Why Osun Central Will Be Retaining Ajibola Bashiru As Senator, Come Saturday

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the presidential candidate of my party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Saturday’s election even as Senator Surajudeen Ajibola Bashiru is our candidate for Osun Central Senatorial District, and, I urge the good people of Osun and Osun Central to vote for both of them, and for all our other candidates, as well as, and, to protect their votes and ensure that the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, does not steal their mandate, this time around, as it did in the last gubernatorial election.

While the incomparable qualifications of Bola Tinubu for the Presidency of Nigeria are legion and well-known, I am also quite proud to report that Senator Bashiru has manifestly acquitted himself and done his constituents proud, not only in his career as Senator of the Federal Republic but, indeed, in absolutely every public role he has taken up thus far in his mercurial political career.

He has represented Osun Central excellently well, quite apart from bringing the constituency to greater national prominence in his role as Senate spokesman, a job he has done with much distinction and wide acclaim.

With his sterling academic background, his blameless career as a legal practitioner, his excellent work as Attorney General of Osun as well as having risen to national limelight even as a first time senator, Dr. Bashiru stands head and shoulders above his PDP challenger.

Not long ago, Senator Bashiru was Director General of the reelection bid of Governor Gboyega Oyetola, a role in which he strove tirelessly mobilising the good people of Osun for the retention of good governance in the state.

While, hitherto, it seemed that it was the first role in which he had recorded disappointment in his political career and service to the people, as it turned out, Senator Bashiru had actually manifestly delivered once again, and indeed, spectacularly so, as, thanks to the court, we now know that Governor Oyetola was the actual winner of the governorship election, all along!

Senator Bashiru has truly and incontestably served his people well and I thank God that they are, altogether, a highly perceptive, circumspect, introspective and reciprocatory set of very politically intelligent constituents.

Indeed, it is my projection that the good people of Osun Central, even as they will most certainly be recruiting Asiwaju Tinubu as our next President, will also most definitely be retaining Senator Bashiru in his senatorial position, come Saturday.

Yes, I am not from Osun – I am from Delta but I can trace my ancestry to the Oba of Benin, therefore, to Oodua, and, as such, have some particular fondness for Osun.

The one and only time I visited Ile Ife, I remember feeling rather quite at home there.

Besides, my late father and his elder sister briefly lived in Ilesa in the forties and would often recall rather joyful memories of the place.

In any case, the very first Yoruba friend I ever made in Lagos just happened to actually hail from Osun.

Senator Bashiru is only a friend and colleague of mine so I urge the good people of Osun Central, who truly own him and to whom he ultimately belongs, to troop out on Saturday and vote for their son who brings pride to the homestead, even as they vote for the renewed hope Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is bringing to Nigeria.

-Jesutega Onokpasa, a lawyer and member, All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, writes from Abuja.