OSUN REFUSES OMISORE´S INVITATION TO A DOUBLE-CORN FEAST

  The election of Osun state has come and gone and presumably too the people of Osun State have spoken their minds. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been given yet another 4 years to finish up what many say is the good work he started 4 years ago in Osun State. In fact, some of my personal friends from the state have invited me severally to come to Osun State and have a first hand experience of what the dividends of Democracy truly is all about. If this were so, and not just the traditional nigerian sycophancy and adulation for incumbent power holders, then the people of Osun State have voted very well  in returning Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the maverick Nigerian governor who has also had his share of controversies in some sectors of the society, especially amongst the opposition who severally raised the alarm that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola had a hidden plan to Islamize Osun State. But the fact that nothing of the sort has happened in his 4 years as the custodian of the state proves that this is a mere political propaganda.

  The defeated PDP candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore whose picture of double-corn- eating in public as a way of demonstrating his propinquity with the grassroot people went viral on the internet and generated a lot of debate, could not unseat the incumbent governor as he had boasted before the election.

  Senator Omisore who would be recalled was arrested some time in 2012 in connection with the death of one of the most liked sons of Osun State and former governor of Oyo state in the 2^nd republic under the umbrella of the UPN, and also the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation under President Olusegun Obasanjo, Late Chief Bola Ige, a man whom many saw at the time as one of the most appropriate persons to step into the gigantic shoes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the leader of the Yorubas.

  Although discharged of any wrong doing at the time by the nigerian law court, he continues to remain indicted by many nigerians on the street in their peculiar rumor peddling, “populis court” even till date.  A situation which made many, especially the late chief Bola Ige´s fans in the state very edgy and unhappy, some people even questioned the rationality behind the decision of the PDP to make a controversial person as senator Omisore its flag bearer in the state despite having other party members without the kind of controversy surrounding the person of senator Omisore.

  Whatever be the case, whether it was as a result of the peoples´likeness for and acceptance of the service rendered to them by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the past 4 years or as a sign that the Osun people have not yet forgiven nor forgotten the Chief Bola Ige episode, what is very clear is that the Osun people have refused to buy into the corn eating public show of senator Iyiola Omisore, by allowing the incumbent governor to return with a landslide victory; Senator Omisore only manged to win in 8 of the 30 local government areas in Osun state while Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola won in 22 local governments.

  The task ahead for the governor elect, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is not going to be easy as many nigerians maintain that even the best of governors in Nigeria only work for the people in its best cases for 4 years and that if returned to office, the remaining 4 years then becomes the time for the governor to ensure for himself a beneficial retirement by amassing all the peoples´wealth for himself. We have the next 4 years to find out if this is really true.