Adeleke’s N.5bn Damage Control Fund, By Tunde Abatan
Politics they say is purely a game of numbers.
To get power you get the numbers on your side in a contest.
In our clime, you not only get the numbers, you have forces behind you who form human edge and ensure that your opponents have no space to breathe.
This means that our elections are not only fought in the polling booth but on the streets where might take over reason and spilling of blood as experienced in Osun few weeks to August 15 was a common denominator of how you show your power on election day.
For state of Osun, the battle was fought and won few days with the blood of citizens who out their life on the line for their political masters who reap while they spill blood.
For some, it was through persuasion, some emotions and ,others through use of brute force to bend the rules of the game.
For Ademola Adeleke, incumbent governor of Osun who emerged victorious in past Saturday’s election in Osun-hitherto a State of living Spring, one must admit he literally marched on the blood of the causalities preceding August 15 to climb to power.
No matter the admonition of President Bola Tinubu to Governor Ademola Adeleke not to see himself as a conqueror, the fact remains this last election is the bloodiest in the history of the 35 years old state excised from Oyo state, hitherto headquarters of the Wild, WiId West.
Some of the supporters on both side paid for their lives in the War while others received life -long injuries they’ll nurse to end of their life ,yet others lost properties.
But the beneficiaries are there waiting to reap either from government patronage and or peanuts doled out to victims who received the bullet for their sponsors.
In all, the two central figures in the conflict escaped from the war front unscathed, while families of over 30 who paid with their lives will forever remember the period of pre- election war to rule Osun-a civil service state barely surviving on monthly hand-out from the Federation account.
However, the struggle for who occupies the seat of government in Osun state has come and gone but the pre election events has reverberated and continue to reverberate through the nooks and crannies of the state.
It is on record that the level of violence witnessed during the pre election period remain unprecedented in the state history.
Now what is interesting is that is if duly implemented in a no victor no vanquished way , the offer of post- election healing balm to the relatives of over 40 citizens who lost their lives to the election by the crazy carnage and many others who lost limbs and properties to the War of guns .
That Governor Adeleke announced the setting up of the N500 million Fund to cater for the victims of the electoral war that turns bloody is quite Unique.
Unique in the sense that this is the first time the victor, so to say, is admitting casualty on both sides of the divide and taken measures to assuage their feelings.
Adeleke could also by the decision announced when he collected his certificate of return, have preempted President Tinubu who told him to accept the fact that Osun people were not conquered but rather voted for him ,hence he has to rally everybody around in his new government.
Said he, “Don’t make a single individual victim of your campaign. You did not conquer anybody, you won the election”.
In other words , President Tinubu whose party candidate Oyebamiji lost the election was saying that, Adeleke should regard his election as an indication that ” the wish of God prevailed and the people followed.”
As for him, it is victory for Osun people and democracy.
You could say it was a response to the spirit of no Victor, yet it is necessary to interrogate the events and the desperation of the leading contestants which has made the state mentioned for the wrong reasons in the mad game for power by politicians who at the end of the day, sacrificed those they are supposed to rule.
Such is Life in Nigeria’s power struggle among the ruling political class where the grass suffers.
But then, who are the real causalities who were sacrificed for the ambition of the combatants and how would they be identified across board.
According to CJIDs Conflict Tracker,34 election related violent incident and 18 deaths have been recorded in Osun state since May, three months to the election.
The body revealed further that the patterns and concentration of these incidents raise questions about voter safety, participation and indeed the security of the electoral process.
In other words, victims of the carnage Adeleke seek to assuage with his N.5bn fund are not limited to physical causalities but included institutions like Police and other security agencies that were compromised by the violence ignited by the leading combatants in the battle for the soul of Osun state.
How would Adeleke identify all those involved on all sides including his own men who wittingly and undeniably committed the violence for their principal while agents of the leading opposition party also visited mayhem on agents and supporters of the ruling party.
It was desperation on all sides.
It was good Adeleke neither denied culpability on all sides but then is his admission not a contradiction of his declaration that no life is worth losing for other persons ambition . If his declaration is genuine why didn’t he called his own supporters to order.
It would appear that the proverbial scale only fell from the eyes of the leading contestants after they have visited mayhem on themselves and by extension innocent people only when they got tired of fighting few days to election.
Indeed, as a Yoruba adage.. O ti re ija’, but that was not after Osun has been thrown into turmoil.
But the fact that the Police on its own documented 30 killings it classified as politically motivated during the build-up to the election while political parties publish their separate accounts calls for deeper reflection on what terms of reference Adeleke would give the committee towards identifying beneficiaries of his damage control Fund.
For instance, while the APC claimed 12 of its supporters were killed within 24 hours, five shot at weekend rally, seven more on Tuesday as members assembled for a grand rally at Igbogi and Ikoti area of Osogbo.
According to Conflict Tracker, Osogbo regarded as base of the incumbent recorded, a significant share of the incidents just as Ilesa, Oriade, and other communities were also affected by the spill over of violence.
On its own, electoral umpire INEC flagged 11 local government areas viz: Atakumosa-East and West, Boripe, Ede North, Ede South, Ife Central, Ifedayo, Ifelodun, Ila,Oriade and Osogbo.
But then genuine concern about separating political violence from cult violence has over the years increasingly dissolve since Police attributed some recent cult-related attacks to the political violence and criminal activity.
In other words, Adeleke team has a job to separate cult motivated killings from political killings which has overlapped.
The fact that the Police also raise concerns about the use of local armed and cult- linked networks during political mobilisation also raise a fresh poser..
Another factor is the claim that mid-cycle defection which has developed the state into a two- party contest and it’s competitiveness.
The fact that Adeleke is the first sitting governor who is seeking election in a party different from the one that elected him is another factor.
The fact that PDP and Labour are absent from the ballot gave spread to the convergence of opposition to Adeleke and the obvious desperation between his new party, the Accord party and leading opposition, the APC.
That a faction of the PDP led by former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola made an open declaration for the APC candidate, Oyebamiji made the race very keen and increased desperation which led to widescale violence.
If Indeed Adeleke meant every word of his declaration that “it is a painful fact that any family should lose a loved because of politics, then he has a lot to do to lead reconciliation with his foes taking along his band and chorus singers who Tinubu said “are not the winners of the election but Osun people who supported God’s will.
Identifying causalities sacrificed by both sides to the Osun senseless carnage requires Adeleke devotion of more time to reach out to all party even when it is clear to all that he may be headed for the APC in months to come.
His ability to stand above intrigues in the Accord party and carry them along is the real Compensation the people needed to heal the deep wounds inflicted on the psyche of a people violently divided among itself by his self seeking politicians.
