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Bamise’s murder and this Cryptocurrency generation

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5 years ago

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File photo of late Oluwabamise Ayanwole, the young lady who commuted on the Lagos Bus Rapid Transit

 

On Saturday, March 12, 2022, I delivered the paper below at the Kegites Club’s celebration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 85th birthday which was held at the OOPL (Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library) in Abeokuta, Ogun State, with him in attendance:

At the installation of the new Olubadan of Ibadanland, I took my time to listen to his cognomen, with studied interest. I came out of the encounter first, with laughter, then shock and trepidation. His royal majesty’s praise chants describe him as “omo o toro obe, toro abe; boo bun mi l’obe, bun mi l’abe nitori abe dun j’obe lo”. Roughly translated, this means, the child of he who begs for soup and begs for sex; he says if you don’t have soup, hesitate not to give me the taste of sex because sex is sweeter than soup.

Such cognomens and songs give indications of traditional African society. They reveal, not strictly the promiscuity of pre-colonial Africa but even other sins they committed like killing one another for killing’s sake. Take for instance the cognomen, oriki of the Iloko lineage of Oyo Yoruba. Iloko proudly dances to chants of lines like omo abe’nilori fiyoku bun ni, translated to mean, one who cuts off somebody’s head and then forgives the victim after the act. My friend, Lasisi Olagunju, an Iloko, proudly flaunts this.

Elders of our land, today, your traditional Africa is under serial attacks. That same traditional Africa which, in nostalgia, you label the purest of all societies, is today mocked by a generation I call the cryptocurrency generation. As the Olubadan’s cognomen was being chanted, I listened to a very naughty little boy of that generation beside me say, so their generation too was that decadent; so why do they disdain ours?

Early this week, as the lifeless body of 22-year-old Oluwabamise Ayanwole, the young lady who commuted on the Lagos Bus Rapid Transit, was found, you were mocked, elders of our land. Oluwabamise’s remains had been dumped on Lagos’ Carter Bridge, with some of her body parts alleged to be missing. Whether the young hapless lady’s death was as a result of a rape gone awry or ritual killing, we are yet to be fully told. However, Nigerians have recently witnessed a resurgence of killings for money rituals.

Respected British scholar, John Peel, in one of his works, said his research found out that in pre-colonial Nigeria, mortuary killings were predominant in southwest Nigeria and strangers were often killed to preserve the life of a community.

Whenever and wherever mutilated bodies of victims of ritual killings are found, your traditional Africa suffers a terrible blow. As tears roll down their cheeks, children of this generation are quick to warn you, canvassers of the purity of traditional Africa, to save your crocodile tears for another day. They claim that the graveyards are filled with bones of hundreds of people your forefathers murdered for what they called the sustenance of traditional Africa; that money ritual is one of your bequeathals to their generation.

As if that was not enough, the cryptocurrency generation calls you hypocrites. What impudence! Asked to elaborate, the vociferous ones among them said that while your forefathers, in one breath, fascinatingly rendered the ancient poetic lines of J. F. Odunjo Alawiye’s poem which asked us to spare the crawling insect and not stamp our feet on it because it is also God’s creation in the chant, “Yi ese re si apa kan, ma se pa kokoro ni, kokoro ti iwo ko le da, Olorun lo le da”…in another breath, your cultic forebears gorged out eyes, breasts, hearts and private parts of their victims. They said those body parts symbolized creationism and multiplicity. With body parts for rituals, wealth and communal wellbeing were assured.

I know you are stupefied at this generation’s daring guts. But listen yet again. This generation says it is amused that you are bothered at the common occurrence now of teenagers, barely off diapers, driving around shining, metallic wonders-on-wheels. Why are they aghast that we earn millions of dollars from Yahoo Yahoo scam of white men and women? they chorus.

Again, they ask you to cover your face in shame. Rather than the villains you say they are, the cryptocurrency generation says it is a generation of heroes and warriors. Their defence is that this is a generation that has chosen not to stand by and lament the over-a-century slave trading and despoliation of the fecund lands of Africa. According to them, they chose instead to fight your battles, battles that you were too effeminate to fight and could not have won against your taskmasters. By defrauding offspring of your colonial taskmasters who took you into slavery centuries ago, the cryptocurrency generation claims it is helping you repatriate the unpaid wages and sweats of your forefathers who, centuries ago, were hewers of woods and drawers of water for Europe and the Americas.

