Oshiomhole: The Imminent Fall Of The Headmaster

By Comfort Obi

Until Adams Oshiomhole, a two-time Governor of Edo State plunged  into politics, he was nobody’s idea of a politician. Excessively blunt and garrulous people don’t make good politicians. Politics requires a little diplomacy. And by every stretch of imagination, Oshiomhole is not diplomatic.

He was a labour leader, and rose to become the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress. And was more identified by his trademark badly sewn, ill- fitted, khaki safari suit. But more important, he was seen as a fighter for the oppressed, Nigerian workers in particular.

When, he moved, Nigerian workers moved. His oratorical skill was superb. When he spoke, he inspired, and energised the workers.

Then he plunged into politics.

Nobody gave him a chance. But his exploits as a Labour leader became an advantage. A number of people felt that, well, let the man fight for us from inside. In government, let him practice what he always preached as a unionist.

So, when he became a governor, hopes were high. It is not the business of this writer to assess his tenure – whether he did well or not. The jury is still out.

But soon, Oshiomhole found out that there is a world of difference between unionism and governorship. He found out that a number of  things he condemned at the top of his voice, and protested against, he could no longer do. As a governor, he found himself doing exactly what the things he protested against.

When the President Muhammadu Buhari increased the price of fuel, Oshiomhole was deaf and dumb. As a governor, he sackef workers. He was publicly humiliating teachers. He pulked down market stalls for blocking the streets. He was demolishing houses for blocking drainages. He was chasing street traders.

At least, one of his encounters with street traders was very scandalous and, showed the real Oshiomhole.

On an inspection to a market, Governor Oshiomhole encountered a woman selling her wares – foodstuff or something like that. She could not afford a shop  and, so,  displayed her wares where she shouldn’t have. In seeing her, Oshiomhole’s anger boiled to high heavens.  He ordered his aides to confiscate and destroy  her  wares.

Helpless, desperate and  without any hope of how to feed her children, the woman knelt down, and told Oshiomhole her sad story.  She is a widow. Her husband  had just died. She needed to feed her children, she told him. In a reaction  that left not a few people shocked, and in tears, Oshiomhole asked the woman to go and die (like her husband).

He was forced to humble himself and apologise to the woman, over breakfast at the govenment house when criticism against him boiled over.

Politics exposed his other side. And a few things became quite obvious. Oshiomhole is impatient. He is temperamental. He has no polish when he talks. He is not a team player. He is, they say, dictatorial. On quite a number of times, he would speak without thinking.

In deed, it is because of these alleged characterisation of the National Chairman that not a few people insist that: “He is not our idea of a party National Chairman.

But quite a number of people, also, felt he would be a good successor to the gentle and polished former Chairman, John Odigie -Oyegun. With Oshiomhole’s “gra-gra,” they felt, people would fall in line. That has not happened. The opposite seems to be the case.

A number of things seem to be falling apart. A number of his party men and women say he has become a basket case. They say he is alienating members. They say his leadership of the party is zero. They say he is intolerant. They say he has cost them losses.  They cite Zamfara and Rivers states  as example. The party was disqualified from fielding any candidates in the 2019 General elections in those states. They hold him responsible for the initial loss of Imo State to the PDP. They also hold him responsible for the loss of Oyo state. And they hold him responsible for the recent loss of Bayelsa state. They say he interfered in the processes that led to the picking of candidates.\

They cite examples where his choice of words dressed the party in stained robes.

During the 2019 governorship campaigns, he came to Imo, and took to the cleaners, Rochas Okorocha, the then, sitting APC Governor. To the excitement of most Imo people, who truly had become extremely tired of anything Okorocha, Oshiomhole apologised to them for inflicting the Governor on them. He asked God for forgiveness over Okorocha’s governorship.

Good as his outburst was for Imolites, and suited their mood, at sober times, they also say Oshiomhole went overboard.

It was also Okorocha who dressed his party in dirty robes when he publicly told politicians, afraid of being probed, that: “Once you come over to the APC, your sins are forgiven”.

Now, Nigerians can point to a couple of politicians, and say: “Oshiomhole was right.”

His most recent reaction to the Supreme Court verdict which stopped the swearing-in of APC’s David Lyon as the Governor of Bayelsa state, over the discrepancies in the educational certificates of his deputy, was most telling, and exposed Oshiomhole for what he is: Garrulous and, atimes, lawless.

He had thundered :”Nobody will be sworn-in as the Governor of Bayelsa state. There will be no governor in Bayelsa.”

The strong feeling and obvious conclusion is that it was Oshiomhole’s unbecoming outburst that was responsible for the scandalous and unprecedented siege, by paid protesters, on the residence of  the Hon. Justice Mary Peter-Odili, JSC, over the Bayelsa judgement. He was not sorry for that. He never condemned it. And never spoke on it until after days.

