By Isaac Asabor
To those that are conversant with old wise sayings, there is one that says, “When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you.” From a biblical perspective, Jesus explains in the book of Matthew Chapter 7 verse 3, by saying, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
At this juncture, it suffices to say that as false accusations have been in the recent time been flying in the mischievous bid to tarnish the reputation of Pastor Osaze Ize-Iyamu, the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), there is need for his traducers to choose the honorable path and make a volte-face. Most of the things being said against him in order to paint him in a bad light before the electorates in the state ahead of the coming election where things said against him by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole when he was campaigning for the incumbent governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.
At this juncture, it is expedient to say that Ize-Iyamu’s traducers, particularly on social media platforms, have all been reposting the youtube clips that contain every bad thing Oshiomhole said, under political expediency, against Ize-Iyamu during APC campaign in 2016. What most of them seem not to have realized is that the fierce exchange of words’ between Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu in 2016, when both men were on different political divides in the build-up to the election that produced the incumbent Godwin Obaseki is not abnormal when viewed from the context of political campaign and politicking.
To those that are bent on castigating Ize-Iyamu’s reputation ahead of the election come September 19, they should not forget that whenever 5 fingers are pointed at Ize-Iyamu that 3 fingers automatically point at Governor Obaseki. For instance, each time Ize-Iyamu is mischievously brought into discussion in order to ridicule him and devalue his gubernatorial chance, the question mark on Obaseki’s certificate usually prop up in the discussion. Though, the Court has recently affirmed his credentials, however in 2016, PDP said: “He claimed he entered the university the year he left secondary school. How could he have gained admission with such result? The result was not even good enough for any form of preliminary studies. It is obvious that the man has no academic qualifications as he had only three credits.” But today nko?
Against the foregoing backdrop, is it not sardonic that the PDP which queried his certificates in 2016 has now made him, against all odds, its flag bearer for the September 19, 2020 election in the State?
Analyzed from the foregoing backdrop, there is no denying the fact that the level of ignorance which Ize-Iyamu’s traducers have been displaying is by each passing day becoming embarrassing as they have been unable to realize that.
To Ize-Iyamu’s traducers, it is expedient they in this context listen to Prince Kazeem Afegbua’s perception of Governor Obaseki’s particularly on his second term bid on the platform of the party that is different from the one that brought him to power. He said in a recent media parley: “We will join hands collectively with the APC candidate to ensure that Godwin Obaseki does not return. I am PDP member, but I will vote APC. A man with the humility of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu is better than a governor who fights everyone who disagrees with him.
“Edo has become too polarized over avoidable and needless battles. Let us have a new leadership that will usher in peace. The noises from the Obaseki’s aspiration have become too polluted and cannot be in the best interest of anyone.”
Afegbua, who backed Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama for the governorship ticket, said Ogbeide-Ihama ought to have stuck to his guns by running in the primary.
“Ogbeide-Ihama got swallowed up by the politics of money that has become the bane of Nigerian politics. He was ambushed by Governor Obaseki’s desperation who was ready to use any amount to railroad people in the party to buy into his aspiration.
“How can someone who did not buy nomination form, who came in when sale of forms had closed, screening had closed, congresses for the election of delegates had closed, and all of a sudden, because he has state resources to spend, rules were bent to accommodate him and made to become the candidate?
“Only yesterday, Edo PDP scored Obaseki F9 in its sectoral analyses, and today, the same man who scored F9 all through in terms of performance, has suddenly become the leader of the PDP.
“A governor who the PDP challenged in 2016 for discrepancies in his submissions has suddenly become the candidate of the party. How do you explain such scenario? For me, I still hold the view that Ogbeide-Ihama had better opportunity to pull through, if they had allowed Obaseki to settle for another party.
In human nature, it is not uncommon to paint others in bad light but we always get caught up in the heat of the moment when we are told that we also have our own Achilles heels and deplorable spots in our personalities that need to be criticized or condemned. When we cannot bear to see something painful in ourselves, we want to get rid of it. We want to relocate the ugliness we feel about ourselves and put it into someone else. We say those bad feelings do not apply to us; they apply to someone else.
The fancy psychoanalytic term for this unconscious process is projective identification. We get rid of the unwanted feelings (projection) and identify them as belonging to someone else (identification). It is called the shame relocation plan.
A Political analyst once pointed out in his writing that “It’s always tempting to call people on the other side of the political divide stupid. Denigrating our political adversaries as stupid comes with some big payoffs: it makes us feel smarter, boosts our sense of self-worth, makes us more certain of our own opinions, and often bonds us closer with others on our side”. To me, everyone that is involved in castigating Ize-Iyamu based on what Oshiomhole said against him in 2016 ought to have realized that all that were said about him belong to the stupid side of politicking.
