The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole\u2019s failed re-election bid also cost him his ambition to lead the House again, FRANCIS FALOLA writes<\/span><\/p>\n If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If dreams were realities, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, would have achieved his dream of becoming a member of the House of Representatives, representing Abeokuta South Federal Constituency for the third time. This would have afforded him the opportunity of leading the House again or created an avenue for him to pursue the dream of leading the West African Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n Bankole is a man of history. He made history and fell to history. Bankole, precisely on November 1, 2007, at the age of 38, became the youngest Speaker of the House following the scandal that rocked the tenure of his predecessor, Mrs. Patricia Etteh. In sustaining his position in the House since he assumed leadership, he fought many impeachment battles and remained like the proverbial cat with many lives, surviving one impeachment plot after the other.<\/span><\/p>\n The two-term member of the House of Representatives went into the contest for re-election in the 2011 National Assembly poll with dual targets on his mind. First, to become a member of the National Assembly for the third time and secondly, to be the first Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives to be returned in an election. Aminu Maisari as a Speaker went into the 2003 general elections where he contested the governorship election in Katsina State but lost the bid while Speaker Umar Na\u2019abba sought re-election into the House of Representatives in 2003 and lost the primaries under the Peoples Democratic Party platform in controversial circumstance.<\/span><\/p>\n Bankole, in his bid at seeking a third term in the House of Representatives, faced several challenges. He battled history in an attempt to achieve what his predecessors failed to achieve as the first Speaker to go into an election as the nation\u2019s fourth citizen and returned by his people, but at the end, he went the way of others.<\/span><\/p>\n The Speaker was defeated by a seemingly unpopular candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria for the election, Mr. Olusegun Williams.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the Returning Officer of INEC for Abeokuta South Federal Constituency, Dr. Olanrewaju Banjo, Bankole scored 23, 103 against Mr. Williams Olusegun of ACN, who polled a total of 28, 490 votes. Bankole\u2019s Achilles\u2019 heel was the rift that tore the Peoples Democratic Party apart in Ogun State.<\/span><\/p>\n The PDP in the state prior to the election was divided with a group led by the state governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, and another loyal to former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The two groups conducted separate primaries. Following the loss it suffered, Daniel\u2019s faction through litigation, defected to a new party, the Peoples Party of Nigeria to contest the election.<\/span><\/p>\n Before the PDP primaries in the state, Bankole, in an attempt at seeking the third term ticket, went through a tortuous journey, a journey beclouded with thorny paths and uncertainties occasioned by the political crises in the PDP in Ogun State.<\/span><\/p>\n In a state whose political machinery had earlier been in the hands of the state governor (prior to the court ruling that nullified the primaries conducted by Daniel\u2019s faction), Bankole, who had not enjoyed a cordial relationship with Daniel, got entangled in a political web. An arrangement had been concluded by the party\u2019s machinery in the state to ensure that the Speaker lost the primaries.<\/span><\/p>\n The intervention of the Presidency, however, reunited Bankole and Daniel, a development that necessitated the Speaker contesting the primaries under Daniel\u2019s faction and the governor ensuring the reluctant withdrawal of the former speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Mrs. Titi Oseni, and three other strong contenders for the ticket of the party in Abeokuta South Federal Constituency. Investigations also revealed that the overtures to Daniel by the Presidency and Bankole before the primaries became expedient as one of the Speaker\u2019s younger brothers, Taiwo Bankole, who contested the primaries for the councillorship had earlier lost the bid due to the state governor\u2019s control over the delegates elected to vote at the party\u2019s primaries.<\/span><\/p>\n Though the father of the Speaker, Alani Bankole, had argued that the Presidency conducted a special primary for his son to emerge as the party\u2019s candidate, the state governor had at a news conference accused the PDP of injustice. He also questioned Bankole\u2019s emergence as the candidate of the PDP after the court judgment nullifying the other candidates who emerged from the primaries conducted by his PDP faction.<\/span><\/p>\n Bankole, few months to the elections, had moved to Abeokuta and embarked on intensive campaigns to actualise his dream of re-elections. He met various stakeholders, who included traditional rulers, artisans, business groups and traders. Bankole, on two of such occasions was emotional as he could not hold back tears at the palace of the Alake of Egbaland, Oba, Gbadebo Aremu, when the royal father and the council of chiefs acknowledged various developmental efforts of the Speaker whom they all described as an illustrious son of Egbaland. They praised him for having represented the constituency well. The Speaker was also moved to tears as he visited the Remand Home, where he saw kids whose ages ranged from eight to 15 undergoing reformation.<\/span><\/p>\n While Bankole groaned over his defeat, some of the members of his constituency saw the defeat as not only a personal loss, but as that of the community as it might signal the death of some of the ongoing Federal Government projects in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n The Special Assistant on Communications to Bankole, Mr. Kayode Odunaro, in an interview with our correspondent mentioned some of the projects as being very dear to Bankole\u2019s heart. He described the projects as some of the tasks that the Speaker intended to pursue if he had won the re-election bid.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of the projects he listed were the Abeokuta Airport project, the rehabilitation of Lafenwa Bridge, the dualisation of the Adatan-Ibadan Roads, the Abeokuta Urban Roads which also include the Senaki-Adigbe Roads among others.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking on the project, Odunaro said, \u201cThe Oyan Dam project was abandoned 30 years ago by an Israeli firm. The Speaker got in touch with the Israeli firm and N760m mobilisation fee had already been paid to return the Israeli firm to site.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSome of these projects which are dear to the Speaker\u2019s heart are already partly funded. His plan was to make sure that every year there would be budgetary allocations for most of these projects until they are completed, but as it stands now, we pray that the new people have the mind to pursue the projects. Don\u2019t forget that the Ota Bridge was also at a time abandoned as there was no budgetary provision until Bankole ensured budgetary provision for the project.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But to many political analysts in the state, Bankole\u2019s defeat was not a rejection of the Speaker, but a demonstration of the general frustration of the people with the performance of the PDP not only in the state but in the entire South-West region. Bankole fell to the broom revolution that swept across the entire South West.<\/span><\/p>\n Bankole\u2019s re-election would also have put paid to the ongoing crisis in the House as regards the Speakership. His re-election would have possibly positioned him to lead the House again.<\/span><\/p>\n A political analyst in Ogun State, Mr. Segun Ajiboye, in an interview with our correspondent described Bankole\u2019s loss as an indication of the wind of change in the nation\u2019s politics.<\/span><\/p>\n He maintained that the Speaker fell to the ongoing reform and sanity in the nation\u2019s electoral process.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSome of these politicians who failed in their re-election bid lost to the sanity in the nation\u2019s democratic setting. They could not withstand the test of one man one vote. We should give kudos to President Goodluck Jonathan and the Independent National Electoral Commission led by Prof. Attahiru Jega for ensuring credible polls. We should all realise that if the game had been played as it was in the past, there was no way people like Bankole and the daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Senator Iyabo-Obasanjo-Bello would have lost elections,\u201d he stated.<\/span><\/p>\n