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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Thursday, June 17, 2004.
Between Tinubu and Badagry
Division
By Rotimi Durojaiye
Power. Sweet power. The
ultimate of human desire. Bertrand Russell, the great English
philosopher, had said it all: “Of all the infinite desires of man, the
chief are the desires for power and glory”. Of course, who does not
cherish the notion of wielding the baton of power ? If you are poor you
want to become rich. If you are rich you want to be counted among the
powerful, the movers and the shakers of the society.
Perhaps this explains why some go into the
wild jungle of politics in search of the fruit of power. But to know the
pains of power, suggests Charles Colton in his book, Lacon, we
must go to those who have it; and to know its pleasures, we must go to
those who are seeking it. Of all the power seekers in the world no one
had shown as much candour as the late John Kennedy who publicly said that
he ran for president “because that’s where the action is.” He belonged to
a wealthy family better known for its ambition to secure political power.
Nelson Rockefeller. That’s another premier
example of the intriguing phenomenon of a wealthy American with great
public ambition. During his lifetime, Rockefeller was four times the
Governor of New York. He moved a step forward in 1974 when he became Vice
President under Gerald Ford. He never fulfilled his grand passion to be
president, but the fire of ambition raged in him till he died.
But the question remains dangling like the
Sword of Damocles. What is the power seeker really after ?. Much less
appreciated is the extent to which the purpose of power is the exercise
of power itself. “In all societies”, says John Galbraith in The
Anatomy of Power, “from the most primitive to the ostensibly most
civilised, the exercise of power is profoundly enjoyed”.
In a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural
nation like Nigeria, even with the purest of hearts, the tendency will
always be there for the different ethnic and sub-ethnic groups to nurture
political rivalry and resort at every available opportunity to compare
their lot in the commonwealth to those of other ethnic groups. This has always been the case in
Nigeria since the amalgamation of various groups into one nation and will
continue to be so. This rivalry has often descended to bitter dimensions
resulting into riots and even wars in some cases.
The debate is all over Lagos State about
who wears the cap as the next Head of Service (HOS) after the exit of the outgoing
helmsman. On July 7, 2004, Alhaji Rafiu Babatunde Tinubu, would throw-in
the towel and bid Alausa farewell. On that date, he would attain the
mandatory 60 years of retirement and more than two decades of meritorious
service to the people and government of the state.
The news of the impending departure of
Tinubu, has become a very big front burner issue. The issue of who will
step into his shoes and the area from which the person would come is getting
hotter. There are many divergent views as there are groups and vested
interests on the propriety of sustaining the status quo or reversing it.
In the opinion of some, all the divisions of the state that formed the
acronym IBILE, that is : Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos and Epe, should
be considered for the post. Others are of the opinion that the
disadvantaged areas should be given preference.
One division of the state which seemed to
be disadvantaged or marginalized in the balancing of political equation
is the Badagry Division. Since the creation of the state on May 27, 1967,
the division has always been the “weeping boy” in the sharing of
political appointments. It has neither produced a governor, a deputy
governor, a secretary to the state government (SSG) nor an HOS. Out of
the 17 HOS that have served 12 governors in the state, either as military
or elected civilian governor, none has come from Badagry. Lagos Division
has produced 10 HOS, Ikorodu
two, with Epe and Ikeja producing one each. It is obvious that the
position of SSG/HOS has not been equally distributed among the five
divisions of the state. While some parts have had more access to the
commonwealth, Badagry has not been fortunate to have such access.
Irrespective of the factors considered in the process of selection of
candidates into this office considered to be a powerful one, it should be
done based on constitutional provisions and need to incorporate all parts
of the state into the political and administrative processes of the
state. The positive implication of this is that it would assure the
disadvantaged areas of the state that their interest is also paramount to
the advantaged areas and it would also motivate them to contribute their
maximum quota to the development of the state.
Badagry Division lies south-west of Lagos
and is made up of eight
local government areas : Badagry Central, Badagry West, Ojo,
Ifelodun, Amuwo-Odofin, Festac, Iba and Ajeromi. Badagry enjoys a pride
of place in history especially as regards early European contacts with
West Africa. By virtue of being a coastal town, Badagry was a major slave
outpost and market during the pre-colonial era. It was also the first
place in Nigeria where Christianity was preached in 1842. The Agia
Cenotaph is a hub reminder of this act.
There have been surreptitious moves,
lobbying and so on for appointment into this prestigious and powerful
office. However, the buck stops on the table of Governor Bola Tinubu on
who succeeds the out-going HOS. No doubt, with the array of eminently qualified
permanent secretaries in the Lagos State civil service, His Excellency
has a Herculean task of
making a choice. It is expected that his final decision will take into consideration
competence, loyalty, hard work and above all the balancing of the
distribution of top key positions among the divisions that make up the
state. His decision should not endorse the unjust position that a
particular division or group of people in the state is superior to the
others.
The present state of lopsidedness in power
distribution in the state may not be deliberate, but history now beckons
on all patriotic Lagosians, irrespective of divisional loyalty and class
interests to redress the imbalance. Since the service of the state and
all its appurtenances are a commonwealth, it is therefore a compelling
commitment for all blue-blooded Lagosians to do somsething to protect
them. This can only be done through equal access to the epicentre of
power hierarchy in the administrative machinery of the state.
This is golden opportunity for Governor
Tinubu to etch his name in history books by demonstrating his commitment
to the principles of fairness and social justice.
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