BROUGHT TO HIS KNEES: WHEN WILL OSHIOMOLE COME TO ESANLAND?

Francis Ilenloa Igberaese, Ph.D

When I first heard the saying that wonders shall never end, I was a child then and I reacted as if the statement was aimed at pacifying the poor. I have long come to the realization of the truism in the wonderful statement, even before the latest wonder in Edo State.   

Oshiomole, now extra slim and even smaller, no longer the mighty national chairman of APC, from where he could boast of how he would dislodge a sitting governor and fix another, went on his knees, begging for survival. I now realize how wrong I was, when I had argued with my friend of bini extraction, that Oshiomole has been able to use the binis and escaped. Then, as early as when he became the chairman about two years ago, my friend had told me that the bini people know how to bring their enemies back to their knees once they decide so to do. This was when Oshiomole who had thought that he was smart, had only just started campaigning for the September 2020 election in Edo State on his knees. Yes, the "2020 Campaign on his Knees", as opposed to the "2016  Campaign Dancing". And since it is that it is on his knees he will campaign this time around, it will be interesting to watch him campaigning in the run up to the 2020 election. He has started it and we pray to watch him campaign,  hopefully in vain, on his knees, for what a man sews, that he reaps and for that matter, bountifully!

At the death of the former Chief of Staff to the President, Oshiomole engaged in an "exercise of celebration" of the dead as was captured in a video clip that went viral. It was about the death of a man who had developed a template to rescue Obaseki from him, a man who had believed in what the renowned author, Chinua Achebe had admonished the birds in his classic novel, *Things Fall Apart* , that both the kite and the eagle should perch, without any saying no to the other. Unknown to him, the late Chief of Staff's template completed Achebe's admonition, having built into it how the wings of whichsoever tells the other not to perch would break. And unknown to the ever cunning and ever deceitful man, it was a template, which could be implemented by anybody other than he who fomulated and developed it. Perhaps, he was too ignorant to understand what a template is, for if he had known, he would have known that his rejoicing and jubilation that greeted the passing away of the man was unnecessary!

Could anyone ever have imagined that Oshiomole, the Governor General in 2016, would go down on his knees in 2020? I imagine how many "azonto" dance steps practice he would have reharsed in preparation for the 2020 campaign if he were still the national chairman. Would Ize-Iyamu have even needed the "lions and the tigers" of the eighteen local government areas of Edo State, to move from polling unit to polling unit, ward to ward and even across the local governments and do what the rich people cannot do? Of course, the rich people keep their children in the safe haven abroad, preparing them as "eagles and flying geese"; for leadership in the key sectors of the economy and then employ the children of others as the lions and tigers (thugs) to fight their battles for them, caring less, if at all, should they die in the process! 

The fall of Oshiomole is where I pity the APC and their campaigning on their knees. They had built their hope around the power of the national chairman. I guess if they had known that Oshiomhole would eventually fall from the high throne as national chairman, they wouldn't have bothered organising the EPM, now APC in Edo State. With the removal of Oshiomhole by the natural forces, since he had boasted that no man born of a woman could remove him as chairman of APC, the men that were behind the EPM may be losing steam! Yes, a man who played god by boasting that no man born of a woman could remove him as chairman not only reminded us of that which we read in Macbeth by Shakespeare, he conveniently forgot in his very little thinking that if his boast was indeed true that no man born of a woman could remove him as the chairman of the ruling party, then he would have to contend with higher and superior natural forces, against which he certainly could not prevail! And yes, when these forces came calling, he certainly could not prevail hence his calamitous fall from the "throne" 

With the  removal of Oshiomole from office as chairman, it may well be impossible for him to manipulate INEC and the police to the advantage of his party in the election. Nigerians are, however, watching these agencies as they conduct the election in Edo State. It is hoped that they know that they are on trial in the way and manner they conduct the election in the State, having seen how they conducted the election in Osun State! 

By now, we would have been watching the man who knows how to dance very well dancing himself out as he celebrates in advance the victory of his party and his anointed candidate in the yet-to-be-conducted election! Yes, he would by now,  have been celebrating  and telling the whole world how he would whip Obaseki (as he did to Ize-Iyamu in 2016) and how Obaseki (Ize-Iyamu in 2016) would cry like a baby on all the streets of Benin and in all courts in Nigeria without justice. However, it is either many of them in the EPM are not as forward-looking and realistic as their leader in the Movement or that they are more courageous than him to have still continued on to see how what they had started would eventually end. You never can tell.

Well, the new style is "Campaigning on the knees" since this could elicit sympathy, with the loss of the power of political terrorism and brigandage. As Oshiomole continues to campaign on his knees, our Esan supporters of his should not forget to include our Esan traditional rulers (those he had actually so well offended) in his kneeling down calendar of campaign. He should not forget that Uromi people are eagerly waiting to see him kneel down before the "Ojuromu of Uromi Kingdom", the Revered Royal Father he once suspended. He should remember that he hadn't apologized to him. 

But I know that Oshiomole would rather die than kneel before any Esan traditional ruler; a people he so passionately hates. For what and why, only Oshiomhole can explain. And only any of ours from Esanland who says otherwise can explain! We are waiting.