Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Senator Ladoja in Ethical Dilemma by Alh Isiaka Kehinde

"You must have it in mind that anyone else involved in your decision has a right of their own" - Immanuel Kant.

When I read the passionate appeal made by Engr Seyi Makinde to Senator Ladoja not to exit PDP,  the first thing that crossed my mind was Bernard Joinet,  who said "of all three basic elements of democracy: Liberty, Equality and Dialogue, the most supreme is dialogue". Because, no one can clap with one hand,  I think, OYO State PDP stakeholders should never dream of going for destructionist approach of smothering a party they struggled to rebuild. My take - Senator Ladoja should still hang around so that the party will not hang itself. 

When Senator Markafi led caretaker committee waved it's olive branch to the leaders of PDP who had jumped ship to come back, some people felt, it was a mere contraption of an insipid calm sea which invites sailors to a voyage only to terrify them in the middle of the sail. Has recent unfolding events in PDP not proved those cynics right?

Arguably, before Senator Ladoja would ever conceived the idea of leaving PDP, he must have ruminated over it and found it to be a deep seated pain which he could no longer bear. Every moral being at one time or the other finds himself in this situation of choosing between devil and a deep blue sea. In philosophy, this is called "ethical dilemma".

In the present situation, it is best for Senator lLadoja to take a decision that can gratify his interest, rather, he should consider "common good". He should learn wisdom in the words of utilitarian philosophers that "the moral worth of an action is measured by its usefulness to the generality of the people. He should also read the 33 strategies of war to know that,  "in a battle, your enemies will relish your failures, therefore, use that as a pressure to fight harder". In this case, we all know those lurking around to 'mock" Baba Ladoja should PDP fails to wrestle power from the incumbent.

With the gravitas of his position in the party as a reinforcing element, the high Chief should know that any action he takes can only be ethically right if it does not violates the rights of others. Has he bothered to sample opinions of cross section of his followers if they are willing to move out of PDP? Here again, I will refer our esteemed Osi Olubadan to borrow the counsel of Mark Twain "when you are on the side of the majority, always pause and reflect before you take any action."

At this defining moment, Senator Ladoja should call all the governorship aspirants together in a room and allow them to do a SWOT analysis of themselves to know where they can be properly situated. It will be ludicrous to give ticket to whoever can't win even his immediate constituency. More so, we can only have one person to occupy One seat, no matter how covetous the seat is.

If this attempt ends in a fiasco, he should give room for an open, credible and acceptable primaries where the aspirants will flaunt the cards. In their sleeves and  only he who gets the majority nod grabs the ticket. 
By so doing, he would have been that "great star" in the words of Nietzsche.

Any other step aside the foregoing will be flat out wrong. My candid opinion. God bless you sir.

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