For Hon. Bayo Oshinowo, the bonfire of his vanities crackled to a dying ember long before he realized that the flames of his ego will be extinguished. Now it has been extinguished and he struggles to resuscitate his vanished worth.
Yes, as you read, like a sewer rat fleeing the onslaught of an unrelenting charwoman, the Ijebu-born politician is running hither, thither. Now that comeuppance stares him in the face, the dark menace of retribution makes a coward of him.
Since Fuad Oki, the self-acclaimed leader of a faction of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos, spilled the beans on the alleged treacherous plans of Bayo Oshinowo, in conjunction with Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, to pit Asiwaju Bola Tinubu against Governor Akinwunmi Ambode so that his second term would be truncated, the Kosofe Constituency 1 at the Lagos State House of Assembly member, Oshinowo, has been running helter-skelter and resorted to obsequious patronage to prove that Fuad’s revelation was a diatribe concocted from the pit of hell.
Oshinowo, sensing that Fuad’s seemingly true revelation has the tendency to cast him in perfidious light and might signal his political eclipse, has gone to town to show cowardly unsolicited solidarity in support of Ambode re-election even though the incumbent governor has not officially declared.
This morning, Lagosians woke up to posters boldly announcing Oshinowo’s pledge of loyalty and support for Ambode’s second term bid. “One good term deserve another”, “Ambode 100%” and other texts adorn the poster which has image of Governor Ambode boldly printed on it, and his by the other corner of the poster.
Pepperito, as Oshinowo is known in Lagos political circle, may have made this move, whom his critics adjudge a volte face from his clandestine maneuvers, to assuage feelings of visibly offended Lagosians whose lives have been positively imparted by Ambode’s sterling performance and excellent delivery of good governance.
TheCapital has also gathered that Oshinowo has been at the Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Kosofe 1 constituency since 2003. A media report has it that he was perfecting plans to upstage Senator Gbenga Ashafa in Lagos East Senatorial District. Keen watchers of Lagos politics have dismissively waved aside this Oshinowo’s ambition as a tall order for him, as he has no clout to match Ashafa’s political influence.
His political future in Lagos now hangs in the balance as voices against him are rising day after day in the state. The Ijebu-Ode indigene might have to take his political trade to his Ogun State origin to stand any chances of moving to the Red Chamber of the National Assembly. There and then, he has the embattled Buruji Kashamu to wrestle with.
