 No, I am not talking about the son of a Nazarene carpenter called Joseph. I am talking about Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the Governor of Osun state, who now seems determined to outdo Mary’s famous son in the peace department. It is beginning to look like “the dividends of democracy” for the people of Osun state lies in their ability to boast that the do-or-die selection methods of the PDP have transformed them into privileged recipients of a deputy Jesus Christ in the person of Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Nigeria’s most prolific peace maker.
First was the peace accord he brokered between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his estranged former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. Then the Prince of Peace was off to Minna for a peace treaty between General Ibrahim Babangida and his would-be nemesis, Major Saliba Mukoro, leader and mastermind of the April 22, 1990 Orkar coup. Off to Ibadan, where the Prince of Peace sealed yet another peace deal between Olusegun Obasanjo and former Oyo state governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja. As long as the people of Osun state are cool with it, there is nothing wrong with Prince Oyinlola rolling from state to state to gather the moss of peace treaties even as governance in his domain goes the way of everything the PDP touches: failure. What we, the Nigerian people, need to resist are the surreptitious registers of canonization and the well-choreographed modes of aggrandizement that our emergency troubadours of peace are foisting on the national space of meaning. There is such a thing as speaking for a nation’s past and her present. The catch always lies in who gets to speak for a nation’s past and present – the people or their traducers in the political elite. Olagunsoye Oyinlola and his fellow jokers in the emergent peace industry are attempting to speak for our past and present in order to smuggle their rickety legacy into our future. If in doubt, examine their vocabulary. Oyinlola declared that kissing and making up by Obasanjo and Atiku was the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria. The occasion was “historic”, “epochal”, and deserving of every grandiose and delusional adjective that Oyinlola could fish from the dictionary. The reconciliation between Ibrahim Babangida and Major Mukoro was also described as “historic”. Oyinlola even allowed himself some effusive extra mileage in hyperbole: the reconciliation of the coupists will allow Oyinlola to “move the country forward.” The same canonizing vocabulary was at work as our friends came out of the Ibadan peace meeting between Obasanjo, Rashidi Ladoja, Alao Akala, and the Prince of Peace. There is nothing new in Oyinlola’s adventures. Politicians constantly redraw the map of political alliances. Bruised egos deemed of continuous value to the perpetuation of group interest are soothed, old enemies fall into the bed of common interests, existing alliances are recalibrated even as new liaisons are formed towards winning elections (if you are in the civilized world) or capturing power (if you are in Nigeria). What is insufferable is the presumptuousness that has led Oyinlola to elevate moves calculated to earn him some national presence in furtherance of future ambitions, and to give a semblance of continuous relevance to the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, to the status of historic national moments. The ease with which members of Nigeria’s lootocracy equate their inconsequential shenanigans with our destiny is a clear indication of how low our stock has fallen as a people. Our rulers are perpetually insulting us. One minute Dimeji Bankole is canonizing himself a leader; the next minute Oyinlola is decreeing what is historic. It is particularly annoying that Babangida’s mini-Robespierran ego gets equated with our history and destiny at every opportunity. Two coupists meet to drink beer in Minna and that is an “historic” act that will “move Nigeria forward!” The only “historic” miss I see here is that Gideon Orkar, who remains a hero in my book, did not get Babangida. There is no telling what next Oyinlola will declare historic. We are even getting dangerously close to a point where one of these charlatans ruling and ruining Nigeria will go to the toilet in the morning and declare that whatever he did therein to unburden his bowels is “historic”, “epochal”, and will “move Nigeria forward”. Olagunsoye Oyinlola should be advised to concentrate on what his political ilk does best – looting, rigging, electoral violence – and leave the determination of what is historic to the Nigerian people. They don’t get to define that.
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