In what was a modern-day power tussle like no other, Rotimi Akeredolu, the ailing Ondo State Governor clung on to life and power by the skin of his teeth for so long in his state while his deputy, Lucky Aiyedetiwa waited in his place, ready to pounce. Behind both men were camps awash with expectation, each desperate to consolidate power.
Akeredolu may now be back in Germany for further treatment, but the intrigues at home continue with rabid ferocity.
It bespeaks the many hiccups inherent in Nigeria’s democracy and constitution that there are always loopholes to be exploited by those who are all they are because of the law, but would readily thumb their nose at its operation when it is convenient to them.
Like grass trampled by a tangle of two elephants, it is the good people of Ondo State that are at the receiving end of what is at once a constitutional and moral crisis.
The Ondo State House of Assembly, far from being independent has also finagled a fine film of the farce which threatens to deface the sunshine state.
Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Nigeria Bar Association Chairman – a very vocal one at that, has been ailing. Months spent in Germany brought only little respite. Upon his return to the country when his German convalescence became unsustainable as a result of the convulsive convolutions of power in his state, he relocated to Ibadan where he continued to receive treatment.
The ambitions of his deputy, Aiyedetiwa were for so long unclear as he was wedged between the rock of loyalty to his boss and the hard place of loyalty to the constitution and the good people of the state.
Aiyedetiwa was not helped by the vicious whispering campaigns of political jobbers and professional politicians within the state that are bent on sowing discord.
But the question that begged for an answer in the interest of Ondo people who watched governance ground to a halt in the state was whether the man they elected for the second time in 2019 was still fit to govern them.
If he wasn’t because illness, so familiar with human nature, had taken its toll on him, there were unmistakable calls for him to step aside.
It was not about making enemies of those calling for this or casting them as power desperadoes, it was about the rule of law and the iron finality which it must always apply to situations when man-made confusion seeks to becloud the certainty of the law.
Akeredolu, often so vocal on matters of national importance, left the country for further medical treatment after transmitting power to Aiyedetiwa but not before showing that he too was infected with that peculiarly Nigerian disease of saying one thing and doing another.
The saga whichh threatened to becloud the sunshine state begged the question of the commitment of those who occupy public office at any level in Nigeria. Who are they really sworn to serve? Themselves or their pockets? Their states or their families?
If the law is clear, then it should be especially clear to those who occupy positions of authority in the country. When the law is clear, there should be no hiding place for those whose stock-in-trade is obfuscation and confusion.
In a country where transparency and accountability are alien to the corridors of power, Nigerian politicians have perfected the art of playing which card, and when., Why did a Governor who was clearly ailing and unable to perform his duties as governor hold on to the reins of power so stubbornly in a country where it is known to exhaust even the strong?
The Ondo shambles also showed just how much state legislatures have lost their relevance. Nigeria’s beggar- and-benefactors’ brand of politics makes it such that Nigerian governors usually have state legislators in their pockets.
Once this bread and butter relationship is entrenched, whatever the executive does is not only good, but the governor is blameless at all times.
The first family of the state was also dragged into what was an unsavory situation.
There were also the opportunists who continued to circle like vultures, picking at situation as if it were a carcass.
While it is African to sympathize with and nurse the ill, it is not African but profoundly and profusely selfish to let one man’s illness grind governance to a halt.
Nigerian politicians must again heed the understated lessons of the transience of power, the reckoning of posterity, and the latent power of legacy.
Until they do, they will continue to wander in the blind alleys of impunity and infamy.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
