Oshiomhole in the Eye of the Storm

Oshiomhole in the Eye of the Storm

In Rudyard Kipling’s beloved book, the Jungle Book, much is fashioned in the form of counsel. There are such excellent admonitions as “the jackal may follow the tiger, but curb when the whiskers are grown” – something that speaks to the immense variety of jungle lore, and by extension, the complex mythos of politics.

Like any liquid substance, politics embodies a degree of volatility that is both maddening and exciting – little need to guess which sentiment is very familiar by those within and which is enjoyed by outsiders to the political game. Anyway, the new results of the Bayelsa gubernatorial elections have faulted many a liaison and rocked many a foundation. It just so happens that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the epicentre of this rocking.

To summarize, the governorship election in Bayelsa underwent the usual sequence of declaration and counter-declaration, with APC’s David Lyon declared and PDP’s Douye Diri counter-declared, respectively. With the mystic bones cast, PDP now strides the governorship horse. Without the aid of a diagram, APC is not happy, and neither do folks of the party intending on leaving the party National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole any happier than them.

This deduction rests on the shoulders of the protest staged by some members of the APC who marched into the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja and asked that Oshiomhole take a bow and stay away from national chairmanship.

The protesters, with a Mr. Genesis Johnson reportedly the spokesperson, accused Oshiomhole of bringing back luck to the party, using the Bayelsa gubernatorial seat loss as the arrow’s edge of indictment. It was allegedly stated emphatically that Oshiomhole exhibited a disappointing and weak style of leadership, one that has cost the party of numerous occasions.

As if to emphasize their points, the protesters allegedly threatened to remain within the premises until Adams Oshiomhole retires from the post and leaves the APC leadership to more capable, productive hands.

As an aside, this protest is coming right behind a similar censure allegedly cast against Oshiomhole by the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation; here again, Oshiomhole is tasked with the responsibility of having drawn APC into unnecessary wahala, the kind that translates to lost elections and positions in government.
Defeat has never made a former winner look taller.

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