And Four Other Things…
I have a few questions to ask about the Osun governorship election, which ended in favour of APC. Why were Osogbo results on Saturday the last to be announced even though Osogbo was the collation centre? Was INEC waiting to see how other results would go? Was the re-run a way of manipulating the outcome when results didn’t favour the favoured? Why was there so much peace and security in polling units won by APC in the re-run while PDP-dominated areas were controlled by thugs, who chased away voters, observers and reporters, in the face of minimal police presence? Is this rerun a test-run of the 2019 general election? Worrisome.
As APC elects its governorship candidates today and tomorrow through direct and indirect primaries, all eyes will be on Lagos, where the incumbent, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, is fighting for his political life. The news in town is that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is planning to unseat him. Since 1999, Lagos has always represented, to me, the progress that is possible in the pathetically underperforming Nigerian federation. Tinubu started the race and Ambode has stayed in the lane, minus a few expected hiccups. Many are asking: why ditch Ambode? But then you are only as good as your political backbone. If Ambode survives the blitzkrieg, it will be a major miracle. Tough.
Nigeria’s female national team, D’Tigress, stunned the world by making it to the quarter-finals of the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Tenerife, Spain. It was a first for us. I was in no way disappointed that we eventually lost to the US team on Friday — leading the defending champions by 17-9 in the first quarter was as good as winning the World Cup in my books. We should be proud of the progress of our ladies. In 2015, their male colleagues, D’Tigers, became African champions for the first time, crushing the traditional favourites, Senegal and Angola, in their wake. What this tells me, essentially, is that it is high time the government took basketball as a priority. Promising.
Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, former Ondo state governor, is a few steps from strolling into the Guinness World Records. Having started off as a member of the Alliance of Democracy (AD) in 1999, he joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003 and left for the Labour Party (LP) in 2017 to run for governorship. Towards the end of his eight-year tenure, he moved back to PDP. Three months ago, he returned to LP for “personal reasons”. Finally, he has left LP for — I didn’t make up this name — the Zenith Labour Party, accusing APC national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of using labour unions to hijack the party. Where next? GTB Labour Party? Comical.