By Prince Uthman Dosunmu-Shodipe
Despite the temptings of Heraclitus, because the fates are not always just, because the heavens are not always kind, there are some fated to confront the worst of challenges, the bitterest severity in the cause of their journeys.
The caprices of fate are always unknown to the one who professes the profoundest grasp of the will of the gods. Why one man must grapple with ceaseless hurdles, collide against the worst furies, manacled and chained by the bounds of heaven are still the deepest mysteries of existence.
And yet others race through the concourse of life without the least struggle, without the faintest intimations of challenges.
Is it that the stars are rigged even in their supposed corpus of neutrality against some of us? Is it that the heavens are naturally impartial, distant and unfair, sheltering their favorites from the storms, turning their back in disinterested promptings from the rest of us?
Either way, truth be told, some are subjected to constant hindering and obstacles, lashed by a seemingly arbitrary whip of a crude and impossible fate.
They are hated and abused, trampled and forfeited on the altar of malignity. A thousand deceit is conjured upon their way. The dark grouping of animadversion is woven on their path.
Their character is suborned, maligned by the contrivances of evil. They are trapped, harangued by the agents of duplicity and the founts of odious envy.
And being human, entrapped by such endless embattlement, they must sometimes withdraw, quake and quiver in their own confines, inquiring of heaven about the imbalance in their little cordon of life.
But somehow, despite all these grim entanglements, despite moments of recoil and even self doubts, the heroics who are trampled are never to be seen in total surrender or hapless submission.
By some unknown inner grit and fortitude, by some unknown enveloping turpitude of life, they seem immune to the conspiracies of fate. They ignore the abuse and the scoffing of the dark hour. They do not prostrate before the withering buffetings in capitulative sorrow, pleading of heaven to soften the blows.
No. Somehow they are strengthened by the very furnace of a seemingly cruel and unforgiven fate, pushing through the withering harshness of adversity with unusual determination and a savage courage.
They never turn back. They never yield to the tempests. They keep their rudder true.
No matter what you say or think of him. You need not like him. You need not approve of his ways as defined by heaven.
But this much you must acknowledge of the Tinubu mystique: He can weather the bitterest storm, absorb the biggest blows, steady and firm before the withering animosities, unruffled by malice, indifferent to the calumny of the hour; resolved and focused to the duty of the moment.
Tinubu can read through the shenanigans of transient favor seekers a thousand miles away. But he may choose to remain mute, but not indifferent, certified in his own assertions, despite the temptings of belittled time servers.
Whereas he is the most maligned, challenged and embattled politician in Nigerian history, he should remain true to his inner self, trusting only in the certified epiphany and the plurality of leadership conclusion as the whims of fate direct.
Tinubu has now reached an incredible height of the Presidency of this great nation. Nothing can diminish this personal achievement. He has reached this height, not because of the prodding and the assistance of man.
Tinubu has defeated the furies of fate, not because of personal perfection. Asiwaju has reached this very ennobling height because of some inner nudging that no man can begrudge.
The Jagaban Borgu keeps no malice or lingering enmity. He knows the enemy. He can read through the tableau of mischief and assert his own will.
Tinubu has gone through the furnace and the furies of fate. His triumph is made. His victory is real. He must now guide like a true shepherd, discerning and hopeful, guiding with the unifying kindness, shining the brightness of the healing light upon this frayed union.
Tinubu has triumphed despite the implacable odds. But this victory is the beginning of his race. Like in the days of old, when he was freshly minted at the acme of the Lagosian leadership, he must look beyond the cocoon of immediate time-servers, reaching far and beyond the Nigerian isle for the best and the brightest to mend the broken places, rectify the obvious wrongs, change the disintegrating pathways, listen to the plurality of views with the engaging grip to renew the Nigerian hope.
The presidential election has been won and lost. The great powers of the world have affirmed its validity. Those who feel aggrieved can seek redress in the courts. This nation must move forward.
Democracy is never an arrival. It is always a continuous process. The Greek began with the Agora, where virtually everyone was part of the legislative assembly. The Romans widened it an exclusive assembly. The Americans graduated the process to a representative caucus. This nation is still evolving. It is imperfect. But it is rectifying its own flaws. Let us move forward.
Jagaban, your journey begins anew.
•Prince Shodipe-Dosunmu, the Oloriekun of Olowogbowo; the Apesinola Okolaba Ekun, is the Director-General, DG, The Patriots Roundtable.
