Senator Abiola Ajimobi At 70: Heralding The Grand Presence of the Political Grandmaster on the Statesmanship Landscape of Oyo State -By Martins Olamiji Sijuwade

The name Dagunro first sounded in my ears when I was 10.

When we were young we watched lots of Yoruba ancient and traditional films. They used to be my favourites before the legal profession took over. One spectacular actor I was fond of back then was a man nicknamed “Dagunro Ajagajigi Ogun”. He featured in Ajileye’s ‘Okun Eru’ a blockbuster movie. The name Dagunro was forgotten as soon as I started entering the thick of the legal profession until recently when I listened to a traditional Yoruba song by Lagbaja. The masqueraded minstrel sang: “Dagunro o se je. Dagunro o se je. Eyin agba, e ma je Dagunro, tori Dagunro o se je” (the position of Dagunro is unattainable. I repeat the position of Dagunro is unattainable. You elders should not attempt taking the Dagunro title because the position of Dagunro is unattainable). A direct, literal translation puts Dagunro to mean “generalissimo”, “lone fighter”, ‘the stopper of war’, ‘the peacemaker’, ‘the bridge builder’, ‘the fence mender’. And sometimes he could be the sacrificial lamb too. Probably that was why Lagbaja warned the elders not to assume the Dagunro title because it is a very difficult title that cannot be assumed by a man of no big means. It is synonymous with embarking on a herculean task: possibly a task that not many would love to embark upon.

During the era of the strong man of Ibadan politics, Chief Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu, and upon the coming to power of High Chief Rashidi Ladoja, Oyo state was in the state of comatose and political lockdown. The Inakoju v. Adeleke’s case comes to mind and how about that period political thuggery became the order of the day in Oyo state. Situations became helpless and government was totally ran over by private citizens who have positioned themselves into strategic positions and becoming more powerful than most government functionaries. Oyo state did not recover from the imbroglio and left large vacuum which was not filled till 2011.

Lyndon Johnson told Richard Nixon, “Before you get to be the President you think you can do anything but when you get in that tall chair, as you are going to found out, you cannot count on people. You will find your hands tied. The office is like a boy reading a mouth savouring advert and after paying his dime to watch, finds out that it is not exactly as it was advertised.” Lyndon Johnson became fit to advice Nixon because he had sojourned the Oval Office and came out unscathed. Johnson became a Statesman by achievements and by track records too big for his predecessors to comprehend and too large for his successors to surpass. Those eminently qualified to be termed Statesmen are those who paid the ultimate price and worked their ways to the top. Just as it is popularly said, leaders emerge in time of crises. General Dwight Eisenhower led America during the World War 1 and due to his sterling military might and candour, he was elected the President of United States of America. He became a Statesman thereafter.

Those who took the centre stage before the 2011 democratic dispensation rode on backs of political jobbers and political merchants who see nothing bad in milking the general commonwealth of the people dry. Anyone who has imbibed the spirit of statesmanship will, as a matter of duty and dedication towards public life, put the people first in all endeavours and decisions made will be people-oriented. Those who went to war in the good old days do so not caring if their lives were lost. Nowadays, it is not only unfortunate that self-acclaimed generals prefer sending infantries to the battlefield while they stay in the comfort of their palaces and get feedbacks from the warfront. One now wonders, of what benefit is being a General when such will is not tested on the battlefield. Such political generals pride in creating problems by duplicating positions for the benefits of their cronies and for the looting of the commonwealth.

In a scenario similar to the pre-Ajimobi government era, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Russia Nikita Khrushchev in his book titled Krushchev Remembers, reported that “after the Nineteenth Party Congress, Stalin created among the new Presidium members some wide-ranging commissions to look into various matters. In practice, these commissions turned out to be completely ineffectual because everyone was left to his own devices. There was no guidance. There was nothing assigned for these commissions to look into, so they made up their own assignments. Everyone in the orchestra was playing on his own instrument anytime he felt like it, and there was no direction from the conductor”. This best summarises the infamous and inglorious roles played by the pre-Ajimobi administration kahunas.

Knowing that he was coming to an unfamiliar terrain, Ajimobi armed himself with strict focus on research for development. He befriended the academia and took good cursory look at risk reduction and risk control, he focussed on preparation and acquired all of the information possible for the task ahead. Ajimobi believed in checking, double-checking and rechecking of policies and prognosis. Even though he assembled the best of brains as members of his cabinet, Senator Abila Ajimobi being an egg-head took his time to study all documents, proposals and treatises to avoid mediocrity and half-performance.

