In the first serial, the passage stopped at the introduction of LOCO into the House of Assembly race as the Candidate of de-jure leader of the party. And quite manifestly as the book reveals, the White House appears so uncomfortable about it. So, how does it go with the originating motion of that subject brought to the House by Arole? Let’s continue reading.
DID HON KEHINDE JOSEPH BETRAY ANYBODY? THIS QUESTION AROSE AND CONTINUE TO RAGE FROM THE POLITICAL NEW ORDER THAT CAME TO EXPEDIENCY BEFORE AND AFTER THE 2025 LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS. FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE LEGISLATOR OF THE YEAR 2025 ADDRESSES THIS QUESTION. YOU CAN ONLY GET THE ANSWER IN THIS SUPPLEMENTARY EDITION. GET YOUR COPY ON OUTING!
“But could it be out of place for her to now push for a personal interest after all the years she has been the sponsor of others not related in blood to her?” I queried while taking exception to their wrong use of the word 'selfish' for her.
“Who and who has she sponsored?” Monsuru asked.
“As a matter of fact”, I continued mindless of the honourable’s poser, “I should not be wrong to see it as a mark of ungratefulness on the part of you people too if you cannot support her interest now, given the woman's investment that had been committed into this struggle so far.
“Which struggle has she committed to?” Arole asked in lead of few others in concurrence.
“Na today?” I threw it back to them.
“Na today be what?” he queried back.
“I mean did this struggle start today? This struggle started way back since 2004! And besides, would it be a bad idea for you people to prevail on MD to step down, at least in honour for her, if your fear is for your group to present one candidate?”
“You are not a politician, my friend!” Arole charged at me.
“When will I be a politician? When I learn to make fact equal to falsehood?”
“We don't need to make noise about all this. LOCO's chance is deem. _E ma je ka tan'ra wa je_ – let us not deceive ourselves”, Monsuru said with convincing gesture of beating the table with his perm.
“That is if they will have a level playing ground”, Singapore added.
“Ah! No ooh! They will have that!” Oga interjected. “I can assure you that! There will be primary elections”. This contribution magically closed the subject.
Thus Mama being the only political bigwig behind Lukmon Orelope's aspiration. Given any expediency of the House to decide the election outcome, as the representative view of a large number of others outside the Egbeda corridor, LOCO stood no chance. One would think that to be more out of the sentimental reason that he was to ride on the back of her sister’s political goodwill. But reality would see it as the truth to a degree.
Curiously, there had never being an era in the history of Lagos progressives when leaders across the state had ever thrust their sons and daughters into positions of authority in succession prospect than this dispensation that started with the 2021 local government elections. One could only wonder why it would become a wrongdoing, as many strongly held even beyond the House, for Joke Orelope to put forward her own sibling too in Alimosho. But it was to soon be clear that their reading of the election game was shallow and not holistic to earn them their wish of LOCO’s failure.
Ogunwuyi – ‘Legal’ – from Mosan/Okunola LCDA was the sole candidate of the Oranmiyan Dynasty, unarguably the caucus to beat. It should no longer be news that the Dynasty controls the Mandate caucus as an establishment with wide spread membership and long years of existence. The Dynasty also holds the strength of being the current custodian of the progressives' hegemony in Alimosho. In addition to all this, the aspirant’s status as a former Sole Administrator of his LCDA may be an impetus of personal strength to flaunt. This, however, should be subject to whatever record of goodwill he must have earned with it thus far.
The venue of the primary election for Constituency 02 was the Auditorium of Igando/Ikotun LCDA Secretariat in Ikotun. The aspirants were the incumbent member seeking a second term, Hon Kehinde Joseph (“KJ”) and Mrs. Zanuth Muhibat Omotunde, both from Idimu corridor and thoughtfully another unpronounced aspirant from Agodo corridor – all from Egbe-Idimu LCDA.
KJ was already a big wig politically in his own right, having being in the system effective from the time of Babangida’s transition programme. His first stint in the corridor of public service was his appointment as Personal Assistant to Hon Olufemi Adebanjo (”Eyes Open”) while the latter was serving as member, Lagos House of Assembly (Constituency 01) at incipient of this fourth republic. Sequel to that, he had garnered skills in party administration, having once being President of Alimosho Youth Mainstream and later a Ward Chairman, holding forth as Chairman of Ward Chairmen along that. He later grew in the party administration line to becoming the pioneer LGA Organising Secretary, Egbe-Idim LCDA.
