Was there really any dust raised by the Obaseki ouster from contesting under the APC ticket? I doubt much; we are now benumbed to such things; the obvious miscarriage of justice is now but a passing phase; we have moved on; the general comments in the last few days –from newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels all seem to focus more on how Obaseki stepped on the toes of two powerful gods of the land and got burnt.
They said that one man’s meat is another man’s poison and that Pastor Ize Iyamu has been anointed by the same gods! So the coming election is a foregone conclusion! Nigeria! Suddenly we are no more talking about decencies, the rule of law and order; it is now fashionable to hail crude tactics, jungle practices as paradigm; it is no longer patriotic to be loyal and obedient: what we will eat and sustain our families with has overtaken all sense of reason.
Obaseki went to courts, sought official intervention, yet none came to his rescue. The supreme court set the stage when it said in APC V. Engr. Suleiman Aliyu Pere (2020) I NWLR(Part 1705) 254 at 285, per Rhodes-Vivour, JSC, that the courts will not dabble into how a member of the party is screened or why a member was not cleared by the party to contest the primaries. Put in another way, it means the party has the power to disqualify a member and is answerable to no one including the courts!
Therein lies the muscle Oshiomole exploited to nail Obaseki—though temporally. The Nigerian court is our problem. And until they restitute, Nigeria may not progress. Since 1999, when democracy arrived, genuine progress has been resisted. This is a country that has produced masterclass in the industrial world, for example, the likes of Phillip Emeagwali who invented the fastest computer now being used for weather forecast and global warming; this is an environment that has made incredible advances in the technological world becoming digitalized, even advancing beyond imaginations to embrace tools such as the hootsuite, the falcons, freshdesk, bitrix24, Google analytic, the CRM tools (Microsoft dynamics/sales force, etc.
But in the field of politics, dark forces prevail like organized crime and suppress genuine development. God has made every one of us unique; and until we are able to rise above hunger, what to wear, drink and cloth ourselves, so long we will remain under the grip of these so callous forces.
Until able Africans in African politics will someday be the leaders we crave for, rather than the unqualified rulers we currently have our dream for a bigger world will remain a pipe dream. I urge Obaseki to keep his head high; he is a man of honor and integrity; he has budding potentials that cannot be destroyed by wickedness. For people like him, he will rise again. Only a brave man will show the coward where his father is buried.
