This was posted on Panupo Yesterday, Tosin Jegede ignore this but choose to post that of his co political tout behind the Movement Of Bastards. Please ask Tosin why he cant share this with you. The answer is simply because ohun gangan ni Oro yi nba wi ju. Ara e ni iso buruku na ti un run Many years ago, it was election time in the USA. At stake was the office of the President. As the campaigns went on, one of the two major contestants in the race spent so much time talking about his opponent and what he felt were his shortcomings. He spent little or no time selling himself to the electorate. His opponent on the other hand kept engaging the electorate on the platform of his agenda for them. He spent quality time explaining his program and the details of proposed execution. He never once cast aspersion on the character or person of his opponent. I saw something akin to this in the John McCain versus Barak Obama campaigns in 2008. Miffed by this mans dignified avoidance of name-calling even when he was constantly receiving so much flak from the opposition, the Press engaged him one day on why he was that way. His response? When I was a little boy, we had a dog on our street. It was a good dog that gave no one any trouble, that is until the moon came out. The more the moon shone, the louder the dog barked. But each time that happened, i never saw the moon diminish the intensity of its shining. The more the dog barked, the more the moon shone. Forumites of the various political divides and those of us who do not belong to any side of the divides but just are concerned stakeholders in dear Ekiti, I think it is important that we ask ourselves the question, WHEN ARE WE GOING TO START BRINGING CRITICAL ISSUES OF DEVELOPMENT TO THE TABLE instead of all the needless name-calling and mud-slinging that have characterized many postings in the last few weeks? I was hoping that the political space of Ekiti in the 21st century would be characterized by issues that challenge the intellect, not the cheap propaganda and puerile sensationalism that we have been experiencing. I would like all parties to note the following: 1. Being partisan is not the same as being pedantic. To anyone who likes to think things through, some of the postings here have not just been pedantic but downright jejune and take leave of serious scholarship and I daresay, intellect. 2. None of the parties crying wolf about violence here can claim innocence. Will the PDP hold aloft the banner of non-violence as if the rest of us have our memories obliterated and cannot remember when that party was in government. I was a victim of that partys INTRA-PARTY violence that occurred as result of Fayoses emergence at its primaries. How does one explain what happened when vehicles parked at the Fayemi Campaign headquarters were smashed by PDP thugs while the internal crisis around Fayoses emergence lasted. Or was it ghosts that smashed a cinecamera belonging to the state TV station? Does APC too want to claim innocence? Apart from a quest for vengeance, how does one justify or explain the mindless attack on the Fayose campaign office? Before LP begins to claim innocence, how does one explain what happened in Iyin when JKF went there to campaign? So please spare us the crocodile tears on all sides. Not all of us here are party members so resolve among yourselves to give us an atmosphere of peace. 3. If the incumbent or the other parties were perfect, there would be no need for a contest. It is precisely because of the possibility of such shortcomings that the space is periodically thrown open to other contenders so that the electorate can make up their minds for or against continuity of the incumbent or his party in office. The idea is to give the electorate a credible platform to decide if or not they want change. Anybody who even implies that Fayemi is perfect has not even done him justice. So that is not the point. My position in this, and which has been grossly misunderstood by some who only see what they want to see, is very simple. Instead of building castles around what Fayemi has or has not done, other candidates should please educate us on what they plan to do to better what the incumbent has done or is doing! Leave out all the name-calling and abuse. I read a post eulogizing Awo and vilifying Fayemi and I laughed. I do not know the age of the writer but some of us were around in the First republic and can tell you the frustrations and disappointing knocks and pooh-ings that Awo received for waht is now being gleefully referred to as his people-oriented projects. If Awo had been seen in context of the demagogue that he is now being seen as, there would have been no need for Wild, wild West and the Wetie pogrom! What was the basis of the opposition that NNDP and NCNC proved to Awos Action Group? Many people in his time thought that projects that we see as Awo legacies today were nothing but white elephant projects 3. Leadership is one of the worlds most thankless jobs. Heads, the leader loses. Tails, he still loses. But leadership is not a popularity contest. The leader is guided by the judgement of posterity, not the necessities of the moment. Which is why they say Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown! Great leaders are guided by the legacies they want to build, not the people they seek to please 4. Why do we as a people find it more convenient to pull down than to build? I wish that some of our social media warriors would be made Governor for one week. I would like to see what they do in that space of time and to see if they can escape the scathing tongues of Ekitis supposed elites even after only one week in office. This propensity has robbed us of serious contention at the Federal level. Whenever one of us has the opportunity of being nominated for a platform of prominence, the flurry of petitions from his own kith and kin almost drown the resolve of the one who even proposed the appointment. Ke i libe gan an? 5. Why do we routinely forget that ule labo simi oko? When we have flung so much dirt at ourselves because of politics, after politics, would any of us have stopped being an Ekiti man? 6. Call Fayose a demon, murderer or any other name you would, but you cannot deny him a place in the story of Ekiti. Call Fayemi what you like. Call Oni a turncoat. Do same for MOB. One thing you cannot deny. These men, for good or evil, have become a factor in our polity. If anyone believes he can do better than what any of them has done, step up to the plate and see how easy it is to lead men! 7. Fayose was the first Governor to promote teachers to tutor-generals on level 16. Fayemi has improved on that record by elevating them to level 17. That is the dynamics of governance. Fayemi has promised teachers a new salary scale. If anyone wanted to base campaign on that, it is no longer needed. Whether it was political sagacity or expediency, the most important thing is that it has been done. If that was the problem teachers had with Fayemi, now that the problem is out of the way, what I expect other contestants to do is to think of how they can improve on that promise. Instead of them making a huge issue out of anothers campaign promise, they should make theirs in a clearly articulated agenda that makes the rest of us voters who have no party affiliation to make an intelligent decision! 8. Who won the election in the Presidential election mentioned in my story? Your guess is as good as mine! Let the followers of our gladiators please spare us the diatribes that sees them playing victim while demonizing the opposition unless they can show us how that translates to good governance. When I let some of MOBs people know that this was not the way to go, some of them branded me. A few of them saw what I was saying. You may think sensationalism may draw attention to your Principal but for the discerning and those who like to search things out with specific emphasis on issues, these may actually end up making him lose sympathy As I have said before, i have only one vote. I was sooooooooo looking forward to my choice being made difficult but with what I am seeing, it may not be as difficult as I hoped it would be. What a shame! Remember all, after politics, we will still be omiyes We must NEVER lose sight of that! Who knows what can happen tomorrow? You dont know which side of the divide you can be on! No Ekiti man should set himself up as the enemy of another! O di lai lai pongba! O dorire! Ekiti a gbe a o! Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is! ..........TopeP
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 02:52:16 +0000