By Emmanuel Oladesu
Psychologists believe that in human relationships, familial bonds are stronger than any other outside the regular human relationship unit. They postulate that man prioritises the survival of close kith and kin over non-kin. In their studies of “survival fitness” behaviour, psychologists maintain that blood is thicker than water.
Familial bonds and relationships are said to be stronger, more important, and more enduring than bonds with friends, associates and acquaintances.
The implication is that no matter the situation, and even in the face of intense conflicts, family loyalty should take precedence.
But some other studies have thrown up rare cases of relationships that jettison family for personal benefits. Partisan politics and cult allegiance often break this norm. Differences in political views may not strengthen family bonds, leading to a sort of split loyalty to backgrounds and interests. Since interests ultimately define goals and directions in politics, the features of competition and antagonism are expressed, resulting in hostility and mistrust.
While people are born into families, they are moulded by the wider environment through education, learning, and exposure. Individuals from the same household begin to exhibit unique personality traits that distinguish one person from another due to the development of intelligence and skills as they move up in life. They form attitudes and respond differently to the socio-political milieu, reflecting diversity of orientation, aptitudes and beliefs.
Some prominent families associated with vast business empires are perturbed by the choice of their offspring opting for careers in entertainment instead of the boardroom. That is the manifestation of individual differences.
Many legal luminaries with successful practice sent their children to the law school, only to realise that the lawyer-son came back home as a D-Jay due to the non-alignment of interests.
However, political differences between father and son, husband and wife, and among siblings tend to generate attention, as it currently does in the case of Abba Atiku, son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Abba recently defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). His father is one of the bigwigs in the opposition platform, the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
It is because Atiku, who has been nursing a presidential ambition since Abba was a toddler, has yet to realise his dream. Ahead of next year’s poll, the former vice president is on the queue again, and his son appears not ready to ride in the same partisan boat with his dad. Or is it a decoy?
Abba is just one of the 30 children of the Wazirin Adamawa. No law forbids him from supporting his father as a member of another party, even if the PDP or ADC views it as an anti-party activity. His father is unperturbed by the shift in alliance because as an adult, he is at liberty to choose his path. Atiku, the likely presidential candidate of the ADC, said: “The decision of my son, Abba Abubakar, to join the APC is entirely personal. In a democracy, such choices are neither unusual nor alarming, even when family and politics intersect. As a democrat, I do not coerce my own children in matters of conscience, and I certainly will not coerce Nigerians.”
Abba has defected. But the heir, Umar, a commissioner in Adamawa State, is still in PDP. It is a consolation.
Abba’s case is not the first in history. But he is not contesting against his father as Dr. Samuel Ikoku did in the late 1950s. The scholar and ideologue, after returning from the London School of Economics and Political Science, joined the defunct Action Group (AG) and became the main rival of his illustrious father, Dr. Alvan Ikoku, a member of the Eastern Regional House of Assembly seeking a second term on the platform of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). The young man defeated his old man, who accepted his fate. The episode drew the curtains on the political career of the eminent educationist and statesman.
In Ikenne, Ogun State, a prominent lawyer, Chief Kehinde Sofola of NCNC, opposed his cousin, Awolowo. Asked by a reporter when he turned 80 why he took a different path, he said it was based on principle, adding that he hated pomposity, intimidation and timidity.
Although the NCNC and AG carried their 1951 feud to the independence year and could not agree on a workable alliance, ‘Unbreakable’ Oluwole, son of the jailed AG leader, Obafemi Awolowo, later teamed up with the NCNC in 1964 by joining the campaign train of Chief Theophilus Owolabi Shobowale (TOS) Benson.
While politics can be a divisive factor in the family, the tension can also be managed by the exhibition of maturity. It was that level of maturity, tolerance, and understanding that enabled Dr. Clement Gomwalk and his wife, Hellen, to cope as a couple despite their contrasting political leanings. The husband was the National Secretary of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), and the wife was a top notcher of the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) from Plateau State.
