Abuja goons, artistes and failed attempt at politics

Between President Goodluck Jonathan’s ex-Ministers and celebrity entertainers whose recent foray into politics has elicited much reaction, I am at a loss as to which deserves sympathy.  

Seven ministers had resigned from the federal cabinet in October to pursue governorship ambition. But as the primary elections end, with varying degrees of drama and subterfuge, only the former Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, managed to pick the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State. His victory came with expected drama because he contested against himself, after 18 other aspirants abandoned the process in anger.

But for the rest six, all powerful in their own rights as the President’s goons, it was a sour taste of defeat that confronted them. The erstwhile Information Minister, Labaran Maku, lost to a relatively unknown Yusuf Agabi in Nasarawa State. Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, whose profile had risen considerably after ‘defeating’ the Ebola scourge was humbled in Ebonyi State, just like Dr. Samuel Orton, former Minister of State for Industry Trade and Investment, in Plateau State and Chief Emeka Wogu, former Minister of Labour, who lost in Abia State to Okezie Ikpeazu.

The case of former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro is, perhaps, the most intriguing. Not just because he lost to Jimi Agbaje in a keenly contested race, but also in the manner of his defeat and the sense of déjà vu that came with it. It is doubtful if any other candidate, either in PDP or in All Progressive Congress, had entered Election Day with the type of antagonism that Obanikoro suffered from leaders of his party. If verbal invective alone could swing votes, Obanikoro would not have gotten a single delegate on his side considering the character assassination he suffered from Chief Bode George and Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe.

“Koro is unelectable…he has reputation crisis,” the entire nation was told about a man who constantly flaunts his privilege of having served as a Local Government Chairman, Commissioner, Senator, Ambassador and Minister. Quite gobsmacking indeed that a PDP that only recently promoted fiery, firebrand politicking in Ekiti and Osun States would suddenly prefer Agbaje’s calm, charismatic but untested gait to Obanikoro’s brash swagger and promise of latrine infrastructure.

The primary election itself was hardly anything to applaud. It held at an awkward place in Oregun amidst strife and gunshots, so much so that one of the aspirants confessed to wearing a bullet proof vest. At the end, the number of votes counted was 60 in excess of number of delegates that voted.

For Obanikoro to insist that the election cannot stand, he is on a familiar ground. In 2007, he had purportedly lost the PDP primary election against the wife of late Engineer Funsho Williams, only for the national leadership of the party to award him victory. But if he fails to get his ‘KoroNation’ this time around, the attendant crack in the party may further weaken PDP at a time that APC is waxing stronger in Lagos, basking in the euphoria of a transparent primary election, flaunting the impeccable profile of its candidate, Akinwumi Ambode and getting the incumbent governor, Babatunde Fashola and the likes of Dr. Femi Hamzat, Senator Ganiyu Solomon and Tayo Ayinde, among others that lost the primary election, to endorse Ambode’s candidacy.

In losing their primary elections in such a spectacular manner, the ex-Ministers will now appreciate the world of difference between serving as a Presidential goon and going to the grassroots to canvass for delegates’ votes.

This is the lesson that artistes and entertainers who equated celebrity status with grassroots popularity must also learn. Only two of the Nollywood stars that contested at the primaries won. Actor cum director, Desmond Elliot, got the ticket for Surulere Constituency to represent APC at the election for the Lagos State House of Assembly, while Funke Adesiyan, an actress, got PDP’s nod for the Ibadan South-East Constituency 2 ticket for next February’s House of Assembly poll in Oyo State.

Several others were not so lucky. Popular singer, Abolore Akande (9ice), lost the House of Representatives ticket in Ogbomoso, to the son of his traditional ruler. Chief Dayo Adeneye, actress Kate Henshaw and contemporary singer, Kenny Saint Best, also lost after a few others like Tony Tetuila and Kenneth Okonkwo had pulled out. The dream of having another Dr. Wale Okediran, the former President of Association of Nigerian Authors, at the House of Representatives in 2015 appears to be a mirage.

While I encourage active participation of entertainers and art managers in public service, what they do not seem to understand is the intense, volatile nature of politics, which goes beyond the fame associated with the tube. The experience that made Onyeka Onwenu to beat a retreat after attempting to run as Local Government Chairman in Imo State in 2003 is germane. The language of the political class in the grassroots is different from the fanciful make-believe world of art.

Entertainers who desire public service must first shed the toga of jesters. Accepting to be a Special Assistant to a Governor on Comedy is a joke. And frankly, you don’t win primary elections on social media or with wrap-around adverts.

But they should despair not.

If America could celebrate Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Springer in politics and India could find a space for Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra in the Parliament, Nollywood too can produce its political icons with a lot more seriousness and tenacity.