Your Excellency,
OUR CULTURE OF WASTAGE IS A LIABILITY BURDEN TO OUR PARTY
From the pouch of Yoruba wisdom comes the adage that "
Ohun to ba johun la fi n wehun" -- literally to translate that objects of semblances are the worth for mutual comparison. It is the best of compass to establish how your Excellency has brought us into the class of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as politicians of 'Jankara Democracy'. The indicator came with the manner of another humongous wastage we invested into the recent internal process for the selection of our camp's adopted aspirants for contest in the coming All Progressives Congress (APC) Primaries for July 2025 Local Government Elections in Lagos State. Of course, it was the best we could resort to in the hope to get our share of power in our usual cheap ways. But what is of grave concern to me is why we should expect the State Leadership of the party to trust us again after we squandered the original 45% power share we got to leverage our opportunity for a start of true internal opposition democracy in Alimosho progressives. Four years after the gift, the Joke Orelope camp has remained a burden of electoral liability than the value asset our National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu thought of doing with the gift in 2021. The truth is not farfetched as we shall see soon in the course of our analysis of Jankara Democracy.
DEFINING THE
JANKARA DEMOCRACY
I agree with Nnedinso Ogaziechi, a woman columnist, in her submission that the "fundamental necessity" of true democracy begins with emplacement of strong and disciplined variant of political parties. I agree with her because she seemed to define the strength of a party by the depth of its internal democracy. She said: "There must be a fundamental and credible political party structure that can ensure that electoral laws are obeyed in ways to enhance intra-party democracy as a precursor to credible elections. This is a fundamental necessity. The dysfunction in the political party structure raises questions about our democracy". (The Nation, 22/02/25, p10).
Saying this, she could have had the state of Alimosho in mind. But she appeared to have made a cause of goodwill from the realities that came out of the Lagos Assembly's impeachment imbroglio. As a matter of fact, the means to the resolution of the issue back to status quo antebellum must be clear to the discernible minds that a historical party discipline would have been set by the Lagos APC in the span of this fourth republic amidst the regressions with the Jankara Democracy, which crept into our political system as laid in foundation by the pioneer President Olusegun Obasanjo. This was by his efforts at manipulating his party's Presidential Primaries for the 2007 Presidential Election in favour of the late President Yar'Adua.
It was generally believed that he did it to install a puppet of continuum to his hegemonic whims in the presidency. I do not belong in that school of thought. They could be right in a way, given that he had just lost a bid to amend the constitution to pave the way for a third term in office. Personally, I rather hold the purposeful belief of then Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos embarking on same endeavour. He said it was to preserve and build upon his legacies. It is fact that a successful succession order makes a primary determinant of the success of a leadership era. And it is something any leader that worth his call would not want to toy with. More than any other possible factors, it was this conflict of succession preference that ignited the Tinubu/Aregbe feud
But because Obasanjo's motive for it was not so sincere beyond the selfish installation of a puppet and vengeance for his failed inordinate ambition, he had chosen to foist on Nigerians a candidate with debilitating health condition affirmed with prognosis of "terminal prejudice", paring him with a thoughtful pliantly amenable Goodluck Jonathan for the ultimate successor. Because of this ignominious quest, he had to prosecute his succession plan on the crest of Jankara Democracy he would have to invoke for the Presidential Primary of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2007 General Elections. He would also go ahead to lord it over the country through a morbid desperation he put in military term as "Operation Totality", describing the general elections as a "do-or-die affairs" in the process.
Hence his totality of leadership failure with complete erosion of his legacies -- even though there wasn't much of any beyond the psychological demilitarisation of our democratic polity. In order words, his strive to sustain his governance legacies was lacking in good motive in gross disparity to the Tinubu's, the success of which the latter had to flaunt as enduring legacies for his credentials to fit his occupation of the sit of Comander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
Obasanjo nevertheless had the legacy of Jankara Democracy to leave for the internal democracy of his party. But it has continued to be the worst threat to the party's existentiality, thus pushing it back in retrogression to extinction. The Jonathan Presidency deployed it for his 2015 ambition. It did not only cripple the party, it offered a largesse of easy poshing for nascent opposition party, the new APC, to snatch power from the ruling PDP.
For no lesson learnt, the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would yet find the Jankara Democracy to deploy in the 2022 Presidential Primary of the PDP. He found it to be a useful tool for manipulation of the shadow election to advantage, also with an ignoble inequity motive to retain the political hegemony of the country in the North. In modality, his own style of Jankara Democracy was all about flinging around lush money for easy pick by delegates -- N27Million for each to secure the ticket was no joke.
The coming of Peter Obi to Labour Party from the crumbling PDP was at best another side of Jankara Democracy. In this case, it defied all logic of sensible order for a genuine internal opposition democracy of a party. His own case needs no further analysis to dispute the lack of any modicum of sanity in the process of his emergence as the Presidential Candidate for Labour Party. The facts came out in the consequential litigations of the factional crisis in the courts. Uncle Wole Soyinka had also helped to put his case in the proper perspective with a Yoruba coinage: "Gbajue"! -- a term for someone engaging in 'inappropriate' process, to put it in a lighter mode.