Ajimobi considered timing which was crucial to his success story as the governor. He made sure that his decisions are based upon communal and societal problems that begged for solutions and not upon personal, selfish ego. Senator Abiola Ajimobi’s voyage on the public landscape is 100% in perfect sync with the story of Cincinnatus of the ancient Roman Republic. Senator Abiola Ajimobi came to power in 2011 as a Governor and took his bow in 2019. Quite often than not, one wonders whether Oyo state will ever have the same top-notch acumen in a leader as Senator Abiola Ajimobi. Senator Biola Ajimobi himself took inspiration from the story of Cincinnatus.

On a fateful day, Rome went under attack and her army held to ransom. Without leaving any stone unturned, the body of Senate met and popularly appointed Cincinnatus as the dictator saddled with the task of salvaging Roman’s glory. Cincinnatus knew what was at stake. He knew and was vehemently passionate to save the last Roman soldier held in captive. Prior to his appointment, Cincinnatus had no political ambition but he had to yield to the demands of his people. He was called up on his farm.
Cincinnatus left his farm and mobilized great men, attacked the frontline of the enemy and saved the Romans from further perils.

Having done this, Cincinnatus did not, like some dictators, sit tight to power as he is in the position to do so. If he had wanted, nobody could question him. His decision was salient for he handed over his authority and quietly went back to his farm. Before Senator Abiola Ajimobi came to power, some eminent Oyo and Ibadan indigenes had seen the glory hovering over Ajimobi hence it was easy for them to deduce that the cap fits him. Ajimobi was the popular choice and by implication rose to prominence and power without much ado.

Ajimobi as a governor was a very calculative governor. He knew how to put the round peg in the round hole. He consulted who needed to be consulted and his style of statecraft was people-centric. Senator Abiola Ajimobi who is presently coasting to septuagenarian status brought principled leadership and integrity and dexterity to the office of the Governor. He was the first to arrive at work and the last to leave. He built a reputation as a ready gentleman, who did not just sit in his office and bark orders. He went on the field to personally inspect projects. It was this personal approach that was directly responsible for the speedy delivery of many of the projects across Oyo State. In Ajimobi’s own words, the need to desperately heal up Oyo state from the wounds of leadership dearth was imminent. It was Hippocrates the father of medicine who said that desperate disease requires desperate remedy. Ajimobi was a political physician who gave the right antidote to the disease of administrative perfidy and political treachery of Oyo state.

Having accompanied all these feats, Senator Abiola Ajimobi retired quietly to his Oluyole home like Cincinnatus who also went quietly back to his farm after rescuing Rome from eternal disgrace. He has retired to mentor teeming politicians and youngsters coming up in politics. He has retired to his beautiful home from where he enjoys the company of his lovely wife and teeming staff. On daily basis, Ajimobi welcomes no less than 1000 guests and mentees from within Oyo state and beyond to the now referred Ajimobi Political Institute at Oluyole, Ibadan. Ajimobi believes in institution building.

Statesmen don’t retire. They simply age gracefully and metamorphose to become pathfinders. They don the garb of positive thinking dishing out advice to those who care to take it. They are selfless because they know that their years in government was not enough for them to implement all their ideologies and policies, they try to advise succeeding governments. As a Statesman, Ajimobi, knowing that his remaining ideologies were never fully implemented, charged himself and seized the opportunity to show the way to others stepping into his shoes. He sees Statesmanship as an opportunity to become a pathfinder. He is stimulated by the opportunity to discover new solutions to old problem as someone who had been there before. Because he is convinced that there must be a way to overcome seeming insurmountable difficulties, his creative powers are now being stimulated to produce statesmanship advice.

Senator Abiola Ajimobi, like Robert Schuller posited, accepts that some long-accepted causes for past failure were, in fact, errors of judgment made by intelligent researchers who lacked the tools, skills or related knowledge available in the modern age. He believes that every individual must catch up with time and add values to themselves by consistently seeking for knowledge and information. Ajimobi believes in accomplishing the alignment of individual and group goals via the process of aptly and wholly exhibiting the leadership qualities of planning and priority setting, organizing and institution building, keeping the political system functioning, setting government agenda and making swift and concrete decision via political sagacity. As a leader Ajimobi is a thinker. He has simple clear ideas which he sold to Oyo people and which he formulated into practical implemented policies. As a corollary to wisdom and inventiveness, Ajimobi is very courageous – the courage of his convictions and the courage to stand on his positive principles and by his positive decisions were imminent in his many bold steps and giant strides towards governance.

Of Oyo governance and administration it will be said in years to come by generations yet unborn that Senator Abiola Ajimobi did his best in his capacity as the father of modern Oyo State.

Martins Olamiji Sijuwade is a Senior Partner of MARVIC Alpha LP Nigeria and can be reached via +2349061110856