ENGR DR TAOFEEK OLAYINKA AYINDE – DR LEE, “OLOKOOBI” is an aspirant in the forthcoming Osun 2018 Gubernatorial election under the platform of All Progressives Congress.
Matters Arising from interactions and consultations with party (APC) members and leaders across the State of Osun.
Godfatherism, Zoning and Imposition are all political languages with diverse interpretation to every individuals as there is nothing of such in the real sense or in our constitution, from wherever we stand to look at it is what gives us various variations of our derived meanings and interpretations to these political terminologies.
GODFATHER
According to Webster dictionary a godfather is any man who serves as sponsor for a child at baptism.
From this definition, I do not believe any of us either from the political sphere or the social environment is free from this. Your father or mother could be your Godfather, anybody who is interested in your personal developments in life could be ascribed as one.
Those we call godfathers today are those I refer to as STAKEHOLDERS, without a group of stakeholders in politics, private /public businesses, even in our immediate families our day to day activities will be nothing but a fallacy.
Remember all past governors, political office holders both past and present and even the large masses are all stakeholders, though with diverse interests and intentions on the aspirants at their disposal. The interests and intentions could be positive or negative, beneficial or harmful, associative or dissociative depending on the attitude and behavioral patterns of the so called Godfather(s) which I called Stakeholders.
The question now should be….. What are the interests and the underneath intentions of our stakeholders?
If their interests are positive and beneficial to the people and our environment then why shouldn’t we crave to have them?
IMPOSITION
Imposition is an act we can never erase from our polity because in as much as only a candidate or an opinion must emerge among others then whatever action taken is an act of “Imposition” either from the party on the people or from the people on the party. Even democracy is a perfect act of imposing the decision of the majority on the minority, that’s why the balancing act in a democracy is majority having their way and the minority having their says.
In reality, all stakeholders including the general public has varied interests and they will try everything possible within their power and reach to make their interests overrule others.
Let me take us back in time when the old AD, AC, or ACN used to do primary election through party apex leaders’ interview with deep consultations. Among the interviewers and stakeholders there were different interests at their disposal but at the end they harmonised interests to bring out a candidate to be the flag bearer of the party, and as progressives we are duty and culture bound to accept our stakeholders choice for the benefit and progress of the party. On this, aggrieved party members shouted foul and murmured IMPOSITION because oftentimes our leaders had abused the privileges and the party even been subjected into losing elections. Thank God for today, all that has been a thing of the past, APC has grown with the culture of conducting primary elections this time around. Even if it is for a sole candidate whenever there’s a consensus on who and where a candidate must emerged.
ZONING
Zoning is another political term and language in our polity that is not characterized by our provided constitution. Since election is mostly about winning and not mere participation, stakeholders must always meet to strategize about winning, there must be a winning formula and zoning has become one of the formula over the years.
Our experience with Governorship aspiration in Osun didn’t start with zoning, but over the years zoning naturally evolved to the extent that a layman would know that there is a naturally imposed order of zoning on us either geographical or demographical.
Let me state clear that zoning is just a tolerable induction to politics today. The pattern of occurrences of Governors in Osun has clearly shown that it all started from a zone (Ede), Osun West, through a zone (Ila), Osun Central, to another zone (Ilesa), Osun East. And this happened naturally and wasn’t originally based on zoning. It’s now based on this natural occurrences that majority of party elders and leaders now realized that if a party must sell this time around then the market must be in another zone (Iwo), Osun West. After which Osogbo (Osun Central) and Ife (Osun East) zones would also take their turns naturally and respectively.
This calculations has even become the demands of teaming observers and citizens from all zones who believe that equality should and must be encouraged.
Naturally, a pattern has emerged from this precedence laid in the emergence of Governors, which must not be overlooked or downplayed.
So it is also from this premises that we the Osun westerners are laying claim to benefit from this natural occurrence as being imposed on us, especially those of us from Iwoland as we had suffered more than others.
The challenges therefore for our party members and leaders are not to look down on any Aspirants from all zones across the State but rigorously pursue the emergence party flag bearer from among the best from Iwo zone.
ENGR DR TAOFEEK OLAYINKA AYINDE – DR LEE, “OLOKOOBI ”
Osun 2018 Gubernatorial Aspirant.
