Aderemi Oseni, the man contesting the Oyo South senatorial seat, has arrived in the city with a big bang. The way Remi Oseni is spending in politics makes the late MKO Abiola’s wealth look trifling.
After the era of Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Obafemi Awolowo, the trio who guided Nigeria to independence in 1960, money became the only way to win elections in Nigeria. Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, the first and the only Prime Minister was not rich, yet he became the nation’s prime minister. He had character. Sam Mbakwe first civilian governor of Imo State, was well educated but hardly could be called rich, yet he became the governor of Imo State. His stellar performance has not been equalled. Called the weeping governor because tears easily dropped from his eyes at the sight of human misery, Mbakwe returned to the University of Lagos after his tenure to take a PhD where he reportedly sat in the same class with his son.
Chief Emmanuel Oladipo Alayande, the longest serving principal of Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan would seem to be the first of the old pack to be a victim of money politics. He was the anointed candidate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the leader of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) for the governorship of Oyo. But the ebullient and rich youth in the UPN opposed their leader and insisted on a primary. Awolowo succumbed to their suggestion and asked for a primary. Chief Bola Ige, a lawyer and former student of Alayande, won the primary.
When the press asked Chief Alayande why he lost, he told them hilariously: “ah those youths are very rich, I don’t have their kind of money.” Alayande said money helped Bola Ige’s victory. Among the disciples of Awolowo, mammon entered and determined the outcome. Alayande has produced many great Nigerians but was adjudged by the UPN members not to merit the governorship of Oyo State. The man who reportedly scuttled the late Chief Alayande’s political ambition, Alhaji Busari Adelakun, had no formal education and was reputed to be a thug.
Chief Alayande was disciplined and of impeccable character but was not deemed qualified to rule by a system that is based not on merit and competence but on cash. After one term in office, Chief Bola Ige himself was thrown out of power, not because he was not competent or not doing well, but by the same power of money from the nation’s capital in Abuja. A few years later, still in politics and the serving attorney general of the federation, he was murdered by the same money system in Ibadan, where he had earlier won the party primaries and governorship by the power of cash.
Ibadan, the political capital of the old Western Region where Awolowo demonstrated good politics and a great heart for service to the people, where by those policies the Yoruba leapt to the top and achieved such visibility in the world, is experiencing another leap in money politics. Aderemi Abass Oseni, the man contesting the Oyo South senatorial seat, has arrived in the city with a big bang. The way Remi Oseni is spending in politics makes the late MKO Abiola’s wealth look trifling.
Abiola won his presidency by the power of his money. Issues were not involved, Nigerians have grown to have little patience for issues but a large appetite for cash. When I think of the opponents of Remi Oseni in the current contest, I pity them - they just don’t have a jot of a chance. Odidiomo, the nickname of Remi Oseni’s major contender from Seyi Makinde’s Allied Peoples Movement (APM) is formidable but he can’t win. With Nigerians’ love for money, even if Seyi Makinde will open the Oyo State treasury for him, he will still stand no chance. In my opinion, Remi may be richer than Oyo State. Adedeji Dhikirullahi Stanley, commonly known as Odidiomo, APM senatorial candidate for Oyo South, is massively built but I don’t think that huge frame will deliver him. He said he had built four billion naira projects in the state and would be unveiling them one by one.
He said they were projects that would outlast the great grand children of his constituents, but the one I saw in the Ward 9 of his constituency in Kudeti was just a locally constructed bridge over a canal. The old one caved in a few months ago and the replacement is showing the same weakness as the old one. Odidiomo did not build the bridge, I think he just gave money to the locals who are more interested in their pockets than the welfare of the constituents, like their political bosses, to build the bridge. That bridge will not see the next rain fall.
Odidiomo is huge, but he has an elephant to contend with in his bid for the Senate. Remi has a tiny frame but his pocket is very deep. At a meeting of landlords in Ward 9 over the theft of the cables of their transformer, this writer suggested Remi Oseni as a person they can reach out to to bail the community out from the theft. The community, I told them, could not dream of raising the over two million naira estimated to put the transformer back to work. Otherwise the community will be in darkness forever.
