"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

'The only reason whatsoever there is a "god" is because there are some people who believe in that "god."

efore and after the former governor Rasheed Ladoja of Oyo State was eventually removed, reading through the maze of responses to my article under the borrowed title "This god called Adedibu" I could see that over ninety percent of the people disagreed with me. Some were able to say this nicely, some were very nasty about it. Some ascribed motives to my views on the issue. The article without a doubt was the most unpopular of all the ones I have written since I knew how to pick a pen to write, at least gauging by the responses. Many of the responses were very emotional and very few were based on reason and logic. Many were very utopian and very few were realistic.

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I was not worried at the anger and insults directed at me. That should be expected when you do not flow with the wind. I am more worried by the subtlety of insult and disrespect that was being hurled at the directions of the people of Oyo state in general and the Ibadan people in particular over this issue - the removal of ex-governor Ladoja from office. Once again the majority is getting it wrong because the real driving force for the impeachment of the former governor was left out - the people of Oyo State.

While it is true that not everyone in the State agreed with the decision to remove the former governor or the manner in which it was accomplished, it was evident that the majority of the people of the state wanted him out. This brings us to the reported role played by the "strongman of Ibadan politics," Chief Lamidi Adedibu. Based on my analysis of the situation so far, it is still my conclusion that Chief Lamidi Adedibu was only acting out the will of the people in this case. I do posit that the people of Oyo State are among the most enlightened and politically sophisticated. They can never be led by the nose. I posit that they know what is good for them. I argue that they know what they want. I contend that they are very happy with Chief Adedibu even if some of us who think we know better because of our chains of degrees from Western oriented institutions disagree.

The point being missed by those who criticized me on that previous article is that the people of Ibadan and Oyo State still do believe in Adedibu. As long as that is the case, Adedibu will remain a factor to be dealt with, the fact that he is being exploited by President Olusegun Obasanjo to achieve his (Obasanjo's) diabolical plans for third term not withstanding. I am not approving the totality of the methodology of Adedibu or the totality of his approach to politics. But I still insist, at the risk of being misunderstood, that there are some lessons germane to the systemic needs of our politics in Adedibu's methodology which essentially is the fact that the people matters. And unfortunately for the degree flaunting commentators, professors of political science, activists, journalists et al, the people of Ibadan and Oyo State also think Adedibu matters.

Democracy is a very funny process. If the people are determined to have a goat as a leader, then a goat it must be. Some of us may detest the goat. We may loathe the goat. We may hate the goat, but unfortunately, that is what the people want until they decide otherwise. Just as Frederick Douglas posits in the quote above "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those who they oppress."

Every people deserve the kind of government they get. If the people of Ibadan and Oyo State want Adedibu to continue to exploit them, create disorder and continue to benefit from the ensuing crisis that is what they want. If not they will either force him (Adedibu) to change or deal with him by "any means necessary?" The survival of Adedibu to date and his continued relevance in the politics of Ibadanland and Oyo State is concrete evidence that the majority can be very wrong at times.

At least going by the contentions of my critics, the majority was wrong for allowing Adedibu to impose Ladoja on them in the first instance. The majority was wrong for supporting Adedibu and believing in his message. The majority was wrong for condoning the antics of Adedibu. The majority was wrong in allowing the process to be subverted. The majority was wrong for adopting Adedibu's way of doing things. But as I posited above, this is democracy in which the majority rules. You can call it the tyranny of the majority. But it is obviously what the majority of Oyo State people want.

What my critics failed to understand is that the fact that someone is a man of the people does not mean that he has the desirable vision for the people and I have said this about Adedibu more than two years ago in one of my articles. The fact that someone is not a man of the people does not also mean that his visions are undesirable. But it is incontestable that any change whatsoever within the society has to be sanctioned by the people to become a reality. The support of the people can be deployed to either a negative or positive end. History is replete with examples of those who deployed the power of the people to either negative or positive ends.

I will accept the fact that change can be very difficult to effect, especially political, economic and social changes. The reason is that a lot of interests will be affected and such interests are bound to resist. Hence, in history, the task of having to come up with a vision and actualizing such usually fall on the determined few who have the wherewithal to accomplish such. The major part of this is that the people first have to believe in the vision and then be prepared to advance it practically. This is the reason for my admiration but not necessarily support of Adedibu.

Most of our professors, the so called literati, the commentators, pundits, professionals, armchair critics and analysts among several others are too removed from the grass roots to feel the pulse of our people. They are too condescending to want to know what the people think, how they feel, what they know, their strengths and weaknesses, and if need be, how to help extend their horizon for positive action. But Adedibu has been able to do this except that he has not been able to deploy the people's power at his disposal to positive ends. At times I could not help but wonder if their (Adedibu's critics') outcry is not informed by envy of the dexterity of Adedibu in the manner and way he has a hold on his people in Ibadan. It seems that Adedibu, the so called illiterate who has no university degree whatsoever has been able to take them all to the cleaners despite their chains of degrees.

