AN OPEN LETTER TO AKIN JOHNSON: THAT ENILOLOBO WAY IS NOT THE PATH TO TREAD

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

FROM a tiger to a leader and thence to a viper, that sumarises the evolutionary path of Alhaji Abdullahi Enilolobo. To the knowledge of this writer, the last may not stick for credence, but in the voice of witnesses in the Alimosho Progressives Cave, it stays. And for imperative clarity, a ‘tiger’ in the politicians' cave is a metaphor of what is known to be 'area boys' in the open society. So it's like a tale of the slave becoming a king. An axiom says no prince survives the turn of a slave to be king because every strength becomes a threat in the latter’s weird imagination. This may be the lots of Enilolobo who now appears to have turned a viper from a leader in the conclusion of many faithful of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – even beyond the realm of his immediate constituency. But when evaluated critically with a discernible mind, Enilolobo was never a substantive leader of the Alimosho's APC. He merely acquired authority of the leadership power vested in the former Commissioner for Works and infrastructure in Lagos, then The Young, Abdulrauf Adesoji Aregbeshola, also now former governor of Osun State and former Minister of the Federal Republic.

In course of his feasible long journey to Osun, Aregbe simply told the 'G18' members of his time that Enilolobo would be standing as his errand boy – the purveyor – of his message to them. Gradually and progressively, the messenger started sounding as the sender unequivocally and soon to audacious and authoritarian clarity. His whims began to sound as the voice of Aregbe's caprices of power and order. We saw that when in gross disobedience to Aregbe's instruction, he allowed the in-house primary election that removed MAO as the Council Chairman of Igando/Ikotun. It would later come out in direct speech from Enilolobo that he did it to bring in Morenike Adeshina-Williams in difference to Arizona's interest at the time. “I did that for you even though I knew something was something in the affairs”, Enilolobo told Arizonal at a reconciliation meeting he convened after the 2019 rebellion against him. And please don’t ask me what was the “something” he knew to be “something”!.

Alhaji Fetuga and Com Oke were the early Smart Alek to see his dictatorship in coming. For that, Enilolobo aptly axed their guts, smartly too with a slam of their suspension from 'G12' membership. Next was Otunba Busari Ayinde (aka Jawe's) audacity to query if indeed the decisions of then 'G18' were yet the true voice of Aregbe or a discretionary whims of Enilolobo.But rather than waiting for any backlash of this, and because he had the war chest for a mind of his own, he simply walked out of the APC to the haven of opposition.

Just like that, as Yoruba would say, alaborun di ewu. This is to say literally that the leaders and elders lost their vigilance to lose their liberty as Enilolobo continued to manipulate them to grasp the levers of power wholesomely.

Thus accordingly, the leadership of Enilolobo only crept into Alimosho's progressives' cave like a snake – thoughtfully the viper adduced – through the neglected hole into a home in dark hours of the night.

In a way, it is reasonable to regard this a backlash of the occupier's negligence. The leaders and elders would only wake to the sight of his viper's menacing threat of attack, dangling its head over side and flapping its tongue at them. They could only stand still in chilling fears.

But then, to rebel against him soon became inevitable. Of course, it came at the hours of “God's will, Allah's way”, to borrow the title of Razaq A. Jimoh’s compendium on the political life of President Tinubu yet at milling. Victory appears to have come now only after almost about a decade of guerrilla rebellion against him.

It will be very unfortunate that yet at the sunset of the Enilolobo's dictatorial era, a successor in abuse of proxy powers appears to be on the horizon in no other person than Hon Habib Akin-Johnson, the certified political Chief of Staff to Her Excellency, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire (OFR). A saying goes that nature abhors vacuum. This may as well be the law at play if Akin-Johnson is eventually found to be treading the path of Enilolobo. But then, change is also known to be the constant factor of the equation defining this law. So Akin-Johnson has the choice to change his path from the Enilolobo way or prepare to face the experience of ignoble change Enilolobo seems to be going through sooner or later.

As to be the instigation premises for this open memo, two recent untoward events emanated from Egbeda corridor and they could not have been signs of the true signatures of Mama for the emerging era. In fact, while they were evolutions from the discretions of what many party faithful have concluded to be immanent “Egbeda cabal” (not my words), the actions were deceptively presented as instructions of Her Excellency.

Convening the last Apex meeting of the Asiwaju Solidarity Movement (ASM) leadership, as this essayist gathered; the cabal was said to have, in their own discretion, moved to exclude three members from attending the meeting. In fact, two of these 'suspended' members are quite important personages in Alimosho politics, such that if names were to be mentioned here, table will shake. They cited Mama's “order” for it. But courtesy of the 'Chairman's' counter discretion of cross checking the fact, according to sources. Her Excellency denied ever giving such instruction. “Even, I have forgiven the one that (thoughtfully) misbehaved”, Mama was quoted to have said – parenthesis is writer’s. It was not clear and it remains an interesting curiosity to think anyone for that matter, how so ever described in the supposed cabal, would think through to execution of any idea of suspending those strong personages of ASM who, by demographic imperative, represent a whole LCDA division in that Joke Orelope's 'Wisdom Council'.

