By Gbenga Akinwande
As Aremo Olusegun Osoba, CFR, clocks 85th birthday today, it is imperative to honour him by analysing the political philosophy he represents in the last six decades of his adult life and the ‘progressive’s politics development in Nigeria.’
Progressives, being a class of politicians that believe that power belongs to the people, can be social democrats, labour and other forms of progressives’ derivatives.
In this piece of analysis, I will analyse progressives’ evolution in Nigeria from the first republic to the current fourth republic. Progressives’ politics evolution in Nigeria can be analysed under three eras or periods, namely: the first and second republics, the aborted Third Republic and the current Fourth Republic.
The first and second republic progressives were led by the wise sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. This class of progressives was ideological and progressive-minded in nature with social programmes and economic policies geared towards the betterment of the people.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was part of the independence struggle in Nigeria, came up with socialist ideologies to build a society and government in the western Nigeria, where there was equity, justice, accountability and fairness within the populace.
Great characteristics among this class of progressives were loyalty to ideologies, grooming future progressives’ leaders that were principled, and never betrayed trust of the people who elected them to power.
This class of politicians represents service to humanity because they hold the warfare and trust of the people who elected them to the extreme. Other notable personalities among this class of progressives were Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Michael Ajasin, Jonathan Odebiyi, Bola Ige, Abraham Adesanya to mention a few.
However, the progressives’ ideologies within this era were unable to have a national spread across the nation based on suspicion and lack of trust among the various ethnic’s nationalities that constituted the Nigeria state.
The military incursion in 1983 truncated the advancement of the socialist progressive’s movement led by Obafemi Awolowo. Bashorun MKO Abiola emerged the new leader of the progressives’ politics created by the military in the aborted third republic.
MKO Abiola had no good relationship with the first and second republic progressive’s politicians because of his opposition to Awolowo’s presidential ambition.
But being a globalist, nationalist, philanthropist and a man with affluence, he was easily embraced by the progressives’ folks who were frustrated with the military leadership, with the hopes of getting the military out power at all costs.
Moreover, the progressive folks were left with two choices of political parties: the SDP and the NRC, which was good for the country anyway. Bashorun MKO Abiola, by virtue of his business empire, was a capitalist, but because his candidature for presidency was surrounded by many elements within the first and second republic progressives who are socialist by nature, this made him a social democrat with new social capitalist ideologies.
Bashorun MKO Abiola along with many of his social democrats and social capitalist folks came up with a manifesto centred on social justice and reforms that was expected to take Nigeria to economic prosperity and improved standard of living.
Unfortunately, the progressive’s politics suffered serious setbacks when the military junta led by General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the election that was won by Bashorun Abiola in 1993.
The third republic progressives were cosmopolitan in nature and had more national spread across the country because it was created by the military along with United States of America political ideologies, the Democrats and the Republicans.
The return to democracy in 1999 became another big challenge to progressives’ politics in Nigeria because many of the first and second republic progressives that were part of the aborted third republic progressives struggle were betrayed in the struggle to actualise Bashorun MKO Abiola presidency.
The betrayal made the remnants of the first and second republic politicians and those groomed by the ideologies of the wise sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to be more careful in forming a new coalition of progressives’ politics in the country. The eventual settlement of the progressives’ politicians in Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 1999 took the country back to regional politics of the first and second republics.
But the doggedness and the political sagacity of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, currently the president of the country, changed the fortune of progressive politics in Nigeria, along with support from Chief Segun Osoba, Chief Bisi Akande and many other progressives’ leaders across the country. Tinubu with his cosmopolitan nature was able to gather oppositions across the country together to form the APC that wrestled power from the almighty PDP of yesteryears.
Today, APC is the biggest political party across the African continent with over nine years in leadership of the country and the party is armed with economic reforms aimed at stabilising the country across multiple challenges. One thing is clear, the cosmopolitan nature of the party has made it lose its progressive ideological politics, and my fear is, if the APC loses a national election today, how many folks in the party will remain in the party?
Secondly, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s capitalist approach to governance contrary to Awolowo socialist ideology and Bashorun MKO Abiola’s proposed social capitalist ideology is another paradigm shift in progressives’ political development in Nigeria.
One thing remains clear: ideological political development planted by the wise sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Nigeria is gradually eroding. Thus, the likes of Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Chief Bisi Akande and other octogenarians and nonagenarians Awoists should do the needful to ensure that the Obafemi Awolowo political philosophy never dies.
*Akinwande is a philanthropist, socio-economic development advocate and former House of Representatives aspirant in Ogun State