SO, ENILOLOBO OFFENDS NO ONE AFTERALL

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

So, Alhaji Abdullahi Ayinde Enilolobo offends no one after all. This is to say there should be no any cause to neglect the viper at our heel to nurse the fear of a tiger at far distance. And then, Ka dupe lowo Oluomo – that the Alimosho APC masses should be grateful to Prince Idris Balogun (aka Oluomo Kaafata) that left Enilobo camp to strengthen the struggle with his boldness to challeng the status-quo that today opened the Alimosho APC to the tenets of intra-party opposition democracy. The corollary utmost consequential value his initiative had brought to the party is the illumination to the dark crevices and recesses across the caucus’ schism for the discernible members and elders to see that a thousand and one Enilolobo could exist everywhere and anywhere, given the nature of human vulnerability to power abuse. Hence this writer’s conclusion with the subject of this missive.

The clause – that “Enilolobo offends no one” – should have two alternative discernible feasibilities. It could have come as a poser – a question to the readers – with the right punctuation mark in rules of grammar. In that light, it should suggest this writer’s confusion about the subject matter to which a clarity is being sought in feedback. On the contrary, it has no tag of question mark thus making it a direct statement. This should therefore suffice for the readers to see it as an assertive statement of conviction.

Yes, Alhaji Enilolobo may have committed blunders that speak to his management of the cultural shock of his imminent loss of power; the emerging events across the two divides therefrom have come to show that he had only reacted to an impulse of intrinsic human nature for which only a few men could be immune to the vulnerability. What may then be required is a show of the premises for this writer’s conclusion that he offends nobody in spite of the blunders that are yet not beyond pardon.

For a start, the grounds for this conviction flow from two dimensions of both nature and nurtural experience. The first is about power as an intrinsic factor of man’s desirability and its potent intoxication after acquisition. The second as a matter of experience nevertheless also has a two-part in context: one is comparism of this leadership era of Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire (OFR) within a short period less than 6 months to the about 20 years of Alhaji Enilolobo’s. The second is the disapproving attitude of the many ‘emergency leaders’ threw up by the circumstance of Enilolobo’s leadership travails to which this writer opened a chapter with the published ‘Open Letter to Akin-Johnson’.

Thus to say this piece is as well a subject of matters arising consequential to that publication, going the whole hog further to an holistic imperatives to show how the fringe emergency leaders have exhibited, even with impunity, the acts they accuse Alhaji Enilolobo of within their respective jurisdictions. Thus to say further that by nature, the act of power is about what the heart of man holds in personal character. This correlation is what Razaq .A. Jimoh (2007) tried to relate in his book – The Inventory of Fallacy and Anatomy of Falsehood in Nigeria’s Anti-corruption Crusade – while trying to put the imperfections of President Obasanjo’s anti-graft fight in perspective.

He wrote: “To look into the importance of power is to imagine a society with neither any form of regulation nor any regular authority. Might will regularly trample upon natural justice… Power is therefore a society’s existential imperative subscribed to by the constituents and acquired by one through cultural royalty or delegation by all. Thus to say power is a collective resolution for conferment of the authority of might on a member of the community through an institutional process called ‘Election’. And since might, as potentially inherent in all animals, man exclusive, comes with innate propensity towards absolutism, this instinct often drives the potential temptation for the abuse of power through induced corruption of the mind”.

Taking a piece from that, it should be reasonable to conclude for fact that a heart of psychopath holding the levers of power will always exhibit brutal characters in power. We saw that in the late General Sanni Abacha’s despotic rule compared to his predecessors as military rulers. Similarly, a heart of arrogance holding levers of power will show acts of a snobitch because he will exhibit no characters other than snobbish and dismissive attitude to all – his seniors, peers and followers.

In like manner, a heart of humility in power will always exhibit the characters of justice, fairness and equity. That is what Alimosho had just witnessed within the short period of Orelope-Adefulire taking the leadership of Alimosho APC. This writer is well aware that writing in manner of facts like this accounted for the insinuation of a “Lukudi gift of N2M” to this writer by Her Excellency.

But the proof of her heart of humility adduced here is not farfetched, evidently more replete in the recent development of sharing the Alimosho slots of the State Cabinet and the earlier management of the election funds for both the 2023 governorship and presidential elections. These two issues also come handy for veritable applications to comparing the about 20years of Enilolobo in the saddle and for a part of the discernible blunders he purportedly committed. In a chat with a friend and partisan ally – aka Alasingaporialistic – long before now at a rendezvous, I revealed as a snooped information that Alimosho would get four slots of membership in the coming Sanwo-Olu’s State Cabinet. Over a month later, it turned out to be true. But that is not the subject of interest here.

