OSHIOMHOLE’S CALL FOR INEC CHAIRMAN’S RESIGNATION: A BLACKENED POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK!

In the last couple of days, I’ve battled the urge to join issues with the erstwhile Governor of my home-state, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, on his alleged call for the resignation of the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu. As a well-brought up son of Edo land, and one schooled in the nuances of my culture and tradition that frowns at the unedifying pursuit of hurling insults at elders, I am indeed constrained. But as a Nigerian, a Midwesterner, and one who has in recent past, tasked our (mis)leaders to be more forthright and accountable to our people, it has become too difficult to keep quiet.

It is no longer news that the National Chairman of the APC, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, has called for the resignation of the INEC Chairman. Mr. Oshiomhole is not ignorant of the fact that such action will further heat up the polity, while throwing the entire election process into needless disarray, and avoidable crisis. 

While not defending the inexcusable failings of INEC, and the attendant postponement of last Saturday’s election, I must plead with the perennially loquacious ex-Governor to elevate his pronouncements and diatribes, at least for once! It is shameful that Mr. Oshiomhole of all people should be the one voicing such gross demands. We all don’t have short memories. Barely a few months ago, he superintended over what was generally alleged to be the worst intra-party Election Primaries in recent history; one that prompted no less a person than the wife of the nation’s President (who is the Leader of his party) to chastise him publicly in a 6-paged tweet on her official Twitter handle! To refresh the memory of the diminutive ex-labour leader, Dr. (Mrs) Aisha Buhari berated the self-styled Comrade for duping hundreds of APC aspirants in the Primaries and she wondered why “such impunity could take place under his watch”! 

It is baffling that Mr. Oshiomhole, who failed to conduct a transparent intra-party selection process within the APC, and whose monumental failure midwifed the largest ‘decamping’ exercise in the nation’s political history, could call for the INEC Chairman’s resignation. It is akin to a charred and blackened, ugly-looking and weather-beaten pot calling a kettle black!  It is on record that Oshiomhole’s monumental failure robbed the APC the chance to field candidates at all levels in both Zamfara and Rivers States! 

As an Edo man, I am ashamed of the continued, albeit unchecked, boisterous and Mephistophelean disposition of a man who had the rare privilege to be Governor of my home State. All Edos are a proud people with a distinguished heritage that reverberates along concave shores of the world. It beats me: what peculiar strain constitutes the ex Comrade’s DNA?

My dear Comrade Sir, since the APC continues to harbor and accommodate you as its National Chairman, please do well to remember the proud and dignified mien of the Edo people from whence you supposedly descended. Maybe (Just MAYBE) that will guard and guide your public pronouncements and vituperations going forward. I wish you a more dignifying comportment during the coming elections. 

Ògbòo Sir.- Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.