Oyo and house deputy speakership

BY AFEEZ BOLAJI REPETE

The broth has been successfully cooked. The soup is ready. As the Yoruba say, all manner of knives rear their ugly heads whenever the humongous flesh of the elephant is due for slaughter, both the idle knife and the one that was negatively critical of the process that led to the killing of the animal. The All Progressives Congress (APC) has successfully midwifed the presidency of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and all manner of prongs are being brought forward for the dissection of the elephantine meat that is the proceeds of the sweats of the zones of Nigeria. In this contest and melee for the meat of the elephant, every one of the buccaneers whose knives are poised on the ready for the sharing of the huge meat needs to learn the basic rules which, in all civil gatherings, should inform or be the basis for the sharing of the meaty spoils, in this case, the presidency of Asiwaju Tinubu.

No sooner had the reality of the Tinubu presidency come to maturation than these buccaneers started to dissect the meat. One of the chunky meats that is ripe for butchering is the meat of the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. As we speak, many zones have been in a stampede for it. They come with all manner of rationalisation, rational and sub-rational, and even laughable, on why their zones should be the one to grab the position. Aside from this seat, the jostling for other positions has been frenetic and quite very hot too.

However, in this piece, this writer wants to advance very logical, faultless, and suave arguments on why Oyo state, the seat of the old Western Region and one of the most supportive states for the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu presidency, should be the entitled state to own that position. The arguments are persuasive and are a product of well-thought-out and lucid logical reasoning.

Let us begin from the holistic zone of the southwest. That zone is not only committed to the Tinubu ideal, but it also delivered massive votes for Asiwaju Tinubu in the last presidential election. Indeed, the second largest number of votes in all the six geo-political zones in the country was delivered by the southwest. You will recall that, during the electioneering process, there was feisty fear that the southwest, judging by the number of nay-sayers that had populated the political landscape in that part of the country, might replicate the Olusegun Obasanjo unenviable record where the ex-president’s own geographic zone failed to elect him in the 1999 presidential election. Though it eventually does not have any political or legal impact once the candidate is elected by the other parts of Nigeria, the fact that the candidate’s people fail or refrain from electing them is a huge moral burden that they need to discharge. This was the moral burden that Obasanjo carried and which, during his second term, he fought strenuously to take off his shoulders. It was thus with huge apprehension that lovers and believers in the Asiwaju Tinubu candidacy went into the process, however believing strongly that their own people would see reason in his presidency and thus massively vote for him.

Immediately the electioneering process began, the southwest literally took a deep journey into herself and roused up its electorate, spreading the gospel that if Tinubu won the rest of Nigeria without the votes of his own people, the southwest would have stamped in history an unenviable and indeed shameful political pedigree. Out of the love it had for its own son, the southwest heeded that call and voted massively for the man who is today Nigeria’s president-elect. Thus, in the mix of the victory for Asiwaju Tinubu, we must not let go of the fact that the southwest rose from the ashes of probable defeat by the forces of darkness and stood stoutly in the defense of its own son.

Having drawn a larger picture of the southwest of Nigeria, there is also the need to extrapolate this win of the Tinubu presidency and localise and indeed locate it within the vortex of the actions that took place in the election. Let us begin from the South West as a zone. That zone delivered massive votes for Asiwaju and indeed, delivered the second-largest number of votes in all the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Now, coming to Oyo state, that state, in the election under reference, delivered the biggest margin of votes in the southwest. Since figures don’t lie, it will be interesting to double down on the strides that Oyo state made in that election.

For instance, while Ekiti delivered the sum of 201,494 votes for President-elect Bola Tinubu and had a difference of 111,940 between its votes for Tinubu and Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar; Osun state had 343,945 for the APC and 354,366 for the combine of PDP and LP, with a difference of minus 10,421. Ondo state had 369,924 votes for Tinubu, 115,463 for both PDP/LP, and a difference of 254,461. Ogun had 341,554 for Tinubu, with 341,554 for both opposition parties, and is left with a difference of 123,831, while Lagos, the home state of the president-elect, got him 572,606 but with a figure of 582,454 for the opposition, with a difference of minus 9,848. Oyo state, on the converse, posted 449,884 and 182,977 for both LP and PDP, with a difference of 266,907.

I went into the above to be able to say that the support and commitment of the people of Oyo state for the Tinubu presidency was not just a fluke but a meticulously articulated one. However, when it now comes to the harvest of the sweats of the various actors’ energies, various persons have been seeking to jab the state and make sure that it does not reap the sweats of its labour.

Apart from its strides in the election, Oyo state is cast for the role of the deputy speakership of the House of Representatives for many other reasons. The reasons are here stated. One is that, Oyo as a state has never had the privilege of producing a presiding officer in the national assembly. This is a fact that can be cross-checked. The second information that would be necessary for the consideration of where this position should go is that Oyo state is also the only State in the Ssis ancient state polled for our dear president-elect.

More significant is that as frenetic as its efforts were in the last elections, Oyo state does not have an APC sitting governor. This seems to be a drawback for a state that used to be the seat of progressive government in Nigeria. For this same state to now add this very debilitating political trauma to that of never having the privilege to produce a presiding officer in the NASS, and specifically, the only state in the southwest without any significant major federal position despite the numbers they poll, is a triple political tragedy. When the issue of the votes polled by Oyo State comes for review, this should be taken against the backdrop that Oyo also delivered the biggest margin in the South West, despite the fact that it didn’t have a sitting governor.

What all these translate to mean is that, with the victory of the PDP in Oyo state for a second term running, the APC in the state will not have a sitting governor for eight years, no NASS position and will be a political orphan among states of reckoning, in spite of its massive contributions to the political joy that the APC relishes today. What is worse is that, at the national working Committee level of the party, Oyo state has no single representative. Though the position was zoned to Oyo, Osun supplanted the state of it. No one needs to tell anyone that Oyo state deserves something huge to stabilise the zone politically and also attract development.

There is no doubt that the Asiwaju presidency is founded on equity and justice. These are the two referents upon which the proposed presidency is based. With all the arguments above on the centrality of Oyo State, these should bother everyone. The bothers are that the state is about to be marginalized once again in the sharing of the spoils of office and the product of the sweat of the people. With this at the back of their minds, the president-elect and all the persons in charge of the sharing of offices for all the positions available should take cognizance of this pedigree, the troubles taken in the elections by Oyo state, and the justice and equity that are involved in ensuring that the needful is done

The southwest is key in this election. The most central of APC states, Oyo is located in an even more central position. All efforts must be geared towards ensuring that the Asiwaju government that will begin soonest does not start on a keel of disregarding this goose that laid the golden egg. The time to ensure that Oyo State gets the position of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives is now.

Repete is the former Deputy National Youth Leader of the APC