POLITICAL OSMOSIS, OUR PARTY’S WAY FORWARD - Olawole Olakunle

When the National youth leader of our great party (Jude Feranmi JFK) relayed to me from his ward in Osun state his demise in the last council election, I almost lost my breathe. In reality my annoyance was less of a personal one as regards to Jude loosing out but how we fumbled as a party, its effect and the unpredictable setbacks it would have on our struggle to making this nation a better place.


You would agree that politics is not a child’s play and shouldn't be treated as such,whereas I wouldn't want to go into the intricacies of the setback of Jude councilorship debacle, I would rather we progress as a focused unit shedding our snake skin and moving progressively as the credible alternative we are to Nigerians.

Politics is a strategic local game of numbers and when the numbers don't add up, our party only becomes a political analysts party.  In other for us to move beyond this analyst trappings, I intend to share my thoughts on what should be done perhaps it can be debated in the party's forthcoming stakeholders conference.

There is a mafioso saying that “you don't have an idea until you get to the decision table”. Hence, real opposition do not begin until you are physically opposed in politics.

 The 2019 Election is around the corner with different political aspirants coming out with different leadership pose and oratory eloquence, Alas politics is beyond Facebook likes and twitter retweets, our party would only begin real opposition when we have a political base with elected officials who show through their actions and inactions real and practical example of what would be done differently when the reins of power is handed over the party nation-wide.

I think it would be better if our great party can convince all presidential and governorship aspirants to sacrifice their ambitions for the party's general good, while the party concentrates on a senatorial district in 2019 to serve as a political base for our party’s onward movement.
Let me repeat, “You can't start opposition without a political base” Lessons learnt from Julius Malema.

Having studied Nigeria political landscape in proportion with our membership drive, the best bet for our political base is within Osun/Kaduna/Lagos but i would pick Osun,with reasons;
1. We have if not the highest membership in kowa from Osun state (Asides from Lagos)
2. Our NYL has receny tested waters and preached the gospel of our party to young people and constituents who crave for anything but Aregbesola’s APC
3. In my office as DSA, having gone round the 10 tertiary institutions in Osun state , I realized that our party although not too known is widely accepted as an alternative by the student community in the state.
4. The governorship election in Osun in 2018 is pivotal in determining the 2019 National and state assembly members.
5. We have ambient reason to leverage on the youthfulness of our state leader in Osun, the National Youth leader and the National secretary with other important stakeholders from the party who are from the state to rally for local support.

As at 2015, Osun state has 26 state constituency, 30 LGA’s , 3 Senatorial District, 9 Federal constituency, 1,407,107 registered voters and  1,034,211 collected pvc 74.48%. Whereas  in 2015 our party had 1presidential candidate,14 governorship candidate, 22 senatorialcandidates, 36 House of Representatives candidates, and 85 state assemblies candidates.

In tune with the above, it's important to implement the 80:20 rule of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who argues that 80%of our result should come from 20% of the efforts and that by concentrating our efforts into the important few actions rather than the trivial many, we are liable to achieve more impressive results.

Therefore it would be advisable that we strive to prevent a repetition of our 2015 ordeal by concentrating our efforts on many political fronts rather than 1 political base as a party.

Our political concentration should be on 1 senatorial seat, 3 House of Representatives seats and 12 House of assembly seats, perhaps 10 LGA (Dependent on the progress of our outing) ,these  positions should only be contested within 1 Senatorial district in Osun state.

Furthermore, to make our task easier the enemy of our friend should be immediately adopted as our enemy. In more plain language, we should begin to partner for sustainable development with other opposition parties to make sure APC do not clinch the governorship seat in Osun state this year. For that is the only political crack that has any iota of promise of entry for our party in the Osun political fray. The general enemy being removed makes the battle for political spoils easier, with our political sagacity and a well packaged campaign, 2019 and 2023 looks bright ahead.

Lastly in my time as the National director of student affairs for our great party, I have witnessed firsthand how young people want a political party different from the Pdp and Apc and the higher possibilities of accepting our party wholeheartedly, but we MUST move in droves with a target as motive inclined as the sight of an eagle.

Let us not be disoriented by the rhetorics that the party has no money, we only need to reposition ourselves for the greatness ahead and financial help without political affiliation would suffice.

Before then we need Political Osmosis as a way forward for our party!

Regards,
Olawole Olakunle (MKO)
National Director of Student Affairs
KOWA PARTY NIGERIA.