Friday, March 29, 2024

Eyitayo Jegede: The gold Ondo sold

November 26, 2017 delivered a fresh import about calendaring, not as one mere effort, but as a deliberate activity with dire significances. Fine lessons left us with lasting evidences of their consequential essence, either for a community, individual or organisation. Calendaring does a delivery of dates that shape and shade our days and dealings, with profundity. And what a date does to the mind is, prepare, excite or pact it with the morrow, constraint it to definite choices or confront it with either stars or scars of the past. Dates even underline memorabilia, as it does to futurity.
November 26, 2016 belongs to the league of consequential dates. That was the date of the last governorship election in Ondo State; the same election that produced incumbent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. The date does seismic refreshing to a major struggle for political power in the state, alongside its rude rhythms. It reminds of the needless controversies about primary elections whose shadows have lucklessly accompanied the state to this stage. The highly monetised and disputatious primary election of the All Progressive Congress and the protracted and ostentatious legal row over the legitimacy of candidature in the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party can hardly be forgotten.
At the centre of the period’s historical analysis was the beloved citizen and lawyer, Eyitayo Jegede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and candidate of the PDP, who was heavily battled by detractors, both in the primary and main elections.
Jegede had concerned himself unusually with the lean wealth of Ondo State and expressed, categorically, his desire to work the state to wealth for the benefit of all. He saw the drought ahead; the reason he said his Number One priority was Economy; Two, Economy and Third, Economy. Recall his loathing for the state’s sole dependence on the federal purse, his passion for wealth creation and welfare for the aged and the widows, and his fervent plan to advance the state from its civil service status to an industrialised one.

Part of the plans that stopped Jegede was the Independent National Electoral Commission’s flagrant disregard for the extant laws governing elections – the deliberate removal of his name from the INEC list on the orders of a treacherous figure in President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency

Jegede’s candidature was unusually flavoured. His sheen permeated. The people must have glimpsed the prospects his candidature represented for the state. His many enthusiasts must have sensed sincerity in his tones, hence his deafening popularity. His sincerity, simplicity, accessibility, affability, age and achievements endeared him to the ordinary man out there. He was the darling of debates. His beauty became so bold his opponents could not withstand it; they considered his political finesse as daunting, his widespread luster as huge, and resolved to stop him by conspiracy.
Part of the plans that stopped Jegede was the Independent National Electoral Commission’s flagrant disregard for the extant laws governing elections – the deliberate removal of his name from the INEC list on the orders of a treacherous figure in President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency; while INEC feigned and claimed adherence to a left-handed court order that the Supreme Court later called “fraudulent”.
The same INEC betrayed the Electoral Act which stipulates that a candidate should have at least 30 days to himself for campaigns before the Election Day, by refusing to postpone the election where Jegede’s name returned to the list of candidates, only about 48 hours to election. The belated justice, you will recall, was obtained on the directive of the Court of Appeal.
The putatively independent umpire, INEC, heightened the conspiracy by also denying Eyitayo Jegede the right to submit his party agents’ list which the law requires a candidate to do at least seven days before the election. Bad enough, the party agents who monitored the election for the PDP were agents submitted by a man already described by the Court as an impostor.
The election has since been lost and won. What was weird about it was its offensively commercial nature. At the peculiar poll, where little consideration was left for the persons of candidates, where meagre attention was given to party and the beauty of programmes, where many votes were handed the highest bidder, a winner had emerged, who has since been superintending over the allocation of common wealth.
Since we all, were witnesses and active participants in the manner of election conducted, and we are still living witnesses to the manner of leadership in expression, we can only wait while the pact lasts.
The futility of the whole conspiracy, however, is the fact that Tayo Jegede has since continued to do well for himself and many citizens; his fine nature, the glory of which concerted political victimisation cannot dim. The other futility is that the many hearts of the citizens he already won have been multiplied over time with his unyielding commitment to the welfare of the people of Ondo State. He has no personal loses, only the delivery of his great plans that tarry. He must, therefore, wait for the day to break.
But while we wait, we must be sober. We must admit and confess to a collective folly. We must worry genuinely about the poor situation that is not receiving creative attention; we must regret that we sacrificed the best of options for pecuniary reasons; we must resolve to reject passing advantage for a lasting one, in future encounters. We must seek diligent discernment to the effect that whatever gain we get in exchange for a gold, does not compare with its true
value.

*Ogunkua was Head, Mobilisation at Eyitayo Jegede Campaign Organisation, during the 2016 Ondo governorship contest

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