Osoba At 77: The Recurrent Comeback Kid

On Sunday April 3, a most momentous event took place at the Bourdillon, Ikoyi residence of Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former two-time governor of Ogun State.

In attendance were the leading lights of current progressive politics in the South-West and indeed Nigeria, who were instrumental to midwifing the first time an opposition party electorally took over power from a ruling party since 1999.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, a host of sitting governors and their representatives and other diehard progressives all converged at Osoba’s house with a singular aim: Bring Back Osoba to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

At the end of the day, the aim was achieved and Osoba is back in APC that he helped midwifed before local politics of his home state, Ogun, forces him to briefly sojourn to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The details of the forces and events that led to his surprising exit from APC may rightly be situated in the merger of sometimes strange bedfellows that produced the APC and the dilution of progressive politics with individuals that hardly shares the ideals of progressivism.

And of course there were issues of personal animosities and clash of ego with some agenda to demystify if not erase the political stature of Osoba from the landscape of Ogun State politics.

Any intelligent political observer can readily see that the comeback bid of Osoba into APC is about one of the most important political developments in 2016, not only in Ogun State, but in the South-West and indeed national politics as by all standards, Osoba is an elder statesman, who had paid his dues adequately in national development first as a renowned journalist, then administrator and politician.

Indeed, in the trajectory of his life, Osoba has had many successful comebacks in the past with the man passing through some trying times that nearly snuffed out his life in the struggle for a democratic Nigeria. In his home state of Ogun, there is probably no political leader alive outside former President Olusegun Obasanjo that has had a more chequered political history over the years than Osoba.

As the democratically elected successor to the first elected governor of the state, Chief Bisi Onabanjo , Osoba continued to build on the solid foundation laid by his predecessor but the continuation was cut short barely two years after by a military interregnum that led Osoba to join the democratic struggle to free Nigeria from military rule.

His roles with NADECO under the regime of General Sanni Abacha nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion and he had to go underground at a point at a great cost to his personal and family life. The story of his life during this period is in the public domain and does not need rehearsing here.

But suffice to say that at the end of that era, Osoba made a comeback as the third elected governor of Ogun State in 1999 under the Alliance for Democracy (AD).

The next four years saw him initiating and executing, perhaps the best rural development strategy in the state history in the area of provision of rural electrification, water and rural roads.

Till date, the rural areas of the state will always see his administration as a reference point when governance touched their lives. The year 2003 saw him leaving the centre stage again as he “lost” his re-election bid in the “capture politics” that saw the then conservative ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the federal level sweeping the polls in the South- West states with the exception of Lagos State.

It was from Lagos that progressive politics was re-launched into the South-West including Ogun State. Osoba left the centre stage in Ogun to the progressive enclave in Lagos, from where he plotted his comeback bid to political relevance in Ogun State. The first attempt floundered in 2007 with his party then – Action Congress (AC) fielding Otunba Dipo Dina, who came third in the election that saw Otunba Gbenga Daniel of PDP defeating Senator Ibikunle Amosun and Dina for a second term.

Apparently it was then no easy task unseating an incumbent with a divided opposition. But by 2011, Osoba’s progressive party that has now metamorphosed to Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN) was in the clear reckoning to present a winning candidate with Asiwaju Tinubu playing the yeoman’s role of an arrowhead.

At the end of the day by the logic of using an opposition figure on a popular platform, ACN fielded Senator Ibikunle Amosun as its candidate with Osoba as the undisputed leader.

It was easy for ACN to defeat the fissiparous PDP that fractured in PDP and Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN). Once again Osoba’s political comeback in Ogun State was assured. Or so it seems. For as it turned out, Senator Amosun began to play an exclusive politics that saw the ACN divided between Osoba group and SIA group.

That division underlies the division in APC that led to the exit of Osoba’s group from APC to SDP to contest the 2015 election. Now, Osoba is back in another comeback bid with his political structure backed by the progressives of the South-West. There has been grumbling and uneasiness in some quarters in Ogun State about his return.

However the game of democratic politics is a game of number, where every political group works to gain the most numbers among the electorate. Only selfish and exclusionist politicians would not welcome new members, more so members that they once co-habited with and benefitted from their membership and support.

Indeed, we are daily regaled with opposition PDP members decamping to APC and being welcome. So, one sees no oddity in Osoba and his group returning to APC. The question on the mind of many is would this be yet another successful comeback bid for Osoba to be politically relevant in Ogun State?

Would he be part and influential in the process leading to selecting a candidate for APC as the incumbent serves out his eight-year mandatory two terms? Only time will tell but from the realities on the ground, there is no way Osoba will not be a factor in the event leading to 2019 election in Ogun State. Certainly like all great politicians that are not flash in a pan, he has had his ups and downs.

At present, one can only see him going up again in not only local politics but regional and national in a truly comeback fashion that is now traditional to him. Born to the family of Pa and Madam Jonathan Babatunde Osoba at an Egba settlement, Egbatedo, in Osogbo on July 15, 1939, Osoba attended African Church School, Osogbo and Methodist Boys High School, Lagos.

He was at University of Lagos for his Diploma in Journalism. He took courses at Oxford University, United Kingdom; Indiana University, United States and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

Beginning a career in journalism that spanned 25 years at the Daily Times and moving from the bottom rung to the pinnacle of the profession, Osoba naturally identified with popular causes and advocacy for the downtrodden that Journalism entails in addition to its enlightening role. Osoba is accepted as a role model in the profession from his days as a reporter in Daily Times, to his managerial position at Nigerian Herald, Sketch Newspapers and Daily Times, all of which flourished under his management.

Internationally, Osoba practiced the profession with BBC, Times of London, Newsweek Magazine, UPI News Agency, and is a prominent member of the International Press Institute (IPI) being the second African to be a member of the Executive Board of the prestigious international professional body after Alhaji Lateef Jakande, another renowned journalist and former governor.

Osoba who holds several chieftaincy titles across Ogun State is married to Aderionsola Osoba (nee Adeyemi) with four children and grandchildren.

•Odunaro was Chief Press Secretary to Osoba as governor of Ogun State