A Mentor Must Never Be Adored Like A God

By Prof. Sola Adeyeye

I am totally befuddled by the ill logic that because BAT gave PYO an appointment, PYO must for life subsume his inalienable aspirational rights to those of Tinubu.

By that logic, Obama would never have become President. He was a junior senator from Illinois when ranking Senator Dick Durbin saw his talent and advised him to take the flood at its tide.

Tinubu did not pick Osinbajo from the unemployment line. Rather, he picked a distinguished Professor of Law from one of our premier universities. Whatever Osinbajo gained from working for Tinubu is not more than what Tinubu gained from having a genius as his State’s Attorney General.

Most spectacularly, Lagos State prevailed six times at the Supreme Court against the Federal Government of Nigeria because of the brilliance and professional dexterity of diminutive Osinbajo.

If Osinbajo should be beholden to Tinubu for life, Tinubu should be paying daily pilgrimage to the graveside of Ganiyu Dawodu!

Can a student surpass his teacher? Can a protege rise beyond his mentor? The answer to both questions is a loud yes.

There might never have been a Tony Blair if there had not been a Neil Kinnock. The magnificent Ronald Reagan took the baton of Conservative politicking from from Barry Goldwater.

A mentor must never be adored like a god. Socrates mentored Plato. Plato had disagreements with his mentor. Plato mentored Aristotle; these two had their differences. Arguably, each protégé exceeded his celebrated mentor!

Why must mentoring leave no room for the exercise of conscience to the extent that one is now orchestratedly smeared as traitor? In matters of conscience, each and all of us are answerable only to God. That is why, I am never afraid of being in a minority.

…..Adeyeye, a professor of Biology and politician, was elected Senator for the Osun Central of Osun State in the April 2011 elections.

A member of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, Adeyeye had run on the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) platform and also got re-elected into the Nigerian Senate on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015.