In your very eyes, those lullabies of purity of traditional Africa are exploding into smithereens, elders of our land, you who are the last surviving offspring of traditional Africa. You are at a crossroads. You are right now at that place where three footpaths meet, the very place you called the crossroads that turns the stranger into a novice, the ikorita meta ti n damu alejo.

In the name of fashion, your children are today the archetype of what you resented with the whole of your being. Your children happily flaunt sartorial madness, regalia of that same species of beings you loathsomely labelled as one whose insane dances at the market square are scintillating to watch but whom no one prays to have as a child; the were dun wo loja, ko se bi l’omo.

This cryptocurrency generation wears that same locked, dishevelled, filthy, lengthy, bushy, dreadlocked hairs that the local madman in your area wears, the equivalent of the hairs on the head of Jesus the Christ’s generation’s madman of Gadarene. Your abetiaja cap they mock to ridicule as Stone Age sartorial cruelty and your agbada receives their scorn as a needless parachute. In its place, they wear torn jean trousers like this same madman of Gadarene and place their trousers below the heap of the two clefts of their bottoms – the bebere idi. But of course, they are ever quick to refer you, our elders, to the aforementioned Olubadan’s cognomen as proof that the generations of yesteryears were not as innocent and pure as they have been made to believe!

Ah ah! The myth of purity is exploding in your very eyes like vapours of nothingness! Today’s fashion, the fashion sense of the cryptocurrency world that we live in, blatantly mocks all that excessive coverage of the essential body parts. Your daughters scarcely wear anything at all today. They make public spoils of their nakedness, advertising their cleavages, the bodily variant of what legendary Yoruba Kennery Music exponent, Orlando Owoh, called the sweet pineapple within which there is multiple sweetness – the ope oyinbo to fi dundun s’ewa.

Didn’t your forefathers teach that there is wisdom in masking glory before its maturation, which you concisely couched in that pithy aphorism, bi isu eni ba ta, a f’owo bo je ni? Your male children today and their new wives pose for photographs on Facebook and Instagram with protruded pregnant alaboyun tummies, more naked than the prehistoric Adam and Eve, in a wild celebration they call Baby Shower. When your forefathers sighted a naked man or woman on the street, aghast, they shouted: “Ikunle abiamo o!” a lamentation of the labour pain of a woman that has come to ruins. If in lamentation of nakedness, your forefathers, when they saw a naked madman on the streets, murmured, aso o b’Omoye mo, Omoye ti rin’hoho w’oja, why do you, elders of our land, tolerate your children wearing nakedness as clothing to the marketplace and you laugh and dance with them?

The best place to begin the interrogation of what has gone wrong with us is to find out whether this generation and generations before them share a meeting of the minds on what values are. We need to dispense with this before we accuse one of cultural and value impunity and beatify the other as torchbearers of standards, values and purity. Why has social media become the new German philosopher, Fredrich Nietzche’s Superman, dishing out absolute moral codes to our children and turning them into alien spectacles we can scarcely recognize? Why have we chosen to look away in odious resignation while our fruits, the leaders of our tomorrow, decimate the values that gave us our sterling identity and pride of old?

In Africa, such values as respect for elders, hard work, respect for seniority, the extended family system, valour, premium on children, etc reigned. Pre-colonial Africa is often held as the Golden Years of the continent.

Let us pick the above African values one by one and see where they are in a 21st-century world. Respect for elders. Celebrated columnist, Reuben Abati, faced one of the most acidic attacks ever recently when he demanded that his age be properly attributed on a television programme. Abati was facing what the late poet, Gabriel Okara, mirrored in his ‘Piano and Drums’, piano symbolizing modernity and drums, traditional Africa. Unfortunately for Abati, he forgot that television and modern broadcasting are 21st-century objects, with their own set codes and ethos, to which he wanted to sacrifice pre-colonial ritual objects! Greetings and respect for elders in Africa, Nigeria, and among the Yoruba, like Rome, were not built in a day and did not die in one day. They die gradually. In Yorubaland, the gradual death of respect for elders began from youngsters offering what is called idobale igbingbado – the corn-planting prostration position. It then moved to the merely-bowing-of-head position and today, respect for elders is facing total annihilation. Youngsters offer handshakes as greetings to elders.

