With all due respect to all of the 2019 Oyo State gubernatorial candidates, who are not from the Oke-Ogun area, it is the turn of Oke-Ogun to produce the next governor. No, I am not from Oke-Ogun, in case you are wondering. I am from Ibadan. But if I were from Oke-Ogun, I would be motivated to throw my hat into the ring because of the shameful neglect that the area has suffered in the hands of successive administrations. I would be mad as hell that my people, who sit on richly arable (62 per cent of Oyo State) landmass, have never been deemed good enough to produce the governor of the state it feeds.
Yes, Oke-Ogun is the “bread basket” of Oyo State. If you doubt me, take a trip to the region. I, too, was a doubting Thomas until a few months ago, when I drove from Awe to Okaka, way past Iseyin. There were huge farms on both sides of the road, deep into the hinterland, for as far as the eye could literally see. There were even farm settlements, some of which I was told had been there since the time of Awolowo’s premiership. There were crops…all kinds of them – cocoa, cashew, cassava, pineapple, pawpaw, yam, maize…all sorts, many in organised, neat plantation formats. Then there were livestock. I didn’t stop to inspect any livestock farm, but from the road, they appeared to be large. Clearly, somebody had heard about mechanised farming in the area.
With 10 out of the 33 Oyo State local government councils in Oke-Ogun, and rich human and natural resources, Oke-Ogun should not have to kiss up to any other region for the privilege of producing the next governor of Oyo State. All they have to do is first, get themselves together – all those serious 2019 candidates from across all the political parties – and agree on a consensus candidate
For many years, before ever visiting Oke-Ogun, I had heard about marble in Igbeti; granite in Irawo; tantalite in Olodo; tourmaline in Budo Are and bismuth in Iwajowa and a few other solid minerals generously spread across the area. The sad thing is that beyond hearing about those things, I have not seen how successive governments leveraged their abundance for the benefit of the entire state in general or Oke-Ogun in particular.
As I drove, I had the opportunity to look around me, savour the scenery and think about how this area had been neglected because I was not driving fast at all. In fact, from the time I left Oyo town to the time I got to Okaka, I couldn’t go faster than 40 kilometres per hour. And the reason was that the road was horrible. I think it was only in Iseyin that I saw a stretch of paved road. There, I would have been able to do more than 40, but it was township traffic. And by the way, I was driving an SUV. Imagine what it would have been if I was driving a sedan. I asked my friend, an Awe native, if there was an alternate route from Ibadan. He said yes, but that it was even worse than the one on which we were traveling. In other words, if I had begun the trip from Ibadan, bypassing Awe and Oyo, I would have had to take a road that was worse!
Then we rounded a bend and I suddenly came up on a bridge – a bridge over the famous Ogun River. Yes, the same Ogun River you see in Abeokuta. Luckily for me, there was no on-coming traffic; because if there was one, we would probably have had a head-on collision right on the bridge. Why? The bridge is too narrow to accommodate two motor vehicles of any size…side-by-side! And there were no warning signs at all. I was mortified. Even if I had taken the alternate route from Ibadan to Oke-Ogun, I still would have had to go over this bridge. In the Year of our Lord 2017, we have a bridge that cannot accommodate two motor vehicles on a stretch linking the state capital to the bread basket of the state? Incredible!
Imagine this pothole-riddled, unpaved road in the rainy season. Bad, right? Now imagine it at night. No wonder Oke-Ogun people believe that more than 80% of their people, who have died of road mishaps, met their untimely death on that bridge. And the fable is that once your vehicle tumbles over the bridge, your body can only be recovered in Ogun State. Ha! So, because of the futility in searching for you, people just let your body go.
I started to curse out all the past governors that had neglected the road. But my friend cut me short, saying the road belonged to the Federal Government. Now, that just deflated me. This is a road leading to a few borders with Benin Republic – borders where the Federal Government collect excise duties and immigration levies. Someone once remarked that apart from that road and some police stations, there is scant Federal presence in the entire Oke-Ogun area. Only three Oke-Ogun people have ever got Federal political appointments since the time anybody can remember. And that is counting the current Minister of Communications, Bayo Shittu. Why are things so rough for Oke-Ogun people?
With 10 out of the 33 Oyo State local government councils in Oke-Ogun, and rich human and natural resources, Oke-Ogun should not have to kiss up to any other region for the privilege of producing the next governor of Oyo State. All they have to do is first, get themselves together – all those serious 2019 candidates from across all the political parties – and agree on a “consensus candidate” that will run on the platform of one of the more viable parties. With a united front, they can now negotiate with the leadership of other parties.(Excuse me, please: I know it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for that to happen.)
But if they somehow manage to pull it off, the challenge such a candidate would face, of course, would be how to defeat a candidate from Ibadan, especially, if Ibadan people now believe there is a gang-up against them. With 11 local government councils and 53% of the population, Ibadan is believed to control 50% of the electoral votes. So, if they vote homogeneously, it is almost impossible to defeat their candidate. But this is 2017, and we are talking about 2019, when our people will have been even wiser. Ibadan people are not going to vote endogenously in part, because Ibadan is not homogeneous like that. So, if a great candidate emerges from Oke-Ogun – thoroughbred, incorruptible, non-demagoguery, humble, educated, young and vibrant – and the person runs an honest campaign, Ibadan people will vote for him or her. I don’t see why Bayo Shittu, Debo Adesina or Laolu Akande cannot earn enough votes from Ibadan and even Ogbomosho, if they can convince people about how they would pay workers’ salaries on time and keep state government institutions of
learning open throughout the entire academic year.
*Ladepo is a US-based Nigerian security expert and veteran journalist. He can be reached through oluyole2@yahoo.com