The inference to draw from it is the heart of equity displayed by Her Excellency in sharing the slot evenly between her group and Enilolobo’s – even in perfect term of non-interference and disinterest in Alhaji Enilolobo’s prerogative choice of the eventual beneficiaries from his camp.

Unfortunately, this justice of equity is one Enilolobo denied Joke Orelope for the about two decades he controlled the leadership levers. It was as bad to the extent that he refused to concede one, particularly the executive chairmanship of Alimosho LGA, being Mama’s Local Government, to her as a mark of honour for her status as former Deputy Governor of Lagos State and subsequently Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SSAP-SDG). Without any notion of prejudice, he may be excused doing that from a heart of politicking in defence of same LGA as the political territory of his boss, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. One may however be right to say he upended it to a heart of arrogance in power to become the first of blunders he would commit at the onset of his leadership travails in 2021 with his successful struggle and fulfilment of his vows that the Joke Orelope camp would never get a single executive chairmanship seat out of the six LG/LCDAs making up the Alimosho Federal Constituency.

In show of that established strength, he went further to successfully upturned the chairmanship victory of Igando/Ikotun LCDA the Mama’s camp won through the ballot. By narrative account of the underlining intrigues, he also successfully “upturned” the state leadership’s effort to cede the auxiliary Office of the Council Vice-chairmanship to this opposition camp. “Nothing for them”, he copiously vowed for grandstanding to success. But then, to all this, did Alhaji Enilolobo offend anyone? The subject of purported Open Letter to Akin Johnson should suffice in proffering the appropriate answer. A greater cause to vindicate Enilolobo may as well be grounded in the ensuing right of reply to that letter in proxy by no other person than aka ‘ABC…Oooyatooo’, published in the current July 17, 2023 Edition of the Civics Weekly.

In that rejoinder, Akin Bash literally implied by conclusion that every leadership of other LCDAs in Alimosho must subject themselves to the whims and caprices of Egbeda commands without query. Or how else should one interpret his proverb that “Ila ki n ga ju onire lo which he gave conclusively to a litany of allegations that Egbe-Idimu leaders were exhibiting acts of insubordinations.

The totality of all this exhibition of arrogance of power by the "Egbeda cabal" should suffice that a thousand and one blokes will not survive the temptations of power abuse given the opportunity.

The second of Enilolobo’s blunders had to do with his failure to redeem his image with the residuals of leadership power slipping off his grip with the opportunity of Presidential Election funds disbursed through his custody. But then, the latter Governorship Election funds that did not come through him would also later become an empirical basis to vindicate him as a mere mortal vulnerable to abuse of power as could many men after all.

No matter how had the numerous aides of Enilolobo might want to defend it, the fact that he refused to make the presidential election funds available for its purpose, and even made attempt to deny being in possession of the money, was the height of blunder he committed and it haunted him, albeit not for a while. It is only unfortunate that he incurred this tormenting wrath more out of the same heart of arrogant in power that was not ready for compromise to inform his sustained vow that the opposition caucus would not get any share of the election funds. This writer stands to be corrected if he had a mind contrary to this.

But when Mama had the privilege to take custody of the governorship election funds, her heart of humility in power directed that the money should go into a central pool from where both camps would share it accordingly. Unfortunately, story of the funds mismanagement yet came to the fore to which Her Excellency did not fail to express her gross disappointment in furious anger. "You must provide all the money", she asserted to the culprit.

The question is: was Alhaji Enilolobo culpable in this? The answer from the narrative cause says: “No!” Rather, accusing fingers pointed to the direction of betrayals from Mama’s camp and the fact that those who did it benefitted immensely from their acts.

It must therefore be emphasised here in conclusion that the masses of party members in the camp of Her Excellency's ASM are still hoping that her directives to the ratting aides will be one to fly by the seat of her pants, granted that it may be a litmus case of such experience for her in leadership of the whole Alimosho.

All this conduct of abuse of proxy powers from Mama’s aides simply beggars the question again: is Alhaji Abdullahi Enilolobo to blame for acting the way did? Like the admonition of Jesus Christ to the mob baying for blood of the adulterous woman, let the one that has fared above Enilolobo, particularly among those who had at one time belonged to his camp but turned his traducers today cast the first stone. Human being will always be human being!