Hard work. Today, only a tiny population of our youths believes in hard work. They want to ride Bugatti and Bentley the day they are born. Music as popular culture in pre-colonial Africa and even immediate post-colonial Africa helped to underscore the value of hard work. Musicians of that period sang that sorcery and magic cannot make one wealthy. Today, musicians sing praises of felons and exalt virtues that they say are in scamming and 419.

In the same manner, the values of the extended family system, valour, premium on children and others have become extinct. Those days, Europeans and Americans celebrated our virtue of communal living, our Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a South African social philosophy of culture which explains Africa’s capacity to express compassion, dignity, harmony and humanity while building and maintaining a sense of communality, justice and mutual caring. Ubuntu is a fellow human feeling which is diametrically opposed to the individualistic theory of society propounded by the French philosopher, René Descartes, expressed in the Latin word, “cogito, ergo sum” – I think, therefore I am. For us in Africa, our underlying social philosophy of culture was, I am because we are. Today, Africa has returned to Descartes. It is everyone for himself and God for us all.

Social media is today held as the culprit of the implosion of immorality in Nigeria. I do not subscribe to this fully. I think what we have now is an explosion of reportage of evil, not an explosion of the act. The truth is, there is little difference in the decadence prevalent in pre-colonial African society and now. The little difference is that the ratio of righteous countrymen then, compared to now, has dwindled considerably. Promiscuity was like pestilence then and immorality ruled our world. Until the Nigerian law forbade it, bastard children, products of liaisons with married women, littered the space. Murder was like sport and injustice was everywhere. In the politics of the First Republic, dead bodies were brought to the front of the houses of political opponents so as to rope them into murder. What the social media can be accused of doing now is coordinating all these indecencies that seem to be latent in us – ones in Zamfara, Ebonyi, to Osun – and making them available across time and space, in a baffling spontaneity that looks like a spike.

The way to begin is for each of us to return to our homes. As the saying goes that whoever the gods want to destroy, they first make mad; the family in Africa has become a mad place. William Yeats, Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature, wrote in his poem, ‘The Second Coming’, talked about things that have gone awry, purity that has been polluted. It is the same in our families today. The falcon cannot hear the falconer as things (have) fallen apart; the centre cannot hold. Right inside the family, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. Parents gladly receive car gifts from their Yahoo Yahoo children who they know are kingpins of scamming. They are the ones who help to philosophise the fraud rot that has destroyed many victims’ lives forever by saying that Yahoo Yahoo is an attempt to repatriate stolen African valuables by the West. I learnt there is even an association of Yahoo Yahoo mothers.

We have to begin from our homes to teach our children the values and purity of hard work and the unenduring worth of indolence and fraud. We must begin to teach them morals by asking our children to remember the child of whom they are. Though we are in a 21st-century world, J. F. Odunjo’s books, his poems, the stories of tortoise and his wife who we called Ijapa and Yannibo, stories that moulded us to responsible adulthood, are evergreen, imperishable, relevant for this age and are calling for our attention today. Each family must teach their children, from the diapers, about Odunjo’s classic poem, ‘Ise l’ogun ise‘ (Work serves as an antidote to poverty). In fact, it must be hung on the wall as we did almanac those days. That poem teaches that we should intensify efforts at work because, not only is there dignity in labour, work is the only thing that can lift one up.

If we religiously do this, we will be rescuing this generation and the ones to come from the madness of swindling, indolence and warped sense of achievement. More importantly, we will be saving our children from the hands of this fast-moving, all-that-is-wrong-is-right cryptocurrency generation, the scions of the ZaZuZeh culture that kills the Oluwabamises of this world for rituals, believing that in their severed body parts, lie antidotes to poverty.

 

 

Dr. Festus Adedayo, a Journalist, Lawyer and Columnist writes 

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Opinion

Governor Seyi Makinde’s Media Chat: A Hundred And Twenty Minutes Of Trash Talk | By Sola Abegunde

Published

1 day ago

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October 13, 2026

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I knew that Governor Makinde would provide us with a hundred and twenty minutes of comic relief and at the same time, I knew he is bound to commit unforced errors which would further expose his shenanigans.

The outgoing Governor of Oyo state did not disappoint on both fronts.

Personally, I understand the need for him to have one final valedictory Media Chat.

The atmosphere might be too hot for him to even think of such luxury after the general election in 2027. So, if he’s got the opportunity now, why not take a shot at it?

I must however say that the Governor displayed his insensitivity right from the choice of the Studio the Chat was aired.

