By Femi ODERE
The curiosity of humankind to interrogate whether someone’s name truly has inherent metaphysical and/or spiritual power to the extent of determining the person’s life trajectory, station, character, and behaviour is a universal phenomenon. This curiosity cuts across cultures, civilisations, and geographical boundaries. That’s when the English-speaking nationalities intermittently ask nobody in particular, “What’s in a name?” The Yorubas also have their own variant of this question in the form of a statement. They will say “oruko nroni.”
We can find expression in the Yoruba idiomatic phrasing “oruko nroni” with the emergence of Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, the governor of Ondo State, not only in the political landscape of the state but also in his occupation of the highest political office in the state, having very little or infinitesimally significant political antecedent to his credit.
While you should not be detained by how Mr Aiyedatiwa became the governor in the face of major political hurdles thrown in his way by powerful and entrenched political forces in the state, it must be noted that it was the state’s holloi polloi (and those who aren’t even from the state) who picked up the political gauntlet thrown down for him by this established and entrenched political tendency. They rallied behind him with unprecedented support and sure-footedness.
They used all his publicly known names, Lucky, which they interpreted to mean that his political detractors should not prevent whom God has already bestowed with divine luck, from becoming the governor. They say Orimisan, his middle name, is proof positive that his Ori (head) is so perfect that it was pointless for anyone to contest the governorship election with him, as his Ori has already decreed his enviable place among the pantheon of society’s high and mighty. They opine that his surname, Aiyedatiwa, is not only a validation of the good things that would happen to the greatest number of Ondo State indigenes when he becomes the people’s governor because their “aiye” as a governor would be “aiyeirorun”; they also appropriated his coming government to themselves to justify the inevitability of his good destiny.
And a governor, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, he became.
Aiyedatiwa, in the words of the late Chinua Achebe, exemplifies those mortals whose palm kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit.
But no sooner had Mr Aiyedatiwa become the governor than the people who stood behind him began to wonder if they had not backed the wrong political horse. They began to feel that something was not quite right about the man they had thought would significantly improve their lots in life as news began to make the rounds that he was nauseatingly aloof to his fiduciary responsibilities. They accuse him of dissing just about everyone through whom the benevolent spirit used to crack his palm kernel for him by not taking their calls, let alone calling them to see how they’re fairing. They say he runs a two-person (himself and his finance commissioner) government with no input from other cabinet members on issues of development priorities, policy formulation and direction, not to talk of not giving “shishi” for either transport fare or buying petrol to those few who are lucky enough to visit him at his government house or office redoubts. There are legions of other negative things his people say about him.
Despite these misgivings, they believe, although with cautious optimism, that things could still turn around for the better, not only for the developmental aspirations of the state, but also for their individual stations in terms of job creation and other palliative measures. Even when they knew instinctively that they had erroneously gifted themselves a lemon, perhaps a lemonade could still be made out of him in due time. They reason quietly
So, when governor Aiyedatiwa called a federal minister from his state, “one of his subjects”, during an interview with a major TV network who “has no choice but to work with me” recently, what I have been thinking about the governor (from my own unscientific profiling of him, having met him one-on-one in a handful of occasions and spoken to him a few times on the phone), but hoping that my profiling was only a figment of my imagination, what has been lurking in my subconscious and causing occasional discomfort came in bold relief. I was right after all, I told myself.
It should be noted that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a governor not having the gift of the gab; neither is it a requirement to be intellectually astute to become a governor, but when a governor calls an indigene of his state, irrespective of that person’s station, in a constitutional democracy and not a monarchical system his subject—-and with a grin on his face—-then we should be curious about whether he has the presence of mind to understand the nuances and ethos that are inherent in a representative democracy. We should also pay more than a passing attention to his thought pattern in relation to the developmental paradigm of his state and the socioeconomic aspirations of his people.
They will be anachronistic at best.
Some words are mission-specific and may not be used interchangeably.
As bad as this characterisation is, at least the people of Ondo State now know their place when it comes to their relationship with their governor. They’re nothing but subjects. And subjects, in the real sense of the word, may not ascribe undue rights to themselves except that which has been given by their governor-king. They should not elevate themselves to any pedestal that has not been given by him.
As earlier said, not a few indigenes who have complained, including his cabinet and non-cabinet aides, civil servants, and major stakeholders from the state, that the governor never picked up their calls nor returned their calls, even on matters of the state and its development, must now know that they’re nothing but subjects whose contributions to development he doesn’t need.
The professor who obtained his professorship when the governor was still trying to figure out how to pass his WAEC exam, who complained to me not long ago that his governor invited him to his office to excoriate, like a kindergartener, and was never even asked to sit down for the entire duration of his excoriation, now knows he’s nothing but a subject. And subjects don’t have the privilege of being offered a seat in the presence of a governor-king.
But we must continue to thank God for little mercies nonetheless.
Mr Aiyedatiwa’s needless reminder during the interview that he’s the governor reminded me of my own encounter with him when, on the instruction of the immediate past National Chairman of our party after the governorship election, I was asked to broker peace between him and an APC aspirant, which essentially met a brick wall because he would always tell me in our phone conversations the same refrain that, as the governor, there was no need to make peace with anyone. This was when I started having misgivings about what the quality of his leadership would be. But the thought of him seeing every indigene of the state as his subject never crossed my mind.
Now I know better.
Now that we all know our place with our governor-king, we all must get on with it and “roll with the punches,” as Americans would say.
We can only hope to be truly lucky the next time around when choosing our next governor who will see us as “primus inter pares” and not as his subjects.
POSTSCRIPT: Please give us “shishi.” Your subjects love “shishi” too, especially in these trying times.
Femi Odere lives in Iropora Ekiti. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com