Thus far, it should be obvious that Jankara Democracy is always a quest to abrogate the sanity of genuine internal opposition democracy of a party through the thwarting of decency in the party's primary elections. And that it is always invoked by a desperate factional leader to cover an inherent anomaly with his camp. It is evidentially our case in the Joke Orelope camp called Asiwaju Solidarity Movement (ASM)/Justice Forum in the Alimosho Progressives. I so found out when the news revealed that the apex leadership resorted to mopping up the whole aspirants' forms for our faction from the state. The total cost confirmed to have been borne by an individual should be about the sum of N72Million for the 36 councillors and six council chairmen. Of course, they have been distributed "free" to the so called aspirants, many of whom would have rather being helped with establishment of trade, knowing fully well that they are mere pretenders even lacking in current economic engagements with reference to the councillorship aspirants. The direct implication is that the incompetent and those who do not even prepare for the offices have been given the largesse to cheap opportunities. I should think whatever we have intended with this would not be lost on the state leadership.
With what we did, we have only moved to deepen the liability burden of what our camp has become to the body of APC since we got the 45% share of power a la carte in about 2021
THE COLLAPSE OF FIRST JOKE ORELOPE STRUCTURE
It is only unfortunate that we would yet be having an ignoble inefficiency to cover with this Jankara Democracy four years after our National Leader, Asiwaju obliged you a vista to establish your sure footed opposition leadership for internal democracy to thrive in Alimosho. And doing so now, we are only moving to deepen the liability burden of what the Joke Orelope camp has become to the body polity of APC since we got the 45% power share a la carte. It was the great opportunity we frittered to waste, undoubtedly to the disappointment of Asiwaju when we failed to translate his gesture to electoral value in the 2023 Presidential Election. It was even so worse that our ASM contributed largely to the electoral loss through our faulty recruit of political neophytes into the leadership cadre and for deployment to the electoral duties. I could only thank God that Asiwaju would yet be forced to pass an implicit vote of no confidence in your leadership of Alimosho, going by the preeminence Hon Bisi Yusuf seemed to have gained -- albeit from the emerging events recently, however the informing narratives might be deficient in wholesome facts in tandem with idea of politicking with mischief.
How I wish we had enough of enlightened minds in our camp with gifted capacity to read our politics update in this trend.
The ignoble inefficiency we now seek to cover should be traced to the foundation of wrong footing we made at the grab of that cheap 45% power share. It is trite in law that he who alleges owns the onus to prove it. So, I will explain it.
You may recall in true Christian conscience that when Asiwaju offered the 45% power share against your demand for a 100% holding of the power for "just a trial" in span of four years, it was the best he had offered to institute the spirit of internal opposition democracy in Alimosho. As a matter of fact, the opportunity was truly long in coming. No thanks to the "divine' bliss of Aregbe's failings in emotional control.
Governor Sanwo-Olu too wasted no time to implement the offer, even though it could be said to have the undertow of giving the semblance of peace to then visiting Senator Adamu-led National Reconciliation Committee to Lagos. It was a great feat that gave Lagos a clean bill of "No petition" for the committee to resolve, as the Chairman praised Sanwo-Olu for achieving unity within the State"s progressives. As Dr. Lateef Ibirogba, your witness companion at the rendezvous table of the sharing rightly observed once, the 45% share was given in person to you. To be sure about it as Asiwaju's gesture to you in this regard, he yet gave you that wholesome share even when intelligence report already revealed it to him that you had no any iota of existing structure to accommodate that size since the collapse of your first 'Political Army' we managed to put in place from 2004 to 2006. Of course, the collapse was a direct consequence of your penchants for evading your leadership responsibility. And for the sake of this ongoing dancing of truth in the open market, I will explain briefly.
I say it with all sense of responsibility that the collapse would have been averted and your structure would have been strong enough to withstand the Oranmiyan Camp's today all by itself without any external help. The 45% power largesse would have been a mere process to your leadership dominance. As the cause of the collapse, not only was it demeaning to offer your brigade commanders the informing paltry sum of logistics for onward journey to Abuja to join their Aregbe counterpart to bring home the new progressives party named Action Congress (AC). The ratio of N3,500 to N25,000 respectively was a far cry for cry and loud! It was even worse that you would even toss it at them through 'Pastor'. Implicit that you even denied them access to you for any opportunity of direct engagement to reconcile the offer with you. Of course, it was also good that they too would have to display the courage to own their minds by dropping the pittance on your messenger's table. And it was the end of anything called Joke Orelooe Camp until the Asiwaju's gesture came in 2021.
When it came not even 5% power syoung would have been sufficient for you to fill conveniently, much more having the humongous 40% extra. Thus to fill the whole, we could only have to recruit neophytes into our leadeeship cadre. This was not even as bad as your deliberate Aworinisation of the Joke Orelope camp with it. The latter mthei the worst case scenario as the opportunists would rather hold a sense of self-entitlement than seeing it as a call to serve. The period of Voters Registrational exposed thei inefficiences and incompetences. Like I told some people at the time, it was clear that we had lost the election from that onset.
My concern now is the game we have intended with the puchase of bulk forms -- a cause to blackmail the state leadership into consensus and sustain our liability burden on the party. I could only hope the party would stand by its words that being an aspirants does not automatically translate to getting free appointments through the power sharing we are looking out for. If we had true and comitted people, four years should be enough to have poached some exco members from the Enilolobo camp. But what do have? A self indoctrination that Enilolobo will soon be expelled or make a self-exit to SDP. We have laid by the river side for about 4yeas waiting for the blink of the crab. Now that the reality is dawn on us, we resorting to Jankara Democracy. The ball is in the court of the state leadership now. Consensus should never be the deal for Alimosho if Alimosho must be made to rise again.
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