Shortly before the Media Chat commenced, I came across a release signed by the Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalist, NUJ, BCOS Chapel, Com. Ademola Balogun.

Com. Balogun was full of lamentations concerning the very terrible state of the Oyo state Broadcasting Corporations, BCOS.

He was of the very strong opinion that the BCOS should have meaningful opportunities to cover Government activities.

He also called on Governor Seyi Makinde to empower the BCOS to invest in modern studio, transmitting equipment, digital broadcasting facilities and online platforms.

Com. Ademola spoke extensively about Staff welfare and other issues.

Sadly, while Governor Seyi Makinde has been consistent in empowering a particular Radio station, the Broadcasting Corporations of Oyo state, BCOS has been dying slowly.

Unfortunately, I have no good news for Com. Ademola. His lamentations will definitely fall on stone deaf ears. It is too late for Governor Makinde to change his ways. I just pray that the Governor would not wake up one day and sold off whatever remains of the Corporation.

That is just by the way. Let me address Governor Makinde’s Media Chat for whatever it is worth. The Governor spent a whole two hours venting anger and spreading outright lies and half-truths.

I am surprised that Governor Makinde has not seen any reason for him to have a second thought about his awkward and reckless comments about the Law Profession.

I am saying this because, for the second time, his Deputy was sitting closely beside him and yet, he felt like it was humorous for him to take a dig at Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli, the All Progressives Congress, APC Gubernatorial candidate, regarding his misconceived failure as a Law practitioner.

He repeated the ignorant and reckless comments about Senator Alli, not being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and for that reason, according to Governor Seyi Makinde, the Oyo South Senator is not an accomplished Legal Practitioner.

He had made that same reckless comments a couple of weeks ago and at that time also, the Deputy Governor was beside him!

The respectable man is an accomplished Lawyer of many years of experience, who had trained a lot of successful Lawyers.

I also wonder, how people like Dr. Nureni Adeniran and Olasunkanmi Olaleye, who are also Lawyers and have been working with Governor Seyi Makinde over the years would feel about those reckless comments coming from their Boss.

If you want to follow Governor Seyi Makinde’s reasoning, if you are a teacher and you did not rise to the status of a School Principal or Head teacher, then, you’re a failure.

If you are a Military Personnel and you didn’t rise to the position of a General, you’re a failure!

Any time I saw the Governor arguing in this regard, I always asked myself if he was actually himself, because, for me, only a drunkard is capable of reasoning in that manner, or, perhaps, some young elements who had taken so much banned substances.

I have carefully analyzed the 120 minutes Media Chat and I saw that Governor Seyi Makinde spent so much time treating two issues.

The first, being his frustration about his perceived betrayal by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the second being his failed attempt to rewrite the Constitution of Nigeria regarding the financial autonomy for Local Governments.

The birthday boy tried to work him through the crisis at the Circular Road, but it was obvious that the main reasons behind Governor Makinde’s Media Chat were grounded on his firm beliefs that Tinubu breached certain agreements with him and others in 2023 and his warped opinion about how the Local Governments should operate within our Federation.

Let’s start with Governor Seyi Makinde’s allegations against Tinubu.

According to him, in 2023, an agreement was signed between certain individuals, including himself.

He said there was an agreement that a Government of National Unity would be formed by president Tinubu after he won the presidential election of 2023 and that he and the Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu were signatories to that agreement.

According to him, president Tinubu was not a signatory to the agreement but he was informed after the agreement was signed!

He went further to say that on the strength of that agreement, he presented Bimbo Adekambi as a Ministerial nominee because the president had earlier told him that he wanted to appoint the Minister for Budget and Planing from Oyo state.

To his chagrin and disappointment, president Tinubu settled for Bayo Adelabu and asked him to own the nomination of the former Minister for power, a request he claimed he rejected.

He therefore concluded that all the Ministers nominated from the South West are from Bourdilon.

I have carefully analyzed this confession by Governor Seyi Makinde and I have a few questions for him.

Why is it that Governor Seyi Makinde is the only one complaining about a breached agreement?

Why did it take him all these long to come out with this fact?

What was the criteria for the nomination of Bimbo Adekambi? Did he just take a random decision to choose Adekambi without a prior relationship between the two of them or what?

How does Governor Seyi Makinde want to convince any right thinking person that he believed an agreement would be binding on Tinubu on the strength of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s alleged signature?

For me, that doesn’t make any sense, most especially, for an ” accomplished Engr” like Seyi Makinde!