In more civilized climes, that outburst would have been the end of his adventure into politics. But, well, the end seems to be coming fast, surprisingly from his own backyard.

Oshiomhole’s problems began gradually from his home state, Edo. A two-time governor, he stepped on toes to install   his successor, Godwin Obaseki. But after the initial chummy relationship, both men gradually, but surely fail apart. It is easy to say that is the norm in Nigeria – ex-governors falling out with their successors – but given who one thought was Oshiomhole, nobody thought he could ever have a sour relationship with his successor.

Here are why.

He preached against political godfatherism. He boasted, many times, that he had banished it from Edo. He taunted and ridiculed late Chief Anthony Anenih no end over godfatherism. And, he made a song and a dance out of his defeat of the old man and godfatherism.

Now, suddenly, out of office, Oshiomhole wants to play the godfather. That is, allegedly, the crux of the problem  between him and Obaseki. He allegedly wants to be the Bola Tinubu of Edo State. He wants to be the Alpha and Omega in Edo State. They say he, allegedly, wants Edo’s patrimony shared out every month.

But Oshiomhole vehemently denies all the allegations, and insists all he ever wanted in Edo state was good governance, the execution and/or completion of projects.

One of the projects he wants completed is a would-have-been high profile hospital in Benin city which, with fanfare, he got President Muhammadu Buhari to commission in the twilight of his (Oshiomhole’s) administration.

The question that is now being asked is: If Oshiomhole completed the hospital, and commissioned it, why does he want it completed?

However, those who know say Oshiomhole completed no hospital. That he, allegedly, deceived the President into commissioning an uncompleted project.  That he dressed the hospital in borrowed robes and deceived Mr President. And, that as soon as the commissioning was over, all borrowed equipments, including beds, were returned to the hospitals from they were borrowed. And that the billions of Naira, allegedly, spent on the hospital simply went down a wrong drain.

Now, the chicken has come home to roost. The hospital project has become a subject of probe by the Obaseki administration.It’s outcome,  it is being speculated, promises to be the mother of all scandals.

And the face-off between Oshiomhole and Obaseki degenerates everyday. It has not only torn apart the APC in the state, but also at the national level.

Obaseki, obviously, has the upper hand. In Edo, Oshiomhole’s influence has shrunk to nothing, almost. He is, almost a persona non grata in the state. He has been suspended by the APC in Edo State from the ward to the state level. These days, when he visits Edo, he is either booed and/or gets attacked. He had lost on many fronts. And seems to have no hiding place.

This other day, an FCT High Court, asked him to stand down as the National Chairman of the APC until the substantial suit instituted, challenging his chairmanship of the party is decided.

He ran to another court in Kano to get a stay of action order against the previous order. But it has brought him no relief, no breather, no succour.

Sadly, Oshiomhole is walking a long, lonely path. His enemies are many, and strong, and influential. He commands no sympathy from many.

How did a man, who as the National Chairman of the ruling, was one of the most influential politicians in Nigeria fall to this level where he gets booed  even in his backyard?

Some people say it is the law of karma.

His foul-mouthedness has not helped him either. Nor has his alleged high handedness done him any good.

Not a few people dismiss him as tyrannical and dictatorial. And, all their fangs are out and waiting. The vultures impatiently await.

They say he is an ungrateful human being. They say he pays back good with evil. A couple of those that helped him, they say, he stabs at the back. They point at both former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. They say both men helped make him what he is today. But, at one point or the other, he has called for their arrest, interrogation and prosecution

Within the APC NWC and NEC he has little or no sympathy.  Most of the members want him out as the APC Chairman. And so does more than half of the party’s Ministers, Governors, and National Assembly members. Even the Director General of the APC Governors’ Forum wants him out. They are shopping for his successor.

He is not even sure of where the President stands. He said so after a meeting with the President. “I’m not sure of the President’s stand”, he quipped, after a meeting with him.

His backbone, is, they say, Tinubu, the man on whose back he rose to the Chairmanship. He is counting on him for a miraculous survival. But not a few people think that when it comes to push, Tinubu, the Jagaban, will play the game of self-preservation.

Oshiomhole’s friends are now few.  And so are his defenders. He knows. This other day, after the FCT High Court asked him to step outside,  he asked Reporters, “Are you looking at me with pity?”

He is correct.

Many are looking at him with pity.

And they are asking: How did a man, who rose to office in a blaze of glory, reduce himself to this level of pity?

The answer they chorus is simple: The man, Adams Oshiomhole, is self destructive. The cane has been snatched out of the Headmaster’s hands, and he may be whipped by it.