Upon resting the 2018 Osun governorship election in favour of Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, this writer packaged and submitted a memorandum titled: HUMBLE OBSERVATIONS, HELPFUL TIPS AS ASSUMPTION BECKONS. The memo was not a trifling note. It was a proposal on salutary performance strategies for the administration of the incoming governor, a manual for practical, people-centred governance, born out of loyalty to the governor and conviction that power, if not tempered by wisdom, becomes tyranny. I had been with the Osun people’s new choice before, during, and after the campaigns, and was a familiar face in the Ilerioluwa political circle.
Sensing that my welcome in that circle was already waning and might expire soon, I made bold to hand him the document, a strange but sincere offering, consequence of not just personal observations of developments, but also interactions with individuals spread through the settlements, especially during the campaigns and after the elections. Yet, like Cassandra of Troy, whose prophecies were true but ignored, my words were cast aside. Verba volant, scriptamanent – words fly away, writings remain. In this instance, however, the writing was abandoned alongside even the writer – baby, birth-water fed the sewers!
The memo urged Oyetola to establish a Monitor-the-Monitor Committee, an underhand body to ensure that executive directives and contracts were faithfully implemented, without sabotage or corruption. It was a call to vigilance, a recognition that betrayal often comes from within. It equally recommended a Directorate of Restitution and Family Affairs to reward forgotten/sidelined party loyalists, empower widows, and support struggling families. It was a humane proposal, a recognition that politics is not merely about power but about people. Oyetola directly inherited those horribly bruised by Rauf Aregbesola’s exclusionist governance style, and the memo recommended that they be accommodated and palliated. Same memo further proposed a Directorate of Social and Community Vigilance to sniff out real community needs and present them for government action. Some towns needed water, others needed roads – governance should be responsive to grassroots yearnings!
The submission commended town hall meetings to be emplaced in the three zones of the state; radio programmes for citizens to suggest solutions for general governance challenges, especially as inherited from erstwhile administrations; as well as compulsory financial donations by contractors to welfare of party people. It advised repairs of critical roads – Gbongan-Osogbo, Osogbo-Ikirun, Oja’ba-Ilesa, among others; rotation of Jumat attendance across mosques statewide; street walks to meet with and parley traders, artisans and drivers; establishment of food banks and kitchens to cushion effects of inflation; cassava and gari processing plants to support communities; and unscheduled visits to decrepit sections of State Secretariat at Abere. These were not frivolous musings; they were practical, politically astute measures meant to augment popularity and acceptance.
But Oyetola repugned them all. Ignorantia non excusat – ignorance is no excuse! But this time his was even not ignorance; it was hubris! From Ila, Ede, OdoOtin, Egbedore, to Iwo, Ikire, Ifelodun, Atakunmosa East, Obokun, Ipetumodu, Boripe, Ife and Modakeke were men and women who laboured, who sacrificed, and who remained steadfast to the cause of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but were abandoned, discredited, chased away and even later persecuted. Ingratus est qui beneficium accepit et non reddit – ungrateful is he who receives a benefit and does not repay. In the assessment of many a party people, Oyetola’s ingratitude was monumental.
The consequences of ignoring loyalists were dire and soon to be earned. Resentment festered, confidence eroded, and treachery became the feelings similarly nursed in the hearts of hitherto devoted party votaries. The grassroots, once the bedrock of APC’s strength, turned away in disgust. The artisans, farmers, market women and men, and youth groups who should have been courted through townhalls were ignored; journalists who should have been rallied were abandoned; roads that should have been repaired remained decrepit; mosques and churches that should have felt his presence became neglected; food banks that should have cushioned inflation were never established; cassava farms and gari plants that should have empowered communities were never built, and civil servants were similarly undeserving of whatever cushionary measures. Hybris was creed of Oyetola years, and nemesis deservedly cantered aloft.
Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur – a true friend is seen in uncertain times. Oyetola proved no friend to quite a number of those who had carried him to victory! He replaced genuine loyalists with opportunists who he granted unfettered access to himself. By the end of four years when it was time to be constitutionally invited to account at people’s voting parliament, he had proven to be governor of only a puny coterie of deceptive hangers-on! Across Osogbo, Gbongon, Ifon, Ilobu, Inisa, Ikirun among other places, are such stories as I tell here, those whose stories would make the most cold-hearted burst in loud wails and cause even the earth to tremble. And so, he lost his re-election bid to the ‘dancer-opponent,’ Senator Ademola Adeleke, who has since solidified his hold on Osun politics, having learned and mastered the language of grassroots governance.
The defeat could not have ended with Oyetola, as Bola Oyebamiji, his Finance Commissioner, merely waited to be reminded by the people what his former boss did to them. Perhaps, the case might have been different if Oyetola had operated as sponsor behind the curtains – he did not! It is wickedness for politically successful men and women to use their offices to favour certain associates and unfavour others, though all had similarly laboured for them in the trenches of struggle. Governance may not be a popularity contest within the larger populace, it is a contest of popularity, particularly among party people! Is the more not the merrier again? Fiat justitiaruatcaelum – let justice be served though the heavens fall. Oyetola, for abandoning the sincere memo and such other similarly useful memos as might have emanated from other quartres, abandoned the people. Oyebamiji and APC inherited the pains of that abandonment and paid the price.
The Osun electorate made no mistakes in preferring Adeleke. Accord is a relatively new party, having minimal structure, carrying much less familiar logo. Those who were shocked by APC’s loss have either not been following developments in Osun State or are simply unfaithful to unmistakable nudges of their own souls. I have repeatedly argued that people in the nooks don’t do party, especially on election days. Armed with the ballot, and as they approach the polling booths, they do persons and personalities.
The electorate knows the difference between leaders who genuinely love them and pretenders who wield authority only for self and cronies. They have lived through promises abandoned, memos ignored, and grassroots voices silenced. Aregbe brought ‘half-salary’ debacle, and Oyetola consolidated it. Adeleke implemented my memo without ever reading it: he turned Osun State into one massive construction site with roads, bridges and flyovers; he made grassroots empowerment a ceaseless, unending practice; paid workers whatever was being owed by past administrations and basically revolutionised their monthly package! To such wronged electorate now enjoying unprecedented lease, voter cards and ballot papers must come handy during election times as inescapable instruments of justice, either way. Voting centres must for them become points to send messages that governance must be genuine, that communities must be the very focus and essence of administration, and that they – the people who could not access executive chambers to force/enforce favourable decisions – as owners of election day, would pay back betrayal with the ballot. Vox populi…!