I am surprised that Governor Makinde leaves out what he benefited from the alignment with Tinubu in 2023.

Remove the alignment with Tinubu in 2023, Seyi Makinde was a goner and the fact that he was able to secure a second term in office ought to have been enough for him.

I am also surprised that Governor Makinde didn’t understand that he was advertising his penchant for serial betrayal and greed when he was relating the events that shaped his re-election in 2023.

It was all about him and the decisions he took, not only affected the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP alone, it also affected certain candidates of his party during the first ballot in 2023.

Now, to the issue of Local Government Autonomy.

Governor Seyi Makinde is a very funny individual. He was very clear about his position on Local Government Autonomy in 2023.

His position was that he never even believed in their existence and I was amused when the birthday boy was saying that despite his position on Local Government Autonomy in 2023, he was still able to win in 31 Local Governments, signifying the fact that the people of Oyo state believed Governor Makinde’s explanations.

I am extremely happy that Governor Seyi Makinde has not changed his opinion on how Local Governments should operate within the Federating units.

He is still stuck on the fact that the 33 Local Governments in Oyo state should be appendages to the State Government, even, in spite of the Judgment of the Supreme Court granting them full financial autonomy.

I am shocked that Governor Seyi Makinde could attempt to confuse what happened between the Lagos state Government when Tinubu was Governor of the state and the Federal Government during Obasanjo’s period, with the illegalities he has been perpetuating with the resources 33 Local Governments.

There is a clear distinction between both scenarios.

In the case of Tinubu as Governor of Lagos state, the Lagos state Government created more Local Governments and the Federal Government was of the opinion that the state Government was wrong to have done so.

As a result of this misunderstanding, the Federal Government stopped the monthly allocations for the Local Governments in Lagos state and it led to a Judicial dispute.

In the end, the Supreme Court held that the Local Governments created by the Lagos state Government were incohate, but it faulted the Federal Government for withholding the monthly allocations belonging to the Local Governments in Lagos state.

Lagos state Government thereafter recognized and administered the newly created Local Governments as Local Government Development Areas and many states have since copied the template, including Oyo state.

In the present scenario, the president, through the Attorney general of the Federation approached the Supreme Court and sought to secure full financial autonomy for the 774 Local Governments and the Supreme Court agreed to the request.

I have been asking myself, why is it that Governor Seyi Makinde is having problems with that judgement?

The monthly allocations released to the 33 Local Governments are released against their names.

Is Governor Seyi Makinde saying that it is proper for a Governor to still be the supervisor for the 33 Local Governments?

How does the judgment of the Supreme Court translate to the Federal Government trying to take control of the 774 Local Governments?

Yorubas will always say that a dog can not stand watch over two different buildings. ( Aja kii roro, ko so ojule meji po).

I was also surprised to hear Governor Seyi Makinde talking about the fact that, instead of full financial autonomy for the Local Governments, he preferred to discuss about how the Local Governments could be empowered to survive without monthly allocations from Abuja.

Haba! Governor Makinde!! Gently now.

You are depriving the Local Governments of their entitlements and you except them to thrive. How would that happen?

Why didn’t we start with the state? Can Oyo state survive without monthly allocations?

I think everyone can now see that Bimbo Adekambi as Governor, would never allow the Local Governments to breathe.

On the other hand, Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli has promised to guarantee full financial autonomy for the 33 Local Governments and the implementation of the policy requires no rocket science. All it requires is the will.

There is an existing judgment of the Supreme Court which has outlined the steps to be taken by any willing state Government.

Sarafa Alli only needs to direct relevant stakeholders at the Local Governments to comply with the judgment and that is the end of the matter.

What is so difficult in that, if you are not covetous?

I might have to do this piece in series but I will like to warn the residents of the Circular Road.

You heard Governor Seyi Makinde. He is promising you nothing.

My only problem with him is his attempts to shift the blame of the chaos he orchestrated at the Circular Road on the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

He even said that that the Government of Ajimobi defrauded residents of the Circular Road!

Sometimes, people like Governor Seyi Makinde needs no one to enchant them. Their character is an enchantment on itself.

If you’re saying that the Governments of the late Ajimobi defrauded residents of the Circular Road, is Bimbo Adekambi not an integral part of that Government and that is before you begin to ask the Governor for proofs.

I enjoyed Governor Seyi Makinde’s valedictory Media Chat, while looking forward to the new era awaiting him next year.

