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Hot race towards Ogun 2019 guber

By Adetola Adewuyi
31 July 2015   |   1:11 am
I often hear this epigram from journalists: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Politics is about self-interest; hence I do not begrudge Dr Sarah Olabimtan, the author of the article, “2015 and a people’s aspiration”, published in the papers recently.
Ibikunle Amosun

Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun

I often hear this epigram from journalists: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Politics is about self-interest; hence I do not begrudge Dr Sarah Olabimtan, the author of the article, “2015 and a people’s aspiration”, published in the papers recently.

What I frown at was her attempt to turn Ogun East, where I come from, into a pawn on her political chessboard. One is equally bemused by the efforts of the writer to make the Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, a hostage to some queer and indecipherable commitments to Ogun West.

We (women) can sometimes be emotional, but facts will always be facts. It was my Awori friend from Ado/Odo Ota that first rang me up on the piece by Dr Sarah. “The Yewas now wish to reap where they did not sow!” she exclaimed.

Of course, the facts are in the public domain. Of the 84,241 votes delivered to the APC in the governorship poll of April 11, 2015 by the 5 local councils in Ogun West senatorial district, Ado/Odo Ota local council alone, peopled essentially by the Aworis, delivered 34,097, representing 41% of the votes to the incumbent governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.

In other words, the entire Yewas, with 4 out of the 5 local councils in Ogun West, delivered only 59% of the APC votes. (1 LGA delivered 41%; 4 LGAs delivered 59%.) On the contrary, out of the 69,535 votes of the PDP in the same governorship poll, Ado/Odo local council delivered only 12,769, representing 18% of the votes to Gboyega Nasir Isiaka, who is a Yewa.

This implies that the entire 4 local councils of Yewa people delivered a whopping 82% of the total votes of the PDP! The obvious conclusion from this is that the Yewa people voted massively for their son, Gboyega Isiaka of the PDP. (1 LGA delivered 18%; 4 LGAs delivered 82%.)

Therefore, it was a fallacy and an exercise in sophistry for Mrs Sarah to write that, “Two distinguished Yewa-Awori sons were overlooked by their people for the incumbent… Yewa-Aworis have used the vote to say in unmistakable terms that the two candidates raised against Amosun did not have their backing… Amosun whipped the two Yewa-Awori indigenes in their own backyard in Ogun West.”

Nothing could be further from the truth! It is instructive however to note that, whereas Senator Akin Odunsi, the candidate of the SDP in the governorship election, who is an Awori, got only 59 votes from his local council, Ado/Odo Ota, Senator Ibikunle Amosun of the APC polled 34,097 in the same local council.

Therefore, it was the Aworis that actually rose in some way above the son-of-the-soil syndrome in the 2015 gubernatorial poll in Ogun State. Consequently, it is totally illogical and wrong for the writer to suggest that the Yewa people voted massively for Amosun so that he could back a candidate from the zone in 2019.

If anything, it is the Aworis that seemingly have some claims to lay to 2019 from Ogun West, but then not until the full matrix and calculus of Ogun politics are unravelled. What I propose at this juncture is nothing more than a tip of the iceberg, for it is too early in the day to discuss full blast the politics that will shape 2019, on which Ogun East has overriding stakes.

Amosun has just won the mandate for a second term and he should not be distracted from accomplishing the goals he had set for the new term. The writer equally embarked on somewhat sentimental generalisation without getting her facts right on the issue of appointments.

One wonders where she got her list of appointments from. When you deal with figures, accuracy should be the watchword. Politics is a game of numbers. Whereas my people from Ogun East delivered 94,974 votes to Governor Ibikunle Amosun, analysis of the contracts awarded, in monetary terms, shows that Ogun West got far more than its due from the resources of the state than Ogun East or Ogun Central, which is more populous than Ogun West.

The writer therefore missed the point by comparing projects sited in Ogun East with Ogun West. In fact, the writer committed political hara-kiri by not contemplating the ramifications of such a strange voyage. It is on record that the longest road constructed by the Amosun administration – the 107km Ilara-Ijoun road – which cuts across 4 local councils, is in Ogun West.

Whereas, the governor has through this succeeded in opening up the rural areas in Ogun West, the people of Ogun East are green with envy.

Imagine the economic turn-around that Amosun brought to Ota and Aiyetoro through the modernisation of their roads. Contract for the Atan-Agbara road, a federal government road in Ogun West, has been awarded by the Amosun government.

At one point in time, another neglected federal government road, the Owode-Ilaro highway, was completely impassable, especially at the Sabo portion.

We read of the amount of money spent by the state government to make that portion motorable because of the nature of its soil and the fact that it is a major route for articulated vehicles. As we speak, construction work on the overhead bridge in Ilaro is ongoing.

Yet Amosun lost by 1,771 votes in Ilaro in comparison to 721 votes in Ijebu Ode. Should one also forget the ongoing construction of two bridges, crucial to the safety and economies of the people of Ipokia and Imeko Afon local councils?

Indeed, considering the manner the PDP conducted itself in Ogun East, especially in Ijebu axis during the last general elections, the indignities meted out to many supporters of the APC who dared the rampaging monsters, the limited funds of the APC in sharp contrast with the limitless funds of the PDP to prosecute the election in Ogun East, where votes were up for grabs since neither Amosun nor Isiaka is from the senatorial district and the fact that the senatorial district still polled far above Ogun West to deliver the second term to Amosun, despite Ogun West taking the lion’s share of the funds for infrastructural development of the state, it is only human and logical for the incumbent governor to reward the people of Ogun East with his support in 2019. •Chief (Mrs) Adewuyi, a stalwart of APC, writes from Ijebu Ode, Ogun State.

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