This writer and this page will lead the applause for Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s stewardship the moment he surpasses his over-hyped and quite average performance. Apparently, Amosun has mended some roads, built new ones and constructed bridges. Among other schemes, he has initiated a 15-unit model school project, in purported fulfillment of his brief as Executive Governor, Ogun State. But tempting as it is to recount his laudable schemes, the purpose of this piece is to draw his attention to the maggots of neglect, arrant duplicity and underdevelopment infesting his government and the state, like a mind tumour.
Tumour has been known to cause its victims to hallucinate or descend into psychosomatic degeneration until death, particularly if located in the brain. But Governor Amosun of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has never been diagnosed with any such affliction, physically or metaphorically; hence unlike an ill-fated administrator, leading a government afflicted by nerve and ideological tumour, Governor Amosun may yet fulfill the promise of his party’s philosophy of ‘Change.’
Until then, Amosun’s version of ‘Change’ will continually resound as a corny phrase he had to chant, to achieve an epic sweep at the polls. So far, it has worked for him. After all, he remains His Excellency, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State for a second term. It’s however, interesting to see him bluster through his second spell in office, chanting ‘Change’ yet denouncing it in conflicting tenor and undertones.
Amosun camp parades him as the people’s governor, a humane leader, yet he is stonily deaf and conveniently blind to the townships’ grief and the peasants’ sighs. There is a death trap at Owode junction, just before you get to Ifo; recently it claimed lives and property in ghastly vehicle accidents. And poor, helpless residents of Ijoko, Agoro, Ijako, Iyana-Ilogbo, Ilepa, continually die, slowly and accidentally, from the perils of plying their muddy and badly cratered roads.
There is devastation in Alade, Elekunmefa, Imise, Onihale, Singer, to mention a few and to residents and traders of Lusada, Atan-Ota and Igbesa in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of the state, the roads leading to their communities are nightmarish and inimical to growth.
At the point where the Lagos ghetto of Ayobo meshes with Ogun state, a hideous kind of filth palpitates. There is ugliness in Lafenwa, Aiyetoro, Olugbode and various communities along Itele road. More roads present an eyesore at Oju-Ore, Ilo-Awela and Oke-Aro. At Toll-gate junction, Joju, Temidire and environ, mucky pools still stagnate in devastating craters along the bypasses because these hotspots and scenes of multiple deadly accidents are allegedly inconsequential to Governor Amosun. Really?
Lest we forget the people of Ewekoro who are dying slowly from the dangerous fumes persistently discharged into their communities by neighbouring multinational cement company, LafargeWAPCO Plc. Persistent reportage of LafargeWAPCO’s dangerous commercial activities in the area have been randomly scorned and condemned by the incumbent government of the state in the past, until a five-part series by The Nation spurred the government to stage a theatrical intervention that has so far, produced a remedy that barely addresses the health and developmental challenges incited by LafargeWAPCO in the area.
A certain Barr. Taiwo Adeoluwa, who identifies himself as Secretary to the Ogun State Government, in a recent article published on September 5, by online medium, Opinion Nigeria among others, enthused that: “Of course, it is impossible to list the achievements of our government within this limited space. I must add that, Amosun, like our revered sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, is a man that is conscious of his place in history. People like that are men of vision who will devote their all to the welfare of their people.”
Will Governor Amosun live up to the full measure of Adeoluwa’s hyperbolic cant? It’s about time the governor and his peers, stopped misappropriating substance by channeling it from the exploits of late Obafemi Awolowo. Is it so hard for Governor Amosun to become an icon by his own terms? It needn’t be too difficult for him to aspire to greatness by his handiwork, good deeds to be precise. Until then, no quality of spin or PR blitz would dull the jarring notes of sorrow and the portraits of death presented by Ogun State’s neglected townships, on his watch.
It is even more heartbreaking to see schools in the state deteriorate rapidly. Governor Amosun will do right by devoting greater attention to public schools on the decline. Consider for instance, the sad case of Salawu Abiola Comprehensive High School (S.A.C.H.S), built in 63 hectares of land in Osiele, Abeokuta; it is ironical that Governor Amosun continually commemorates the life and death of the school’s founder, late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (M.K.O) Abiola on June 12 of every year, even as the school founded by the late politician and philanthropist, wither away in abject neglect.
The school, initially established as Moshood Abiola Comprehensive High School in 1979 was later renamed, Osiele Comprehensive High School after state government took possession of it from the owner in 1980. It was later renamed after M.K.O’s father as Salawu Abiola Comprehensive High School.
It need be said that while Abiola was alive, he traveled with friends and family on his birthday, August 24th of every year, to celebrate with students of the school. That day also happened to be ‘Abiola Day,’ a day set aside for rewarding outstanding students of the school with prizes.
As you read, S.A.C.H.S is virtually dead. The hostels are derelict and the classrooms and school laboratories are severely impaired.
There are other public secondary schools like S.A.C.H.S deserving Governor Amosun’s urgent intervention. While alumni of Abeokuta Grammar School, Baptist Boys Secondary School and African Church Grammar School (of which Gov. Amosun is an alumnus) to mention a few, have been staging progressive interventions to rescue their alma mater from neglect, S.A.C.H.S alumni have fared terribly in this respect. The latter’s intervention would have been a saving grace for the school since the Abiola family apparently considers it the government’s burden, and Governor Amosun conveniently neglects it and other diminishing schools, to actualize his mega-schools fantasy.
“Hundreds of school buildings have been renovated, but the governor will not waste the scarce resources of the state to maintain buildings that ought to be demolished…We will not deceive our people with cosmetic changes,” stated Adeoluwa in his fawning piece on Amosun’s model school project. No doubt, Adeoluwa and his principal, Governor Amosun, need to visit S.A.C.H.S, Egba High School, Egba Odeda High School, Methodist Grammar School, Arigbajo, and other schools within Abeokuta, Ijebu and the outskirts of Ogun State to determine if they are actually worth saving or not. So doing, both Amosun and his underling may see the error, wastefulness and pitiful grandstanding in expending millions of tax payers’ money on building new ‘model schools’ while several schools in the state suffer excruciating decline.
No one wishes that Governor Amosun deceives the citizenry with what he and Adeoluwa considers “cosmetic changes” but since he is been paid handsomely with tax payers’ money for running the state, he is duty bound to provide cost-effective education with justifiable infrastructure, good roads and safety of lives and property in the state. It is a way to fulfill the promise of “Change” we can believe in and prosper by, that he made to the electorate at election time.
- To be continued…
- NATION
I have not read a more comprehensive and detailed analysis of the failings of our present day leaders as this piece by Olatunji Ololade. It is so heart-rending how persons who are saddled with the responsibility of making life better for the people with the people’s money (tax),how they contrive to continously deepen the pain and suffering of the people through neglect of basic infrastructural development. Ogun State has the unique feature of being a state with several link roads leading in/out of the state but instead of being a blessing,our dear Governors (past/present) make a curse that is incurable for the people by embarking on several road projects at the same time and never completing any. I live in Ota,which means I should be able to link Lagos/Abeokuta Express en route Iyana-Ipaja through any of 3roads (Tollgate,Odo-kpako or Akeja) but sadly none of these roads offers a semblance of smooth movement without encountering serious bad roads on the way.
You listen to the radio all day and residents of Ogun lament endlessly about bad roads,electricity etc. These men are not accountable to the people,not when they are in Govt and certainly not after they leave power to become Senators(as usual). Kudos to Olatunji for this write-up while we await the 2nd part of it and more importantly await REAL CHANGE in the well being of the people of Ogun State.