My father used to tell us that the mouth of the liar does not ooze blood. ( Enu opuro kii seje).

By the way, I saw that Governor Seyi Makinde never mentioned anything about the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the abduction of Teachers and Pupils of Yawota and Esinele communities of Oriire Local Government.

How far now?

Sola Abegunde.

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Re: Adekambi vs Alli: Dr. Olanrewaju’s Descent To Soliloquizing | Sola Abegunde

Published

2 weeks ago

on

October 1, 2026

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I have read Dr. Sulaimon Olanrewaju’s piece titled ” Adekambi vs Alli: Between Substance And Sensationalism” and it offers me a lot of entertainment.

Dr. Sulaimon Olanrewaju is a seasoned Journalist no doubt. Very brilliant mind, but, he needs a lecture on politics and governance.

No matter how educated or professional you could be, if you lack basic knowledge about raw politics and governance at different tiers of Government, you are bound to struggle like a fish out of the water each time you attempt to defend certain positions.

Very obviously, Dr. Olanrewaju doesn’t know how a Local Government should operate on a normal situation, even, before the Judgment of the Supreme Court obtained by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

I will refer Dr. Olanrewaju to a document titled ” Financial Memorandum for Local Governments”.

That document speaks to how funds belonging to the Local Governments could be legally spent.

It will also provide accurate information about the roles and powers of the Local Government Chairmen, Head of Local Government Administration, the Finance and General Purposes Committee, F&GPC, how approvals for funds, projects and how contracts are signed at the Local Government level.

Had it been that Dr. Olanrewaju had proper information, I am sure that he wouldn’t have advertised his ignorance the way he did, in the argument about Financial autonomy for Local Governments which Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is promising.

He would also have known that his Principal, Governor Seyi Makinde had been engaged in criminal activities in the manner he had been withdrawing and spending resources belonging to the 33 Local Governments illegally since 2019.

Perhaps I need to repeat this for emphasis sake. There is no Law that empowers a state Governor to withdraw money belonging to the Local Governments for the execution of projects on behalf of the Local Governments.

The fact that the monthly allocations for the 33 Local Governments would have to drop on a joint account does not confer any authority on a state Governor to illegally withdraw and spend same.

It is the responsibility of the F&GPC for each of the Local Governments to identify projects it wants to execute, approve funds for same and if the funds are beyond the approving limits of the F&GPC, it will seek approval from the Governor through the office of the Commissioner for Local Governments.

If the project would be executed as a contract, it is the sole responsibility of the HLGA to sign the contract agreement.

That is what Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is saying. That he would not make illegal withdrawals from the Local Governments funds. That he will allow the F&GPC for the 33 Local Governments to function without hinderance. That he will allow the Career officers to do their duties assigned to them by Law.

If Governor Seyi Makinde doesn’t believe in the existence of the Local Governments and he is not hiding this fact and Sarafa Alli is saying, I believe in a functional and free Local Government, where is the sensationalism in that?

Truth hurts. Dr. Olanrewaju can not, through his essay, which I consider an afterthought, rewrite the fact that, his Principal publicly declared that he doesn’t believe in the existence of the Local Governments, not to talk of allowing them to function freely.

I am surprised that Dr. Olanrewaju is of the opinion that Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is not saying what he would do differently.

I know that the Special Adviser on Media to Governor Seyi Makinde is not deaf. Neither is he blind or dumb. He is only being hypocritical.

How else does the Allied People’s Movement, APM and its Gubernatorial candidate want the All Progressives Congress, APC Gubernatorial candidate to say what he is going to do differently?

On this issue of Financial autonomy for Local Governments, Sarafadeen Alli is saying, contrary to the illegalities of the past seven years plus, he will not concern himself with the responsibilities that are ordinarily that of the Local Governments.

On Education, he has declared that he will ensure that we go back to the 30 Pupils per classroom policy of the former Governor, Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, now, H. I . M, Oba Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja.

He said he will revive the Broadcasting Corporations of Oyo state, BCOS which is gasping for breath under Governor Seyi Makinde.

He was emphatic about the fact that he would set up a Committee to review the crisis created at the Circular Road by Governor Seyi Makinde within 72 hours when he is elected as the Governor of Oyo state.

He said he would review the sales and handing over of our Farm Settlements to Estate Developers amongst other promises.

On these issues, what are the clear positions taken by Adekambi?

