By: Debo Akinbami
Olusola Oke, SAN, penultimate week, made a phenomenal trip. He walked into the state secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to say his plan to vie for governorship position. His remarks at the party’s house, the gusto it attracted and the tangible fuss it caused, called for this treatise.
In a univocal tone, Oke spoke to the man who oversees the party’s affairs, Ade Adetimehin, whom my principal calls ‘Mr Johnson’, to be above board. He reminded the chiarman of his powers in the face of tenuous threats and charged him to be in charge.
Oke’s message sprouted obvious sob. It unsettled the camp where the chairman is being threatened with temporary powers. The amateurs who are paid to defend the constitutionality of a government, relying on dogeared texts, did a woeful job in their haste. It was a tough job. The thesis was not meant for new converts.
The underlining issue, for discerning minds, is not of constitutionality. It is essentially about legitimacy, a concept traditionally explained as popular acceptance and recognition by the public of the authority of a governing régime; a situation where an authority derives political power through consent and mutual understandings, not coercion as it is being witnessed.
Before Oke’s dictum, grapevine sources had disclosed how a commissioner who overrated himself told Adetimehin to resign his position as chiarman where he is uncomfortable with the acts of the new sheriff. Such were the sort of threats Adetimehin had recieved before Oke cautioned those overreaching themselves.
Oke’s words were a frontal popularity challenge, appropriate dosage for truth haters who are hurt by the message. The charge understandably bruised the bones of those who vainly hide behind a finger; who do not want the public to access the raw truths that Oke has the nerve to say.
Our society is daily dimished because we loath to taste the truth. But Oke has come too far to be a coward; his is a big name and the personality behind the name is a prince of the game, consummate achiever and a study rallying point. If his message truly worries the man who, by fate, inherited a mandate he is doing so little to justify, improvements should be made where appropriate, if it is not late.
A legitimate government is one recognised by its population as rightful. It should not be confused with pretended political patronage. That is the missive Oke gave, through the party’s chiarman, with the right muse, through the right medium. He counted to the leper’s face his faulty fingers, hence the fume.
….Debo Akinbami writes from IgboEgunrin, Ondo State.
