Osun APC, reinventing from emerging unity (I)
By Isaac Olusesi
For the All Progressives Congress (APC) Osun State, it is now a new beginning, and newest. The other time, a certain number of the members of the state APC were procedurally disciplined, permissible in party politics. Quite a good number of them were suspended, appropriately, driven by explicit reasoning skills and effective responses, competent, warm and utilitarian.
With my middle finger upward while keeping the other fingers folded downward, the suspension, navel, compelling and sacrificial, and explained or supported by the rule or constitution of the party, practically elicited everywhere enthusiasm, rated high in harmony with the cross sections of the party and applauded against any nuances, and inferences or preferences to the contrary. In the corollary, the party in the state, got secured from the paradigm of brinkmanship that almost barrelled the party so fast to be out of rescue from imminent collapse. To have been otherwise or biased and motivated by moral dilemmas, the today’s Osun APC’s mobilisation, orientation and sensitization (MOS), on- going would have been dead on delivery. At kick off.
The necessity and proportionality of the Hon.Tajudeen Lawal’s MOS train, trip cocks at the Osun APC local government formations under his watch as the state party chairman, is marked off by objectivity and preparedness, simplicity and surprise, flexibility and concentration, and cooperation and administration. Lawal’s MOS is aimed strategically at increasing the strength, character and wisdom of the party to the maximal point of winning the next rounds of the governorship and general elections in Osun. The MOS, with its stratagems and tactics has begun, dispassionately, trading off all extant disunity in the party, and command unity to party men and women, excited to the mass of the electorate in the state to stave off electoral opponents in Osun in favour of APC. The results of the party’s ongoing efforts as endorsed by the party zenith leadership in the state will be seamless, almost effortless at next polls, overwhelmingly, to be pro APC.
But the frivolities of jamboree or carnival cannot go for the objectives of the Osun APC, moving its mobilisation, orientation and sensitisation (MOS) train on tracks to the state local government structures of the party. Lawal, the chairman of APC in the state who doubles as the MOS train engine driver, doesn’t speak the language of carnival like one from Trinidad and Tobago where Caribbean Carnival originated. He doesn’t answer Carny or carnie, neither is he a carnival employee of Carnival Corporation PLC, a British-American cruise operation. Infact, and indeed, Lawal doesn’t not belong in the class of shareholders of carnival. He’s a politician, erstwhile local government chairman and Hon. Commissioner in the state.
In the Ila and Boluwaduro, Ilesa East and Ilesa West, Ife Central, Ife East and Ife North, Ede North and Ede South, Isokan, Irewole, and Aiyedade as well as Ejigbo and Egbedore local government council areas thus far, visited, the Osun APC’s mobilisation, orientation and sensitisation (MOS) was mistaken by the host party members and enthusiasts for a blowout, also called gala affair, with music, entertainment, dancing, merrymaking, revelry, or jamboree gathering in the city streets as if it were in the culmination of the carnival week before Lent in Roman Catholic countries. All of that, a long mixed programme of processions of party people and celebrations as in jamboree in the local government council configurations of the party amidst the party’s MOS objectives, was an aberration or breach of the business and purpose of MOS. Where does Mikhail Bahhtin’s “carnivalisation” fit in here in the face of the seriousness of Lawal’s MOS?
More than the carnival or jamboree but finer, un-showy or underplayed in Ejigbo, the rest seventeen local government council areas could get settled to such serious mobilisation, orientation and sensitisation issues, agenda setting otherwise, as what factors cause the imposition of candidates ahead of elections and how could the factors be nipped in the bud? In what more rewarding ways could grassroots politicians facilitate the grassroots growth and development of the party for increased party membership? What reasons for the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the drive or how could the drive be energised?
How could the funding for mobilisation for elections not get diverted? What best ways could the party be protected from anti-party activism and its effect made less devastating? How fast and best, with positive effects, could the party could go at reconciling the least aggrieved or disenchanted party members? How could the party members be made responsible to the party leadership at all levels in the state, and the party leaders made to respect party supremacy? What influence or persuasion to exert to keep the leadership from undue or needless war against one another? And how could traditional rulers, women, youths, students, and the physically challenged be mobilised to participate in the revival of the party?
(To be continued)
OLUSESI writes via [email protected]
