By Bamidele Johnson
“Eleyi a lo, lau/O gbe’na ka’ri, lau/O w’ewu eje, lau.”
For non-Yoruba speakers, this short ditty is sung among my people for those who merit expulsion from their positions. It conveys utter rejection of the retention of an exalted position by people who have been sub-par in such positions or have desecrated them. It simply means such people must leave.
It is a song that is appropriate for the Eleyi of Ogun State in the current circumstances. Frankly, what do you do to a leader who’s treated you with indifference verging on malevolence? In my view, there are only two options:Turn the other cheek or take your own 50 kg of flesh. No in between. The second option is my preference everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.
My esteemed people of Akute, Lambe, Oke-Aro, Agbado, Adiyan, Ope-Ilu, Ijoko and other communities along that axis, I seek your understanding. I am proposing that you use your votes to punish those who have treated you as children of a lesser god. Next year will make it the 24th since politicians, using their phony “my good people of XYZ”, have been treating you as worse than pigs.
Your roads are fit only for extreme sports, a state of affairs that has more than reduced the value of your investments in property to a tenth of what it should be, eroding sale or rent potential. You’re more or less half-landlords even with five duplexes.
The businesses you’ve established, including hotels, other leisure facilities, supermarkets, educational institutions are distressed because of the problem of access. Life is generally unlivable. There are no public health institutions. The schools in your communities are imitations of a pigsty. Zero additional amenities in 24 years.
It’s safe to say that as the elections approach, they will start coming to you smiley-faced and in full-on ingratiating mode. Don’t forget how they’ve treated you. More important, don’t forgive. Until he was seeking re-election, Olusegun Osoba didn’t think you mattered. He awarded, in injury time, a contract for the construction of the road between Akute junction and Ijoko. We’re unsure if he have got it executed if he’d won re-election. We cannot assume he’d have. What we saw with Amosun, one of his successors, should dampen any nostalgia about Osoba’s days.
Next up was Gbenga Daniel who, when I interviewed him in his days as governor, said the people of that axis didn’t pay taxes to Ogun State, but to Lagos, and should not expect revenue from other areas to be used to provide for them. I asked him if he said that while campaigning and if the duty of collecting taxes was that of the people. His response was to bristle and claim my questions were adversarial.
As his second term was winding down and with a flaming desire to install a successor, having had his agenda suffocated in the PDP, he manufactured a platform called PPN.
PPN candidates were his men who’d been dispossessed in the PDP. They were desperate. One of them seeking to represent the area at the House of Assembly, obviously abetted by Daniel, brought Ogun State Road Management Agency (OGROMA) equipment to grade roads around Lambe and Akute. He was proud of the fraud he was perpetuating, as evidenced by the signboards showing he facilitated the grading. He lost.
Daniel’s successor was the supremely egregious Amosun, the one with caps like a bishop’s mitre. He came with a grand plan of a five-lane highway with five bridges. He demolished homes and businesses to make way, paid measly compensation to those lucky enough to get, started work and abandoned it, leaving the axis 20 times worse. About a month to the end of his stay in power, he claimed, extravagantly, that he’d complete every project his government started. Presumably, he still in power and shockingly won election as a senator -to represent a population that includes people of that area.
Enter Dapo Abiodun. As far as the axis is concerned, Eleyi is in snooze mode if he has not lost consciousness. Should your votes go to him? Look at the value of your investments in property, your car, your health, the grotesque experience of your kids when going to and back from school as well as how much your capability at rendering your conjugal service has dwindled. Take a look at these few indices and act. We shall not be unfortunate o!
•Johnson , a journalist and Marketing Communications specialist lives in Lagos