Chief Adedibu has said a lot of horrible things. He has done a lot of despicable things. The questions that however remain to be answered are: Do the people have a negative or positive view of Adedibu? Do they think what he is doing is wrong? If they think he is wrong, why are they following him? Why aren't they abandoning him? Is Adedibu manipulating the people? Or is he just exploiting their trust? How are we sure that the very reason that most of the university degree wielding critics of Adedibu loathe him is not the same reason his people love and follow him? But in a place like Ibadanland and Oyo State, where the people are sophisticated and independently minded, is something wrong with the people for following the lead of Adedibu? If something is wrong, what is it? How can it be fixed if we do not want Adedibu to call the shots?

To attain a different kind of society as presently subsisting in Ibadan and Oyo State, I am asking for an understanding (not as in showing love, but as in studying) of Adedibuism, if we are all serious about finding solutions to what we all agreed to be problems. What makes him tick? How is he able to have a hold on the people? What is he giving them that the people can not get somewhere else? If the degree flaunting literati are tired of him and his antics, how can they hope to dislodge him? But is there anyway you can dislodge someone you do not have an idea of how he is operating?

Governor Chris Ngige remains governor today in Anambra State because the people of Anambra want him in that position regardless of what Chris Ubah and President Obasanjo want. They tried arson. They tried kidnapping. They tried violence. They intimidated. They blackmailed. They used the courts. They used the Police. They tried everything at their disposal including the use of money. But Ngige remained as solid as Imo (Knowledge) Rock in Ilesha. That is the power of the people for you. If the people believe in you, they will stand by you. If they do not, it is "good night and good luck."

Karl von Clausewitz while rationalizing the need for the study of war as a serious subject once observed that "war itself, as it were, had been lecturing" until that point in time when he as an Army officer and the director of the Prussian War Academy in 1816, began to study war as a step to teaching it as an art. I will contend in the same manner that the corrupt political class in Nigeria "had been lecturing" the Nigerian people on what type of politics ought to be played. Everyone from the public commentators, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, academics et al have been willing students in this countrywide classroom, when in fact it has to be the other way round. Nigerian politicians are molding the country to their needs: the Hobbesian "state of nature" where there is no rule of law. Or where they could be above the law.

Thus, unwittingly, genuinely concerned Nigerians have turned into ordinary complainants, narrow-focused critics and parrots of platitude. It is very easy to take sides in a crisis. It is easy to lose sight of a more enduring objective if all we do is flow with the wind, especially in a context of fast and furious flow of events as we currently have in Nigeria. Condemning the acts of omission and or commission of the Nigerian political class is not just enough every time they engage in their shenanigans. If we have to dislodge them, we have to know what makes them tick.

Thus at the risk of being misunderstood, I insist that in the course of trying to determine our future, we have to be wary of myopia engendered by the passions of the moment. It is important that we have a broader perspective of issues. I posit, from this standpoint, that until we reach an understanding of the predators of and on the Nigerian political system, we may not be able to understand how to neutralize and discard them.

If all the majority of genuinely concerned Nigerians want to do is just viscerally react to a serious problem requiring in-depth analysis and understanding as a precondition for solution, then may it be so. It will mean that once again, that majority can be wrong. And this is one of the main dangers of democracy.

But as lonely as it seems, I am insisting that it is important to study Adedibu to be able to either reform or improve him, his idea of "Amala politics" or understand him for the purpose of discarding him, because you can never expect to take on an enemy you do not understand not unless your sole objective is woeful defeat. I insist that there is something our other politicians can learn from him - the importance and relevance of grass root people in politics. I also insist that after repeatedly dismissing, condemning and labeling someone for over five decades as "a thug," "a tout," "a miscreant," and what have you, and such person has been able to position himself as a constant force in the scheme of things and a threat to opposition, then you have to start taking such a person seriously.

This does not mean that you have to love him. It does not mean you have to support him. It does not mean that you can not loathe him or you can not hate him. But you have to have enough respect for him to want to know how he has done it, especially if you have to dislodge him.

To this end I refuse to give any apologies for my position. I insist that I am not going to flow with the wind. I assert that I write what I believe. I declare that I write my convictions. I aver that I will continue to have an open mind towards issues and if necessary stand alone on what I believe. I concede that I may not be right on this issue, but I will let history bear me out.

I confess that I admire the dexterity of Adedibu in being able to command the loyalty and love of his people, at least, the majority of them, which is very important to me. I admit that Adedibu may be exploiting the loyalty and love his people have for him for undesirable ends. But I insist that his people are not stupid not to make him irrelevant as and at when the need arises or when they have had enough of him. I confess that I do not approve of hooliganism or breaking of the law. I concede that it is a matter of debate if there should be "honor among thieves" as Professor Wole Soyinka contended at Great Ife in 1983.

Finally, I assert that having a chain of degrees from Western oriented institutions is not a guarantee of wisdom and leadership abilities. I assert that lack of university education does not mean the absence of wisdom and basic intelligence.