Why did Interior Minister Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola spend so much precious time at the weekend, ultimately to no avail, trying to wrest Osun State APC’s re-election ticket from Governor Gboyega Oyetola and in his place anoint Moshood Adeoti for the governorship election coming up in June?
Having been in politics for decades now, Aregbesola should know by now that in Nigerian politics, anointing is often a path to heart ache, disappointment and ruination. Aregbesola himself was up in front in anointing Oyetola as his successor at the State of Osun Government House four years ago. He now says it was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, “playing God,” who rammed Oyetola down his throat. Since that anointment miserably failed to achieve its purpose of remaining in power by other means, what makes him think the same thing will not happen if Adeoti were to become the next governor? Won’t Ogbeni come back four or eight years from now and tell us that it was someone else who rammed Adeoti down his throat?
Across the rivers from Osun, Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom openly appointed his Commissioner of Lands Umo Eno as his anointed successor. This very measured ex-banker apparently forgot former President Obasanjo’s admonition years ago that, “In Africa, we don’t have a Crown Prince because rivals will make sure he dies before the King.”
There are plenty of examples all over the country to convince Ogbeni that he should spare his energy, resources and health and forgo this anointing business. Tinubu that he is accusing of master minding Oyetola’s rise to the governorship, was he not the same person who anointed Aregbesola to the Osun governorship in 2010? Tinubu made Aregbesola a commissioner in Lagos State when he was governor, only to send him back to Osun, make him ACN’s governorship candidate and ultimately the governor. Is it now he started playing God?
Osun politicians should learn from what happened to their east, in Edo State. What did Governor Adams Oshiomhole not do in 2016 to ensure that his anointed man Godwin Obaseki succeeded him in Edo Government House? We saw Oso Baba eating corn in the market, sweeping streets with APC broom, acrobatically running up flights of stairs at rallies and doing double break dance, all for Obaseki. It all ended in one of the bitterest fights in Nigerian politics.
Even Tinubu that Aregbesola is crediting with trans-border anointing, did it always end well in his own backyard? By the time his former chief of staff and anointed successor Babatunde Raji Fashola ended his tenure in 2015, there was no love lost between them. Not to mention the man that Tinubu chose to succeed Fashola, namely Akinwunmi Ambode, whom he ousted after only four years.
Nor is failed anointment strictly Western Nigerian. The most celebrated case of failed anointment in Nigerian politics was in Anambra State in 2004 when godfather Chris Ubah kidnapped Governor Chris Ngige. Who can do more for an anointed successor than what outgoing Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu did for his chief of staff, Theodore Orji in 2007? Kalu formed a brand new political party, PPA, made Orji its candidate and got him elected governor even though Orji was cooling his heels in prison on election day. Can you beat that?
But Orji rebelled against Kalu once he was ensconsed in Umuahia Government House. Perhaps godfather Kalu’s attitude did not help matters when you remember that Ikedi Ohakim, another PDP defector who rode to the Imo State Government House on Kalu’s PPA ticket in 2007, also rebelled against him. Maybe former Imo State governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha should thank his stars because if he had succeeded in installing his son-in-law Uche Nwosu as his successor in 2019, there was no guarantee that things will end well.
In 2011, soon after he secured a full presidential term on his own steam, President Goodluck Jonathan forcibly denied reelection ticket to Governor Timipre Sylva of his home state of Bayelsa. The man the Jonathans plucked from House of Representatives and installed as Sylva’s successor, Seriake Dickson, soon fell out with Mrs. Patience Jonathan and was on his way to being denied reelection ticket if not because the Jonathans lost the presidency in 2015.
Look, one would have thought that Rotimi Amaechi and Nyesom Wike should be the best of friends. Wike was Governor Amaechi’s chief of staff in Rivers. As far as we know, Amaechi had a hand in making Wike Minister of State for Education in Jonathan’s cabinet. Wike soon developed wings, cashed in on Mrs. Jonathan’s dislike for Amaechi and soon succeeded him at Rivers Government House.
