I was privileged to know that senior advisors to Governor Seyi Makinde were in talks with top representatives of the dissolved Oyo State local government chairmen for a negotiated settlement of the impasse arising from the dissolution crisis and the only snag then was said to be the governor, being difficult. If this piece were to be, before the reported change of heart which birthed the compromise move from the governor to settle the matter out of court, I would have advised him to grab the lifeline being offered by his ‘genuine’ aides and sign on the deal, ASAP, for his own good. Thankfully, legal commonsense and political reality got to the governor ahead of Gibbers. Karo aso mo’di, karo ‘di m’aso… (All is well that ends well), as the Yoruba will say.

As a boardroom runaway success at a relatively young age, there is a tendency for either the governor to overrate his acumen since rich people are always deemed thinkers with great capabilities to pull out the chestnut, no matter the ferocity of the fire, or for the people around him and his faceless advisers and baba isale to be overreaching in their bid to create a tough and decisive administrator out of him in order for his very relaxed visage not to define his persona as diffident.

We will be detaining ourselves here, haggling the infidelity of state executives in their relational with local governments under their jurisdiction. After the 2002 judgment of the Supreme Court, which held that governors were right to determine the tenure of council chairmen through their state Houses of Assembly and that the esekuku (grass-roots) men aren’t the third tier of government, which precluded them from the four-year tenure prescribes for elected government officials by the Nigerian constitution, state executives have gone completely savage with the local government arrangement.

Since Makinde has realised that because others are stealing won’t make itchy fingers right, there isn’t much need trying to ‘Jangebe’ him. Instead of wasting energies on what he obviously did wrong like others before him, the current commendable efforts by President Muhammadu Buhari to constitutionally free the local council administration from governors’ greed, insecurity, personal agenda and partisan grip should be pursued in a way to make the governors’ purse completely empty of council funds once the amendment procedure is complete and completed.

In almost all cases of illegal dissolution of local government chairmen by new state executives, the aberration is always overlooked by the grass-roots citizenry because the chairmen themselves are total embarrassment to probity. Practically, no state is immune. Without sounding tribal, I must still commend council bosses that come to work down South (not the braggadocio of committing burglary in the name of enforcing court order). I witnessed, up North, council chairmen, being absent from their offices for nearly every working day of the month, except the day allocations from the state capitals were ferried in for sharing. Hours after, the secretariats become ghost towns, or more appropriately, towns of goats and the invalid. Some even butchered the allocations right in their homes within the state capitals, with other vultures in the garbs of principal officers in attendance, ogling away the money, while the sharing formulas were being worked out. I must say I had also witnessed a similar scenario in a couple of Osun local government councils.

Maybe, we should even thumb Makinde up for not choosing or remembering to be criminally-brilliant like buoda oke ohun (someone I don’t want to mention) in dealing with the council chairmen who are not of his political cord, though he wanted to employ the backhand, when Abuja heat was almost unbearable. Mr. Governor, God is always making it difficult for those He loves, to get away with sin, or commit one at all. By practically forcing you to your knee on this, He could be reproving you, so you don’t miss it.

I have heard argument like the local government would breathe better under the strangulation of the state CEOs, if all chairmen could develop the balls of Abbas Alesinloye and his people. Phew. Which balls? If Makinde had chosen the path of probe and indictment, for which nearly all of them would be stewing by now, before announcing the dissolution, nearly all would be in PDP today or voluntarily exiting, before being subjected to public disgrace. The governor put the cart before the horse, because time wasn’t up for the Ajimobi boys!

Though we are reputed as a learn-nothing republic, the Oyo State saga should be a positive, if stakeholders would be futuristic in situating the dissolution aftermath, vis-a-vis constitutionalism, partisanship and above all, accountability. Should we allow thieves remain in office because the one signing money off to them can’t control totally? If local governments exit at the pleasure of the state, what should the relationship between them be? If tenure stability is desired for the chairmen, is it possible for the on-going constitution amendment to spell the variables out in ABC? It is hoped that these and many other begging questions would be permanently answered, while the financial autonomy focus isn’t also lost. Can we at least do this, for our shared future, without the usual partisan embellishment?

Coming to Governor Makinde: Well, his fear-factor has just taken a major hit, even if he eventually succeeded in paying the chairmen off to fix his own there. The deficit is, however, recoverable if he would put his house in order and prayerfully seek the heart of those advising him. Won’t say more on that. The governor would be shocked knowing how much his supposed own, feverishly wished the dissolution crisis would become a Frankenstein monster that would consume his high-flying administration. The enemies of their enemy became overnight Vals. He should get his SDP/PDP politics right.

There was this corrupted version of a didactic Yoruba message that came for a troublous former governor. Maybe GSM would find it useful; Igi sun mo ara won, l’obo ro pe oun smart, t’igi ba ye fun’ra won, Ile l’obo ma ba ara e. The governor should behave like an eagle in this matter; soar in storm.

*Gibbers By Tribune