After coming off age in politics, he returned to public service sector with his first appointment as Special Adviser to the Governor – first on Civic Engagement and later on Housing. He would later shift from executive appointment to electoral legislature when he first contested for Lagos Assembly in 2019 to hold his current incumbency. Now being in this election again, he had the additional strength of being the preferred aspirant by the establishment group, especially for being a ranking member of the Oranmiyan Dynasty. There was no doubt about him being the aspirant to beat.
Zanuth and the third aspirant belonged to the new Joke Oreolope faction. From all observations, they posed no iota of threat to KJ in any form, as they were barely unknown and there was no significant evidence that they were in the race for serious business of contesting the elections. In delegate elections like this, a strong war chest makes the business of being in the election. I could not see this in these aspirants. While I met with Zanuth at the House and added my signature identity to his nomination form, I never saw to know who was that aspirant from Egbe.
It was therefore least expected that the primary elections would ever be rocked with fatal violence in which accusing fingers would point in the direction of “unknown” Civil Defence Corps – as Fela once sung about “unknown soldiers” – for implications and indictment in the killings. The State Assembly elections opened the way with sporadic gunshots at the two venues, despite the tranquility of their respective beginning. No source could put a reason to suffice for the gun booms, especially in the case of Constituency 01 where reports said the exercise was deemed completed before violence started. As expected, Rotimi Ogunwuyi won with majority delegate votes. Lukmon Orelope came second also with substantial votes too. Muyideen was reported to score a single delegate vote.
The return of Ogunwuyi as winner succeeded, as I should say, in giving me further understanding of the shallow mindset with which political issues were being analysed in the House by all other members. While the campaign lasted, Ogunwuyi stood no chance of winning from the position of their majority views. To put it as their wish of the reality than the reality on ground, Muyideen was already the APC Candidate. The capacity for me to be realistic about the real reality out of these two turned out to be the gulf of schism that perpetually put the House in two opposing sides of 'me against all' in matters of politics – and It was so throughout my stay. For instance, their cravings for MD were all about sentiment for reasons that could not be farfetched. He was about the only candidate that gave the White House all appurtenances of leadership recognition desirable at such clime of election. For one, he donated the second carport to the House, as an inner member affirmatively revealed. And as I knew by the same token, he was the only candidate that acknowledged the right of Oga to Christmas ram. And of course, the aforediscussed largesse for the boys was also a count for the recognition. None of the other two aspirants for 01, to the best of my knowledge, did that and I should add that I did not think they had any basis to do so. In my view, as it were at the time, Oga did not appear to be in control of any delegate that could afford him any discernible influence on the coming elections. The delegates were substantially in the grips of Joke Orelope and Enilolobo.
Beyond this narrow view and for me to put our parallelism divide in the right perspective, it should be my opposing belief and philosophy that politics is not all about immoral duplicity of anything goes which many tenuously hold in belief in such a manner that it always put us at loggerheads when a related debate ensued. Any argument of constitutional and moral basis for a course in politics or the act of politics, which always made my perspective of contributions a dissenting voice, was always an aberration to what politics ought to be in my opponents' views. But to reason this in another way, could they as well be completely wrong about this? The happenings in the real world of politics might justify them to be speaking to the norms of politics in their perspectives. Nevertheless, as it had been argued earlier, this is not the character of politics, but of the men exhibiting it in the garb of politics.
Their conclusion on me sequel to this perpetual dissention was to insist that they were the real politician. I was not a politician. I could understand their plight anyway. You can never be grounded in the real art of politics if you are not a consumer of print media. Even if you are one, you must have the analytical will to see hidden messages between the lines in order to get the complete and wholesome value. In my estimation, however, it should not be a demeaning statement but the fact to say without any fear of contradiction that none of them possess these factors in their two distinct forms of habit and attribute. But then, a necessary caution must take cognisance of the current state of the certificated quackery where a supposed learned mainstream media write and edit with manipulative skill to twist fact. This should be another ball game altogether, which is outside the scope of this book.
The premise of all this is that through the preparations towards the primary elections, I could not pick any hush talk that could give me a basis to see Ogunwuyi in the light of one with a hope for victory. This was even in spite of his overwhelming strength analysed earlier, which evidently skipped their understanding out of misreading the depth of Enilolobo's plight. Added to this strength at the time was the ‘Ace Card’ Joke Orelope would eventually deploy for the final victory that went to LOCO. It was a joker everyone least expected to define any cause of fairness and Justice expected for a level playing field promised by the state leadership when the chips were down. _Continues in serial 3_
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