Rauf comes across as a textbook case of too little, too late, the
personification of a black male out of touch with fertility and agility.
It took too long to acknowledge the seriousness of conscience death in a
man elected to be the conscience of a people, an under-reaction given the
excessive use of force against the unarmed minds. Then he inflamed the
situation by imposing his foolery in public arenas.
I have attempted to refrain from public comments on the failure that
Aregbesola is until yesterday when I had to edit a news script of an
activity of his at Iragbiji the day before. If he was quoted and I didn’t
have to watch and cast what he said, it probably would have passed like
many others.
He did say that the striking doctors in the state should let him be after
all they didn’t elect him and that he would give them transport fare and
even one month hotel bill to go to other states and find job if it will
just take them away from him.
What a governor (that cant pay wages say such thing?)
I don’t envy a governor in this situation. Who even would? But shouldn’t
decorum has prevailed?
If you act too fast, you’re overriding local intelligence and you run the
risk of triggering a counter-response. If you wait too long, things get
out of control. That’s where Osun is headed.
Unfortunately, Rauf keeps getting it wrong coming and going, letting too
much time pass before he showed his face if he has any, triggering angry
retorts from residents that as a Democrat he only cared about them on
Election Day, then super-imposing a curfew, an economic one only to
withdraw it when again he needs some praise singing.
It’s been a mess all around, this I very well know. Nobody has yet
figured out a way of bringing peace and prosperity to the streets of Osun
and simultaneously addressing the concerns of people who are showing up in
peaceful protest. The opportunistic looting of Rauf is best termed a
violent criminal element and has created dilemmas for the confused
citizenry and put civil activists (most of whom in Osun are come and raid
and not comrades) on the defensive, complicating the story line from all
sides.
Still, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that a more artful and sensitive
handling of this situation at the beginning could have averted a lot of
this aftermath.
That’s where the opposition shoulders some blame for failing to step in
early and effectively. Rauf’s apparent inability to read the agrarians’
community in his state is puzzling, as the people are such an important
part of the Democratic coalition. He doesn’t seem to have a feel for that
community in a way that a lot of other Southern Democratic governors do
have.
Before Rauf was elected governor in 2010, he served terms as Lagos State’s
commissioner for works, winning plaudits for a reform agenda on cleaning
up the streets, reinstating campaign contribution limits, making road and
bridges, and creating a new Lagos. Since his election as governor of Osun,
in 2010, he’s been loudly promoting himself as a “ No common-sense
moderate,” elected repeatedly (twice) in a red state as someone who could
put Osun in the Democratic column as, say, a true Awoist.
The dream is over. Now, Rauf is just trying to get through the night. From
being barely visible in the early days of the crisis in 2014, blaming it
on Jonathan and the PDP, he is now turning up on every talk show that will
have him and say Osun is in a special state as if we got there by an
accident except him as the biggest error Osun ever made. It may be too
late, but he seems finally to understand the burden of communication that
he carries, that he owes it to the citizens in Osun, and elsewhere, to be
clear about what’s ahead. The wheels of the criminal system move slowly.
The grievances in Osun State are deep and long-standing, and there has to
be a strategy for the short term, reinstating calm, and the longer term,
making sure the people are served.
I can’t claim to remember everything clearly but I can say we never had it
so bad haven lived here nearly two scores in years. I remember being at
one point in a conference room with the governor and he beats his chest
to say as if like a god, awa la Ni Osun (we own Osun). That a man can as
such arrogate himself shows how things were.
Rauf has simply lost sight of what’s important. The lazer- like focus that
catapulted him to the top has disappeared and he has become distracted by
the trappings of leadership, such as wealth and notoriety.
OSUN SHOULD NOT BE MADE WORSE THAN THIS.
IRE OOOOOOO
Ayo Ologun writes from Osogbo. He is a broadcast journalist and a social
commentator.