By Oluwole Leigh
On the 12th of April, 2003, the National Assembly elections held throughout Nigeria. The ruling party (PDP) produced the Governors in 21 states while ANPP (All Nigeria People’s Party) and AD (Alliance for Democracy) produced 9 and 6 Governors respectively. The South Western states wereunder the leadership of the Alliance for Democracy. The results of the April 12th Election sent shockwaves throughout the party. AD lost most of their seats in the National Assembly to PDP. They had a disastrous outing in five out of Six states. On the 19th of April 2003, five out of six AD Governors lost their re-election bid. Shortly after the April 19 results were announced, Gov. Lam Adesina realized that he had a little over a month left in the Oyo state government house. He was shocked by the groundswell of public support shown for the PDP Candidate in his state. He thought of his place in history and concluded that there was no assurance that Oyo indigenes would remember him for good. It dawned on him that his successor would erase any good memories associated with his tenure when he left power. He decided that he had to leave a lasting legacy. The idea of erecting a statue to honor Obafemi Awolowo was brought up and quickly approved by him. The statue was placed at the Remembrance Arcade in front of the Governor’s house. The Remembrance arcade used to hold a statue of ‘The Unknown Soldier’ which was put in place by a past Military Administrator. This statue had been removed shortly after Lam Adesina’s tenure as Governor began. Thus the empty space was filled by a bust of the revered sage.
There was a reason for the rush to immortalize Awolowo. Awolowo was a figure who towered above others in the political history of the South Western part of Nigeria. Lam Adesina’s party had claimed to be a re-incarnation of Awolowo’s party – Action Group. No campaign was complete without the mention of his name. Lam concluded that the act of erecting a statue in honor of a revered figure would compensate for the shameful outing of his party at the elections. He hoped that this act would be remembered in the future by the people of Oyo state and looked on favorably. Lam Adesina was sworn in on the 29th of May 1999 but did not deem it fit to honor Awolowo until his party lost the elections in April 2003. They found a builder who hurriedly put up Awolowo’s statue before Lam departed.
Eleven years down the line, the concept of Awolowo’s statue seems to have been revived by Governors in the APC (All Progressives Congress) as a result of the loss of the Governorship election in Ekiti state. Kayode Fayemi was expected by a lot of neutral observers to win the election. However, the reverse was the case as the PDP candidate won the election, shocking many. Scores of articles have been written about that election, and ’emergency analysts’ have sprung up with the sole aim of explaining the results of the Ekiti governorship election. It is interesting to note that the leadership of the APC has been acting confused since those elections were lost. The Governor immediately congratulated his opponent and indicated his willingness to move back into private life at the end of the tenure. However, some elements in the party have decided to challenge the results at the Tribunal. The intransigence on the part of the National leadership has led to panic among the Governors representing the party. Concessions and compromises which seemed impossible to obtain are currently being doled out by the Governors.
On November 30, 2013, SERAP (Social Economic Right Accountability Project) sent a Freedom of Information request to the Lagos state government, demanding details of expenditure related to education. They wanted the state government to give a public account of how they spent the $90 million loan received from the World Bank. This amount was supposed to have been used by the Lagos State Government to upgrade facilities in Secondary schools over the last five years. Their demands were not complied with. Shortly after, SERAP took Lagos state to court seeking an order compelling the government to disclosethis information. The response of the Lagos State Government was quite shocking – ‘The public records of Lagos State Government are generated and kept by various Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Personnel of the State Government in execution of their functions and responsibility in the service of the state. Such State Government Agencies and Personnel are statutorily created or regulated by laws of the State House of Assembly and the handling of public records has serious security implications which are routinely handled by rules established by the State Government’.
Lagos state government and ACN/APC had been at the forefront of the call for the passing of the FOI Bill by the Federal Government. Their representatives at the Federal legislature made a big song and dance about the need for the bill. Strangely, a few years down the line, Lagos state government discovered that there were security implications related to releasing public accounts of expenditure. The case remained in court, with both sides holding on to their views. On June 23, 2014 (2 days after the Ekiti election loss), Lagos state government released the requested information to the public. A speech read by a Special Adviser to the Governor stated that ‘Some people have made unsubstantiated allegations against us that we have stolen World Bank money, but in this government, our collateral is our collective integrity. We have nothing to hide.’
Apparently, the Parable of Awolowo’s statue did not end with the SERAP case. Gov. Fashola, who had not offered much in terms of public opinion in the last few years found his voice. He has written public letters, contributed to public discourse and accused the opposition of insincerity in the last one month. The ‘See no evil, Hear no evil, All of you are dumb and we know more than you’ government in Lagos state is now coming to terms with its own political mortality.
The Parable of Awolowo’s statue has also come alive in Osun State. Governor Rauf Aregbesola aka Oranmiyan is currently reaching out to stakeholders across the state. A few months ago, he was at loggerheads with a section of the Christian population in the state. His educational reforms programme had led him to merge Osogbo Baptist Girls School with Fakunle Comprehensive High School. The merging of schools was also extended to other Baptist schools in Osun State. Even though most of the missionary schools had been taken over by the state government, some of these schools maintaineda close association with their founding religious denominations, sometimes using school facilities for their events and providing assistance to the schools. Aregbesola’s reforms meant that the schools were going to lose the little part of the denominational identity they had left. Thus, religious denominations that were hoping to reclaim these schools from the government would have nothing to reclaim. Adults who graduated from these schools many years before would have their alma mater subsumed under a new school name. Baptists took to the streets and demanded that the merger be cancelled. Gov. Aregbesola stuck to his guns and said that the schools were the property of the Government. Riots and demonstrations were carried out by the students of these schools. A little humility on the part of Gov. Aregbesola would have made him realise that these religious issues were avoidable. They should have been nipped in the bud by conducting extensive consultations before implementing them in an election year. A fallout of the recently held elections in Ekiti has seen the softening of Aregbesola’s tone. Overtures are being made to members of the Christian faith by his party members. They are currently being reminded of his good works and how he has stood for freedom and justice .Apart from these overtures, all sorts of last minute concessions are being made to friends and foes in order to secure re-election. It remains to be seen if Aregbesola’s version of Awolowo’s statue will work for him at the Governorship elections in August.
Ogun state was not left out of the task of erecting Awolowo’s statue. Governor Ibikunle Amosun called a reconciliatory meeting with the workers a few days after the Ekiti elections. Among other things, he announced car and housing loans, a 27.5% peculiar allowance for teachers as well as payment of outstanding allowances. He even went as far as promising to employ their children into the Civil Service. The problem with these ‘announcements’ is that they seem not to be well thought out. According to various reports, workers in Ogun state were being owed salaries and allowances before the Ekiti election. A government that could hardly perform its obligations to those it employed is now promising to employ more.
The toga of invisibility around APC Governors seems to be falling. The APC Narrative is beginning to fall on deaf ears. The maxim states that “He who comes into equity must come with clean hands’. The demands that APC is making of the PDP are the same demands that the electorate is making of APC. The statue that was built by Governor Lam Adesina stood for a short period. It was allegedly brought down on the 29th of May, 2003 by thugs linked to the Generalissimo of Ibadan Politics – Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu. Lam Adesina’s late tribute to the memory of Awolowo did not last beyond that day. It is hard to predict how long the statues being built in 2014 will last.
