turned into a Theatre of the Absurd by this gang; but they will be stopped through the will of God and legal process.

Lastly, Osun State people in particular, and Nigerians, in general, and also all men and women who stand up for justice and equity all over the world, must take note of the disguised threat to Aregbesola’s life that is evident in Bello’s vituperations. I quote Bello again: “I curse him [Aregbesola] that he will never become governor of this state. AC [ACTION CONGRESS] AS A PARTY MAY TAKE OVER THE GOVERNMENT, BUT AREGBESOLA WOULD NEVER BECOME A GOVERNOR IN THIS STATE.”

What this suggests is that even if the AC candidate is declared as the legitimate winner of the April 2007 gubernatorial elections in Osun State, Bello and others in the PDP are making or have concluded plans to ensure that Aregbesola is not alive to take the mandate. Perhaps this is what the desperate man means by a “curse”. If anything untoward happens to Aregbesola between now and the determination of his appeal or immediately after, it is clear to the world who the first suspect should be.

The Inspector General of Police, the Director-General of the State Security Service and the general public should please take note.

•Adewale Akinogun writes in from Osogbo, Osun State, South West, Nigeria.

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