The 2018 contrived incident wherein a serving first-time governor was despicably denied his second term ambition sounded the death knell of reasonable democracy. What played out then was the sinister handiwork of a few powerful individuals hiding under a warped excuse to derail the popular choice of the people. The whole nation read how that serving governor ran from pillar to post pleading to be allowed to be given the chance. The President of the nation even added his voice.
But then powers that be basking in the euphoria of their seemingly awesome position did not budge; they went ahead and engineered a crooked primary that violently cut short the young man’s career—and the peoples hope. In 2003, a serving governor in one of the southern states had failed woefully in his first term and when it was time for the second term his father had begged he be allowed to repeat the class; being wise men at the time, they all agreed and the governor repeated the class although this time he posted a record and a damning result scoring zero in all departments.
The dust of that Lagos debacle was yet to settle when again the young man was said to have been denied his ministerial opportunity by the same clique of power persons. This was too much for the people to bear and predictably that became a huge bone for the assailants to swallow. But the nation waited for revenge. That opportunity came when Obaseki another promising first-time governor was again put on the slab table for slaughter. Though he cried out openly and made attempts to appease his sworn enemies, it soon dawned on him that he was already in their evil net—trapped—without any route for escape.
Knowing the vicious reputation of those after him—that there was nothing like mercy in their dictionary—Obaseki managed to escape to PDP—but even then they still wielded the big stick and hammered him not minding the fact that he was the only serving APC governor in the South-south. They even described him as “good riddance to bad rubbish” to drive home the extent of their hatred for him. When the hammer fell, the people woke up in unison and spontaneously launched a massive demonstration to forewarn the dark forces chanting “Edo is not Lagos…Edo is not Lagos”. This is a striking similarity to the famous “Oto-ge” revolution that swept out the Saraki dynasty in Kwara State. That “Oto-ge” fame is about to engineer the downfall of the perpetrators of the Lagos incidence. The message is that they have taken more than enough for the owners to notice. This way, without pulling the trigger, the PDP has their victory cut for them. The Lagos fiasco and the “Oto-ge” factors are the graves upon which the people’s power will end tyranny in Nigeria.