The second untoward event is one that has direct bearing to the core advisory objective of this memo. It bears a move by Akin-Johnson to upset the apple cart of a settled leadership structure of Egbe-Idimu LCDA. As gathered by this writer, he enthralled in his new found powers to question the relevance of Alhaji Fetuga in the 'G10' leadership administration of Egbe-Idimu ASM. 'Titi (aka 'Iron Lady') must be part of the LCDA's 'G10', he insisted.

Not only did he say it, he moved to assert it when he chose to share the inauguration cloths for the Egbe-Idimu 'G10' members all by his discretion and by himself there at Egbeda. In the process, he denied Alhaji Fetuga his share of the cloth. And when his attention was called to the implications of what he did, he called the bluff of Alhaji Fetuga and his team of 'G10' members. He dared them to report to Her Excellency.

What can we deduce from this? It may not be clear to us the grave implication this portends to the emerging Mama's leadership era unless we have the full grasp of how his action had undermined Mama's creed of leadership transparency as a departure from the past. By that single action, Akin Johnson had simply violated and overruled a collective decision democratically emplaced by the Apex leadership personally presided over by Her Excellency.

That Titi is not and cannot be a member of Egbe-Idimu 'G10' is to the extent of a leadership formation template ratified by Her Excellency and members of her 'Wisdom Council' at the time they were putting the ASM structure in place. The underlining objective of that template was the need to spread valuable party positions to cut the intuitive greediness and aggrandizement of some party members who would want to be member of every party organ – to be, if possible, a Councilor and a Ward Exco member at the same time. Interestingly, the good idea was brokered by the same Egbe-Idimu leadership.

For the avoidance of doubt, as to be recalled, the template for membership of ASM executives as drawn from Egbeda read that all party executive members should automatically be executive members of the ASM. Egbe-Idimu disagreed and insisted that a new set of party members would occupy her own ASM so that more party members would have sense of belonging. The Egbeda 'cabal' kicked and accused the LCDA of “insubordination” to their order, which they yet deceptively described as Mama's “order”.

It became controversial and Her Excellency enlisted the issue for deliberation at the Apex meeting. It was extensively debated back and forth. As this writer gathered, the presiding Mama, Joke Orelope, did not impose her own preferential side to the issue on the members. She only moderated the debate. At the end of the day, she called for House vote over it. The template was ratified that no member currently holding any party position will also occupy executive positions of the ASM. This cascaded to the call by Egbe-Idimu elders for discretionary choice of Iron Lady between her current party position as Woman Leader of the Party and membership of the 'G10'. She chose the former and peace had since pervaded Egbe-Idimu ASM until Akin-Johnson threw in what the Yoruba would like to describe as a potent oguluntu mystics. It is not known what he intended to achieve with the resuscitation of the dead issue. But it is not in doubt that the ultimate consequence is destabilization of the LCDA's leadership camp with intrigues of divide and rule, perhaps ostensibly to create a loyalty faction for the purported Egbeda cabal.

To the discernible mind, could it not be appearing that the past remains the current in abuse of delegated authority. Curiously, the argument Johnson is advancing for his action was that Titi was the only person the Egbeda could identify as one of their own in matters of the anti-Aregbe/Enilolobo struggle. It is the mantra the Egbeda holds in sound bite of late. But besides the fact that all politics is local, it is yet the truth that many, including this writer, were with Her Excellency way back in the era of Justice Forum known to be the incipient. Titi was at the time enjoying the robust patronage of the Aregbe camp. Of course, for Mama, yours truly was attacked and thoroughly given public assault by a rampaging thugs of the other camp during a membership registration for the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) phase of the Lagos progressives’ party metamorphosis.

As Her Excellency would aptly say and always say to such absurdity that readily denies others the credit for their participation in the struggle, all matter of the struggle belongs to the past. And to assert this in practical leadership example, she brought in Sir Ayo Akinyemi ( aka A.A.) to be the ASM Chairman and to preside over the Apex body in her absence. Yet it is a common knowledge that this former Executive Council Chairman of the Alimosho Federal Constituency was never part of the so called struggle. He indeed struggled to wrestle powers from the progressives. But as conventional, destiny defines the path to fate. Thus to say, the big lesson to learn from Mama on this is to let the past belong to past and it pays no one to see comfort in enthralling with power that is ephemeral.

Of course, this essayist cannot deny a knowledge that the cabal did not fail to push resistance against Mama’s choice of A. A. Her Excellency simply ignored their ranting and panting. It therefore beggars the question why anyone would not think that Mama's action in this regard is an ingenious act to make a bold statement that it is the era of Joke Orelope's leadership of Alimosho Federal Constituency, not Joke Orelope of Egbeda's enclave any longer. What should be the collective prospect of that Alimosho is to see her becoming next the Joke Orelope of Lagos as next Governor of Lagos. Or do we hear any JT saying “impossible?

We know that Her Excellency’s noble intentions for the welfare of all followers and the larger society of Alimosho is never in doubt. She needs her peace of the mind to do it. The party members can only give that to her when they allow internal cohesion across their rank and files with binding force of truth and justice. As President Tinubu once said, “human nature is such that it cannot exist for long without truce and justice...Society needs justice as much as the body needs food and water”.

Oro ma soko! Kini Yoruba wi?. this missive is going somewhere. Please come along.