No man in Nigerian politics had so much serial disappointment with anointed governors than the late Kwara strongman, Senator Abubakar Olusola Saraki. Governors Adamu Attah, Cornelius Adebayo, Shaba Lafiagi and Mohammed Lawal all entered Ilorin Government House on Oloye’s wings in three different Republics, only to turn around and rebel. People alleged that Oloye was overbearing, but he denied it when I interviewed him in Kaduna in 2001. He explained in great detail what happened in each case.
Senator Muhammadu Danjuma Goje of Gombe is probably next to Oloye in failed anointing. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, whom Goje anointed in 2011, soon rebelled against him. Goje’s former Finance Commissioner and current Governor Mohammed Inuwa is doing the same right now. Their quarrel has already spilled into street brawls. In 2006, Goje himself deserted his original mentor, Atiku Abubakar when President Obasanjo/Ahmodu Ali initiated PDP’s “membership re-registration” exercise in order to weed out Atiku loyalists.
In Kaduna State in 2007, folks loudly complained that Mohamed Namadi Sambo entered the PDP race very late in the day but made off with the ticket, and ultimately with the governorship, because outgoing Governor Ahmed Makarfi anointed him. It didn’t end well; their close associates soon got into a bitter public row.
Before it became the Ground Zero of banditry, Zamfara State was Nigeria’s first laboratory of failed political anointing. In 2007 when members of the first set of Fourth Republic governors were leaving, every deputy governor in Nigeria wanted to succeed his boss. In the end, the only deputy governor that succeeded his boss was Zamfara’s Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi. President Obasanjo praised it at one occasion in Abuja. Within six months Shinkafi fell out with Ahmed Sani, Yariman Bakura. Yarima however learnt his lesson. When next he anointed Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar in 2011, he kept well to the background and thus avoided another public fall out. In 2019 when Yari finished his second term and wanted the Senate seat that Yarima was sitting on, he quietly left it for him.
Zamfara episode should have been an eye opener for Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso in Kano who, as his second [broken] tenure ended in 2015, anointed his two-time deputy Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to succeed him. The fight between Kwankwasiyya and Gandujiyya, which began within six months, soon became one of the hottest in the country.
In my native Kebbi State, the same thing happened in 2007 when Governor Mohammed Adamu Aleiro picked Sa’idu Nasamu Dakingari, out of the blues, and rammed him in as his successor. Within a very short time they were bitterly fighting. It might not be correct, as some Aleiro supporters are saying, that he anointed current Governor Atiku Bagudu in 2015 since they arrived together into APC as PDP refugees on the same day. They remained very close political allies for many years. Right now they control bitterly feuding parallel APC factions in the state.
In Sokoto State, Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko anointed then House Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as his successor in 2015. By 2017 they had fallen out, with Tambuwal defecting to PDP. In Borno State too, Governor Ali Modu Sheriff anointed Kashim Shettima as his successor in 2011. Accident had a hand in it because Boko Haram shot Sheriff’s first pick, his cousin Modu Fannami Gubio after nominations closed. He picked Shettima as replacement. By 2013 they had fallen out and Sheriff left APC for PDP.
Anyway, there are a few glimmers of hope within the thick dark clouds of political anointment. In Kwara, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed remained loyal to Dr. Bukola Saraki to the very end. So far, Tinubu and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu are getting along fine. And in Borno, Governor Babagana Zullum and the man who anointed him, former governor Kashim Shettima, are getting along very well. There were beautiful pictures of them visiting the border town of Gamboru Ngala last week. We will yet see what happens in Anambra when Professor Charles Soludo’s anointing by Governor Willy Obiano is complete.
Ogbeni’s candidate lost woefully in weekend’s APC primaries. Oyetola must however be very careful because his 2018 run for governor at first ended inconclusively. Failed godfathers could still do real damage in the main election.
