Let me state from the outset that this articled opinion is no sarcasm. It’s both a chronicling of the misfortunes brought upon our political office holders by their cohorts and a sincere expression of deep empathy for them, with a full focus on the Executive Governor of Oyo State, Engineer Seyi Makinde.
It was Dr Reuben Abati, narrating his public service experience as a media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan in one of his column opinions, who spoke about something extra-natural, diabolical and fetishistic about seats of power. Issues of how public office holders are being approached with fetish recitations and diabolical objects by politicians and seekers of contracts to curry favours weren’t in the public domain before the Abati revelations. What Dr Reuben Abati disclosed might sound like excusing the misdeeds, the missteps and the misactions of the public office holders but it’s the stark reality of what goes on within the confines of Aso Rock and governors’ offices.
This writer doesn’t know how much of fetishism or diabolism Governor Seyi Makinde understands or engages in or if he believes in such at all, as a Christian he says he is. But whether he believes in fetishism or not, or he also engages in it at least for protection, events since he assumed office as the governor of Oyo state has indicated that the almost taciturn governor might have been overwhelmed by the extra-natural, diabolical and fetishistic interactions those swarming to him for one favour or another are having with him.
Let’s recount some side talks that flew around during late Alhaji Lam-Adesina administration in the state. Talks flew around that some politicians who were closer to Lam-Adesina before he became governor could not get the benefit of a nail from the administration of their darling leader because Lam-Adesina was said never to remember them while in the office. It was told that when the politicians went to greet Lam-Adesina after he left office, he asked the men where they had been and the men told him that they submitted files to him for approval about some proposals but they heard no good news until he left office. Lam-Adesina was said to have felt really bad as he said he had many files on his table and if he touched some files, he would just feel some terrible sensations running through his body. As told, Lam-Adesina had to beg those men and promised to see what he could do to pacify them.
During the late Abiola Ajimobi administration, the enigmatic governor faced his own rains of fetishistic attacks to curry favours by politicians and seekers of contracts coming to see him. Everybody knew Abiola Ajimobi as a person who wasn’t afraid to talk. At one occasion, he told the politicians present that he heard complaints that he was not giving due rewards to many of those who worked for his emergence as governor. Abiola Ajimobi told the audience that he was aware that people came to him with fetish objects to seek favours. There and then, the courageous Abiola Ajimobi told the politicians present that they should also find extra-natural ways to get his attention since that’s what most politicians do to get his attention. He went ahead to tell the audience his mother’s name in case they needed it to make fetish preparations. Such was Abiola Ajimobi’s boldness! A story was also told by a prominent journalist of how late Abiola Ajimobi asked his security men to chase away a man who came to see him, holding and counting Islamic rosary frantically. According to former Governor Ajimobi, immediately he sighted the man counting rosary, his head got swelled with the feeling of tingling sensations. He had to angrily order the man out of his office, so we were told.
There’s a former local government chairman in Ibadan who enlisted the help of a powerful spiritualist to be able to get undivided attention of late Abiola Ajimobi as the governor then. The said former local government chairman was instructed to find women who could help him to breastfeed ‘sìgìdì’ (wood sculptured like a human) in order to have his wish done. The man was alleged to have carried out the instruction and he got full attention of the late governor who made him a caretaker chairman for more than three years and still presented him as the chairmanship candidate during the local government election. Whether it was his fetish preparations that worked for him is a discussion for another day. Such was the diabolical ways these politicians deal with public office holders to get favours to the detriment of others who also are entitled to such favours.
Why are all these stories being told? It’s to state reasons why Governor Seyi Makinde deserves our pity. If we take political sentiments out of it and we still take political sentiments into it, Seyi Makinde has made several misdeeds and has taken several missteps in governance and party affairs. As it is usual with prominent public figures who hold the keys to public resources, Seyi Makinde is also surrounded with fetishistic elements whose interests are not how the governor will succeed in his tasks of running the affairs of the state but how the elements will have their bank accounts filled through the favours of monies and contract they are scrambling to get from the governor. PDP is in shambles in Oyo state because some leaders are said to have used more powerful juju to monopolise the attention of the governor to themselves only to the detriment of others with whom they struggled to install the present government.
It’s from many fronts that Governor Seyi Makinde appears to be getting fetishistic attacks. Stories fly around that career officers at the Governor’s office are also part of the diabolic syndicates turning the governor’s head so they can get approval for their files. There are also the commissioners, the special advisers, the special assistants, board chairmen, heads of agencies, etc, who all want to have the governor’s ears only. All these are made complicated by the politicians who hang their living on what they can get from the governor.
In this circumstance, how do we expect any governor to be in his right senses when his senses have been bombarded with all sorts of fetish recitations to curry his favours? Yet, the same politicians will blame the governor for sidelining them in the scheme of things when in actual fact, it’s the politicians that are at war with each other to move the governor’s attention away from each other.
The ongoing activities of the PDP in preparation for their forthcoming local government election have revealed many things, chief of which is that the politicians have all gone far in hypnotising the governor to pick their candidates. As we speak, the party is in disarray as those whose candidates Seyi Makinde did not pick are accusing the governor of imposition while those whose candidates have been picked are dining and wining that the governor is the best thing that would ever happen to their lives. The politicians should know that ‘he who is faster is favoured by Ogun, the so-called god of iron’. Where your fetishistic journey ends is where someone else’s starts.
Therefore, why Seyi Makinde deserves our pity and prayers, perhaps, is because he appears not to bring into the office charms and charisma that can ward off these diabolical intentions against him. If a governor or any public office holder is also not a stranger to fetishism, he needs that natural charms and charisma to help the efficiency of his protective juju against the selfish paraders of juju who care not for the state but for themselves and their families. To a large extent, the stinking charms and charisma possessed by late Governor Abiola Ajimobi helped him to surmount some of these diabolical attacks.
This development of hypnotising public office holders by those seeking favours from them continues to be a bad omen that will not only rob our society of development but will also rob the office holders of the success they ought to have recorded if they’re not being bombarded with fetish recitations and objects.
