Oyekoya Akintunde
Months ago, something happened in the media space that made me laugh, and I am still laughing till today.
Three men , Otunba Segun Sowunmi, Arabambi and Tayo Mabeweje came out to exhibit what I can only call a dark triad of Ignorance. Greed and Shallowness but on top of it, premature celebration.
I read their captions one after the other and I laughed.
Mr Tayo Mabeweje put up his own caption, bold and shameless, titled “ADEBUTU, IT IS FINISHED.”
Arabambi, sitting on the lofty perch of his balcony, where he does his usual balcony politics, wrote a jaundiced article, titled “MY CONDOLENCES FOR ADEBUTU.
But funnily enough, Otunba Segun Sowunmi, the one I believed should know better, the one I thought had small sense left, went on Facebook showcasing his dance step.
It was a coordinated carnival of haste. I tell you, they all counted their chickens before the eggs were hatched. Democracy was placed on a plate like food, and the trio came with different cutlery, each one trying to take his own share according to his shallow understanding. Three men. Three platforms. But one script. One agenda. To prematurely pronounce the political extinction of Hon. Oladipupo Adebutu.
What they forgot is simple. Their inks are dried. Their voices are faint. And the trio are men of no political clout. No ward. No polling unit. No street they can call their own. Just noise on Facebook.
At every pronouncement, Sowunmi would record himself dancing, gesticulating and talking like a Messiah. I watched the video with pity. A man like the Athenian Alcibiades. A man who jumps from one ambition to another.
At a time, he wanted to be the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party. At another point, he wished to contest, but he found out the hard way that the game is not for poor men. Later, he formed The Alternative, travelling around the Nigerian state, looking for relevance. And finally, he got induced with money and started amplifying Senator Olamilekan Solomon, after he was caught in an act of perfidy and the PDP purged him and his likes.
Sowunmi alias Mr. Michael Jackson, let me tell you plainly: if dance won elections, you would have been Governor of this state long ago. But dance is not politics. The Moonwalk is not a manifesto. Gyrating before a camera is not governance.
Then came Engineer Arabambi. A man who could not give details of any single project he has executed. A carpenter turned Engineer by mouth. A man who has changed political addresses more times than a Lagos danfo route changes bus stops. That same man stupidly wrote CONDOLENCES for Adebutu.
Today, his corpse stinks the streets of Ogun State. Bellowed from every corner of the state is a nauseating, putrid smell of a man whose body was rejected by the land. And today I boldly say, we are jeering at his funeral. Because he dug a grave for another man, and he fell inside it himself.
And then Mr. Tayo Mabeweje, in his characteristic manner, wrote a long essay, “Adebutu, It Is Finished.” A man who refused to see beyond his horizon. A man who refused to look at the case at hand. A man who, prematurely, judged on his bed that Adebutu’s name will not be on a ballot.
He abandoned his duty as Media Consultant to become Chief Obituary Writer for Ogun State. He claimed he knew about the judgment. He claimed he had inside information. But today he has failed to come out to apologise for exhibiting aloofness from simple legal matters. He has failed to tell the people he misled them. He is hiding.
That is the summary of the trio. One dancing. One writing condolences. One writing obituary. Three men who wanted to bury a living man.
So let Sowunmi keep dancing. Let Arabambi keep writing condolences. Let Mabeweje keep publishing obituaries. History has shown us that those who dance prematurely always end the dance with cramps.
Adebutu is not finished. He has remained a personification of an opposition leader. He has provided an alternative on how government should be run. A political mandarin, whose name keeps sweetening the debate on all tongues.
PDP is not finished and the people have spoken and are soliciting for a government which will cause a paradigm shift in the polity.
But the man they wanted to bury is still standing. And the grave they dug has now swallowed them