Osun Deserves Better, Embrace Politics that Unites – Oba Abolarin
…THE PAIN OF STANDING APART, AND THE DUTY TO SPEAK….
By Oba Omoniyi Abolarin,
As a Yoruba traditional ruler, I remain apolitical. It is part of the stool, part of the trust placed on us to stand above party lines and hold the community together. Yet, I will be honest: it pains me to absolve myself from rights so fundamentally enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended. I do not have a voter’s card. I do not even know what it looks like.
But the political scientist and the lawyer in me still sees. And what I see in our polity is not too good.
We are still parochial in our political thoughts and actions in Osun State and mostly in Nigeria. We are rural in outlook, narrow in tolerance, and not yet politically sophisticated. We fight over trivial things. We tear down each other’s billboards. Our tolerance level is frighteningly low. We kill, all in the name of politics. And hardly do we learn from history.
I am not Gabriel Almond, the great theorist of political culture. But I know this: a people cannot build a future on bitterness, on the politics of destruction, on the belief that to win, the other must be crushed.
What must be done, in the interest of our future:
1. Educate for politics, not for war.
Politics should be about ideas, about service, about who can best improve the lives of our people. Our schools, our families, and our palaces must teach our children that disagreement is not enmity, and that an opponent is not an enemy.
2. Raise our tolerance.
A mature democracy breathes through tolerance. If we cannot endure another’s poster, how shall we endure another’s view? If we cannot share a street during campaign, how shall we share a government after election?
3. Make politics issue-based.
Let us argue about roads, about schools, about jobs, about the price of food. Let the billboards carry solutions, not insults. Let the rallies speak to the future, not to old wounds.
4. Learn from history.
Our fathers fought for self-rule, for development, for dignity. Occasionally they shed blood over party colours — we experienced “Operation Wetie” in 1965 and the military coup of 1966. Sixty years is long enough to learn. The past must be our teacher, not our prison.
5. Let the elders and the youths lead differently.
Traditional rulers may be apolitical, but we are not blind. We must counsel restraint. And our youths, who bear the brunt of political violence, must refuse to be used. Your future is too precious to be traded for a day’s wage and a lifetime of regret.
Osun deserves better. Nigeria deserves better. We are capable of politics that builds, not destroys; politics that unites, not divides.
May we find the courage to grow beyond parochialism, and the wisdom to govern ourselves with maturity.
#HRM Oba Dr Adedokun Omoniyi Abolarin, is the Traditional ruler of Oke-Ila Orangun in Ifedayo local government of Osun state