The IBEDC, the disco in Ibadan whose duty is both to secure and maintain the transformer will not do it. IBEDC gives an estimated bill to the community in contravention of appropriate law, which means the community pays more than it should. The community is not deemed to merit pre-paid meter; that is for the rich. The government is not bothered because the community is poor and has no voice. But the timing is auspicious.
Politicians are desperately throwing themselves on the mercy of every citizen as they face election to return to power. After this writer made a case at the Ward 9 landlords’ meeting in Kudeti, Ibadan, for Hon. Remi Oseni to intervene over the stolen transformer cables, a lady rose to make an even stronger case for the honourable.
She put the question of Remi Oseni’s wealth more starkly. Remi Oseni, she said in deep Yoruba, has money that is begging to be spent. “When people ask him for a million he gives them two, when they ask him for three million, he gives them five. When they asked him for fifty solar poles, he gave them 150.”
Remi Oseni does not believe a politician should have to stay away from his audience when he campaigns. He walks among the audience and touches the crowd. He likes to touch people and look into their eyes. When he notices a need, he treats the need specially.
He got to a girl and asked if she was in school. She was not in school because she left when her parents died. He promised the girl a million naira immediately to continue her education. According to politicians who followed the promise up, the girl received the money in a bank detail she produced the week after the promise. Political associates of Remi Oseni think his attitude of walking through his audience is because he is a Christian and is used to that style of preaching by pastors.
The danger of that style was soon revealed. Remi Oseni went to Ayeye, a popular market in Ibadan, and interacted with the traders there. He has done that for a long time. He has given 50 million naira interest-free loan to traders in Agbeni market and other markets. He was walking among the traders when political thugs came and began to shoot sporadically. They riddled the security van of Remi Oseni with bullets and shot so much that all the traders ran in different directions. Obviously the gunmen came for Remi Oseni but he was saved by the whiskers.
Will Oseni continue that style? It is not known yet. But he did not turn up for a meeting in Ward 9 of Oke Odo, Ibadan where a large reception was arranged for him. Both politicians and landlords in Ward 9 had marshalled a litany of needs for him to attend to when suddenly at about 4 pm, news came that he would not be coming and that he had sent a representative. But very discerning people think that he didn’t come because of the previous Ayeye market attack by hoodlums.
Oke Odo is known to have produced the notorious “one million boys” hoodlums who were feared all over Ibadan. They ruled and reigned in their areas and their leader, nicknamed “Ebila” was called Kabiyesi, a greeting usually reserved for Yoruba kings. Ebila was killed in a direct confrontation with soldiers in May 2020. Yet his gang, though depleted, is still visible in the area. Moreso, a controversy over the N250,000 donated by the gubernatorial candidate of Oyo State and the son of Ibadan, Senator Sharafadeen Alli of APC was raging in the area. The threat of violence was very palpable in the atmosphere. So people think Remi Oseni did not come because he feared for his safety and security.
Yet the representative of Remi Oseni promised two and a half million naira to the landlords and Imams, one million naira to the thugs euphemistically called youths, one million naira to the traders and one million naira to Isese, the traditional worshipers. The youths insisted on getting their promise immediately and when they received it by bank transfer the whole area erupted with youthful jubilation. The representative of Remi Oseni did not espouse any manifesto of Oseni or of Oseni’s party, APC. Of course nobody came to hear any manifestos, the party itself had none, everybody came to take the money Oseni had to give.
That has become the pattern. If you have money, you rule. If you have access to the treasury, whether you are the dumbest ass, people will vote for you. A few asked where Oseni made his money. Meta AI gave a hint about his construction company, Steep Development Company, but there are rumours that in his early years he worked for an engineering company that took a contract from a company that belonged to Steve Ajudua, a man alleged to have a reputation of pioneering advanced free fraud in Nigeria. Steve Ajudua read law at the University of Benin but did not practice.
Nobody is certain about the source of his wealth, but Oseni is certainly a big spender, and his wealth and the way he throws it around will constitute a threat to Sarafadeen even if Sarafadeen eventually becomes governor. Sarafadeen has a reputation for stinginess, which his campaign team does not think they should work on. Remi Oseni also wanted to become governor but had to step down for Sarafadeen by the intervention of President Bola Tinubu. The immediate victim of Remi Oseni’s wealth is Odidiomo as they collide in the upcoming election; his eventual victim will be Sarafadeen Alli, who might emerge governor.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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