It was a different ball game in the large Shitta-Bey family, where the two siblings, Sikiru and Rasheed, fought to a standstill for the Lagos Central senatorial ticket of the UPN in 1979. Both were household names in the country. Sikiru, a lawyer and Secretary of Action Group Youth Association, led by Ayo Fasanmi, was a House of Representatives member in the First Republic. His younger brother was an outstanding student leader who ventured into business and became a resounding success.
Pleas to them to step down for each other fell on deaf ears. The party leader, Awolowo, intervened. Eventually, Sikiru got the ticket to the Senate and Rasheed to the House of Representatives. For a very long time, they were not on talking terms. Efforts by the then-Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu to settle the inexplicable rift during Sikiru’s 75th birthday in Lagos failed.
In the current dispensation, the two deceased siblings were politically separated after the collapse of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). But the political difference did not affect the relationship between or among their wives and children.
Even, two Tinubus – governor and former Head of Service – also had their quarrel in Lagos. The retired civil servant later drew up an imaginary family tree and excluded his brother to spite him. It paled into a hoax. The book presentation was shunned by all and sundry. The objective was defeated.
It was worse between the two Dosunmu brothers – Dr. Wahab and Rasheed – who were locked in rivalry between 1979 and 1983 in Lagos State. The younger brother, Wahab, was NPN’s Minister of Housing; his elder brother was a prominent UPN chieftain in Lagos. The feud degenerated into a shouting match and violence, fuelled by the rival parties and supporters. The language of warfare was fabricated by supporters who claimed that a sibling said if his brother died in the process, he would be around to cater for his widow and children.
The quarrel only subsided after the collapse of the Second Republic. In political adversity under the military rule, they reunited.
Also, In the last three months of the Second Republic, Omololu Olunloyo and Oye Olunloyo, had a disagreement. The governor announced that the past administration would be probed. He turned his attention to the Ibadan Municipal Council, firing salvos at the former chairman, Oye Olunloyo, reiterating his plan to probe its finances. The governor said family consideration and Ibadan solidarity were out of it. Military intervention in politics truncated the probe plan.
Around 2006, a certain Oyinkansola surfaced with the claim of a biological link with the Kwara kingpin, Dr. Olusola Saraki. The semblance could hardly be disputed. The media attempted to feast on the fact that another Saraki, who had joined the Action Congress (APC), had elected to oppose her elder brother, Kwara State Governor Bukola Saraki, and father who were the custodians of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. It paled into a feeble attempt.
But both Bukola and Gbemisola had to part ways in 2011 when the Second Republic Senate Leader sponsored her for governor and Bukola insisted on the candidature of Abdulfatah Ahmed. The old man, who mounted the podium in aid of his beloved daughter, found out too late that he had been displaced by his son. The campaign had become hectic in the face of diminishing agility.
Gbemisola, who ran on the platform of ACPN, lost to Bukola’s candidate.
The rivalry continued, with Gbemisola, who later defected to the APC, becoming a minister in the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Bukola remains the Kwara PDP leader. But two years ago, when a Saraki building was demolished by the state government in Ilorin, both momentarily put their differences aside and came together to defend the legacies of their father.
To a lesser degree, divisions in political dynasties are better managed these days through sheer tolerance and mutual understanding. Thus, no ripple was generated when Blessing Onuh, daughter of David Mark, made an adventurous journey to APGA.
Also, while former Governor Ayo Fayose of PDP campaigns for APC, his siblings fire salvos at him from other opposition platforms. It is now comical.
In Kaduna, Mohammed Bello of the House of Representatives and son of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, is in APC, which his father dumped for the ADC. No strain relationship is decipherable.
In Edo, the Igbinedion siblings distribute themselves into APC and the PDP, and there is no discord.
Political maturity goes on display where families see partisanship as ephemeral and family bonds as permanent.
Politics can be terminated and participation brought to an end. Party office can be deserted, but nobody can ‘decamp’ from his family to another.
Culled from The Nation