If Dr. Olanrewaju wants us to believe his cock and bull stories about the performance of the 33 Local Governments under Seyi Makinde, I challenge him to ask his Principal to publish the statement of income and expenditures for the 33 Local Governments in the past seven years plus.

He should give us a breakdown of the total figure of the monthly allocations received on behalf of the 33 Local Governments, the breakdown of salaries and allowances paid, the number of projects executed, identities of the contractors who handled projects, the contract agreements, total figure of the Internally Generated Revenues, IGR received by the Local Governments and the VAT.

In the absence of these vital information, which I am certain they will never dare to make public, I want to humbly suggest that Dr. Olanrewaju should go and update his knowledge about how certain things are done.

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Opinion

Ladoja @82: When the ladder becomes too tall and Makinde’s sin of ingratitude | By Ayinla Joseph

Published

2 weeks ago

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September 28, 2026

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The Yoruba say, when a man forgets the ladder that took him to the top of the iroko tree, the fall that awaits him will be narrated as a proverb.

On Thursday, Ibadan stood still for its king. Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja clocked 82. Not 82 years of mere age, but 82 years of bruises, battles, betrayals and benediction. A former Senator. A former Governor. An elder statesman who, like Oduduwa, returned as king. The following day, Friday, Oba Ladoja also clocked one year on the throne of his forefathers.

Ibadan celebrated him. Nigeria celebrated him. The Presidency sent greetings. Former governors knelt. Serving governors bowed. The Alaafin of Oyo paid tribute. The Soun of Ogbomoso poured libation of words. Even the Aseyin, far in Iseyin, bought a full page in a national daily to say: our father lives.

But in Agodi Government House, there was silence. Cold, deliberate, imperial silence.

Governor Seyi Makinde did not felicitate his king. No advert. No statement. No courtesy of any sort extended. Nothing. His protégé, Bimbo Adekanmbi, toed the same line of contempt. For 48 hours, Ibadan people waited for a word that never came, until shame forced a whisper.

We must ask: what manner of politics is this?

In 2019, it was this same Ladoja who held Makinde’s hand when Makinde had no hand to hold. It was Ladoja who coordinated the coalition, who gathered the angry, the broken and the hopeful, and stitched them into a garment called victory for a man who had never won anything before. Without Ladoja, there would have been no Omituntun in 2019. And the man knows it.

Philosophers call it the Paradox of Power. Machiavelli warned about it in “The Prince”: that power acquired through the mercy of others must be sustained by gratitude, otherwise it consumes itself. Plato called such rulers philosopher-kings who failed philosophy. Men who know how to win power but not how to carry it.

History is littered with them.

Emperor Nero of Rome who burnt the city that made him emperor. King Rehoboam in the Bible who told the elders who made him king: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s waist.” Emperor Commodus who thought Rome was his father’s farm and turned the palace into a circus until the circus swallowed him.

Seyi Makinde governs like them — as an emperor, not as an Omoluabi. A man who believes loyalty must flow upwards to him, but must never flow downwards from him. He rides on the shoulders of giants and then complains that the giants are too tall.

Today it is Ladoja he snubs. Yesterday it was the Alaafin. The day before, the Soun. Tomorrow, which Oba will taste his disdain? He has transferred his personal hatred for the Olubadan stool into a war against all royal stools in Oyo State. That is not politics. That is poison.

And what shall we say of Bimbo Adekanmbi, his political son, who has learnt this ignoble art of ingratitude so perfectly? The Yoruba say, “the child who says his mother will not sleep, he too will not sleep.” To watch a man seeking to be governor practise contempt for the throne he seeks to govern is a disaster foretold.

Oyo people know Omituntun 2.0 for what it is — a poisonous pill coated with sweet advertisement. If 2.0 can openly humiliate an 82-year-old first-class monarch who made him, what will Omituntun 3.0, headed by his anointed, do? It will be the unkindest cut of all. It will be the complete desecration of the Omoluabi ethos that Ibadan and Oyo hold sacred.

Seyi Makinde will be remembered. Not for the roads that crack before commissioning. Not for the parks that lead to nowhere. He will be remembered as the governor who rode on the backs of eminent men and made every one of them regret that they ever lent him their shoulders.

Ladoja at 82 needs no advert from Agodi to be great. The king’s greatness is not conferred by the governor. But the governor’s smallness is exposed by how he treats his king.

Oyo people, shine your eyes. This affliction must not rise a second time.

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