Melaye, Olafemi: Betrayal and Opportunism in Kogi

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Neither Dino Melaye (Sen– Kogi West) nor Clarence Olafemi, former Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly and acting governor, represents the integrity, character and future of the Okun Yoruba people of Kogi State. But in one way or the other, especially when they indulge their permissive ways, they make news and the media are bound to report them. Early this week, as part of their ambivalent responses to the Kogi electoral conundrum, both Senator Melaye and Hon. Olafemi got together a group of like-minded politicians they claimed numbered some 48 and announced they had become public and unabashed turncoats and are thus shifting allegiances to Governor-elect Yahaya Bello. They had become converts to the doctrine of party supremacy, they said, almost facetiously.

Mr. Bello, previously an All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant, had been promoted by his party to candidacy when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) mysteriously and mischievously declared the November 21 governorship election inconclusive. Former governor Abubakar Audu and his running mate Abiodun Faleke were coasting home to victory when out of the blue, and citing a corollary of the electoral law, the electoral umpire declared the election stalemated. At the point the declaration was made, and as the supplementary election would confirm, the election was already won and lost, and well beyond dispute. Mr. Belllo had earlier lost the primary, sulked badly in childish petulance, and surreptitiously worked for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the poll. His promotion to candidacy instead of elevating Hon. Faleke to the stool of Prince Audu produced the conundrum which the APC and other party and political do-gooders exploited to create the moral dilemma afflicting the state.

Since the election, the governor-elect has been working tirelessly to pressure many Kogi political leaders to leap into his bandwagon. He especially singled out Okun Yoruba leaders to work his sorcery, believing that if they rallied to his side, it would undermine the tenacity and enthusiasm of Hon. Faleke. Should Hon. Faleke, who despite his protestation both INEC and the APC insisted remained on the ballot as Mr. Bello’s running mate, relent, the governor-elect believed his position would be strengthened, and the moral dilemma and electoral conundrum dissipated. While Hon. Faleke himself has remained resolute, and leading Okun leaders and elders still support him, a few like Sen. Melaye and Mr. Olafemi have succumbed to pressure. It was not surprising that the two public Okun personalities bowed to pressure, given their antecedents and Machiavellian way of life, and their unverified claim to have some 48 other unknown Okun elders on their side.

In 2008, when Governor Ibrahim Idris’ reelection was annulled, Mr. Olafemi was sworn in as acting governor. He held that office for about 60 frenetic days, and in the process showed such unexampled loyalty to Alhaji Idris that it was difficult differentiating it from  servility. Asked what he felt about being made acting governor and whether he wouldn’t consider it appropriate to exploit his new status, he said he saw himself only as holding the fort for the deposed governor, whom he was certain would return as governor. The deposed governor had nothing to fear, he cooed, for everyone, including himself, would work for Alhaji Idris’ victory. It did not occur to Mr. Olafemi that if an election could be annulled, it was also possible that the opposition could produce a victor. But Mr. Olafemi whined, and sighed, and cooed, and composed panegyrics for the indifferent and condescending Alhaji Idris.

Mr. Olafemi’s servility, however, stood, and still stands, in striking contradistinction to the psychological constitution of the Okun people and their worldview. Okun people owe no one apology for who they are, and how they had over the decades displayed self-assurance and independence. Their sense of justice is reputed to be quite remarkable, while relationship with their superiors and inferiors is guided by sound moral principles that cannot be compared or confused with servility. Mr. Olafemi, a first class mathematician and computer scientist surely had the intellect to undergird and nurture those lofty principles the Okun people had ennobled over the centuries. If he chose not to, it is strictly his own choice, not a reflection of the Okun people. Indeed, it is the misconception of the Okun people as malleable, as exhibited by the likes of Mr. Olafemi, that is at the bottom of the injustice meted out to them by the APC and other bodies like INEC and the Attorney-General’s office.

 

Sen. Melaye on the other hand is not a first class brain like Mr. Olafemi. But he more than makes up for his obvious intellectual shortcomings with a natural vehemence and uncanny wiliness that are hard to replicate even in satire.

Thuggish, brutish and unprincipled, he however speaks very fluently, though on the kind of gibberish and hooey that people of his class are conversant with and wallow in. He sees nothing wrong offering his services and lending his beefy weight to ignoble causes. When the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) hauled in the wife of the senate president, Toyin Saraki, for interrogation, he accompanied her, and even gave a rousing speech on behalf of other misadvised legislators to justify their errantry. He fights at the drop of a hat, and will not bat an eyelid to calmly offer the most dubious but persuasive explanations on both sides of a subject.

The Kogi West senator, who replaced the controversial but cultured Smart Adeyemi in the upper chamber in June, campaigned on the side of Prince Audu for the election of President Muhammadu Buhari. Soon after, he parted ways with the late politician and then threw in his lot with Senate President Bukola Saraki who was beginning to fight his own disreputable battles in the Senate. Unlike Mr. Olafemi who belittles his intellectual accomplishments to subscribe to ideas and notions at variance with and inversely proportional to his talents and potentials, Sen. Melaye contradistinctively exaggerates his puny gifts to embrace causes and opinions that clearly negate and refute his worldview.

Both Sen. Melaye and Mr. Olafemi have become turncoats over the Kogi stalemate for different reasons. Yes, they are united by their private ambitions, but both proceed from different backgrounds and are manifestly unprincipled. In fact, their equal lack of character betrays them into actions and statements that are opportunistic and dishonest. Soon after the APC began talking of substituting the late Audu with someone else other than Hon. Faleke, Mr.Olafemi, whose ambition to be either governor or deputy has remained unquenched, launched a fierce lobby to run with whichever devil the party may anoint. By ditching Hon. Faleke and embracing Mr. Bello days after the contrived stalemate, what mattered to Mr. Olafemi was not the interest of the Okun people, whom he noisily claimed to advance and protect, but his own private ambition for which he was unafraid to fritter the little integrity and sensibleness he had left.

In the case of the more intemperate Sen. Melaye, his consuming passion is to become the governor of Kogi State one day. Should Hon. Faleke mount the throne now, the rambunctious senator would be out of the reckoning perhaps for the rest of his productive years. For him, a bird in the bush is more than a million in hand. It of course matters little to the senator that he is unelectable, or that he does not absolutely have the qualification to mount the stool despite the fact that far inferior people like Alhaji Idris and the present governor, Idris Wada, have occupied the position without merit of any kind.

All things considered, the Okun people at home and outside are sensitive to the historic nature of the interplay of forces in Kogi State. More, they are sensitive to the implication of not fighting for what should be theirs, consequent upon the tragedy that befell Prince Audu. They understand the poignant messages the events that accompanied the tragedy are sending, and they are acutely aware of the politics and subterranean actions playing out in the state. They know that what is happening now will reverberate far into the future, and affect coming generations of Okun people. They are shocked that the fairly intellectual Mr. Olafemi can’t seem to understand the background and logic of the political stalemate. But they expect nothing noble from the senator who imposed himself on them. Whatever the ruffian Sen. Melaye does and the tactless Mr. Olafemi plots, the majority  of Okun people are unlikely to shirk the historic fight thrust on them by posterity, or betray their son, Hon. Faleke, who has embodied the spirit, struggles and pride of the long-suffering people of Kogi West senatorial district.

Credits: The Nation


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