As interesting as the political soap opera that is playing out in Ondo State now is, we must take out time to acknowledge the pleasantly absurd scene that jutted out of the soap last week. In the thick of the melee to get the Deputy Governor of the state, Agboola Ajayi, impeached and the usual shamelessness advertised by politicians in the state, we must not forget that the state swam out of this usual Nigerian water.
This was exhibited by the Chief Judge of the state, Oluwatoyin Akeredolu, who to my mind is the heroine of that soap opera. The Chief Judge, not kowtowing to political office holders, no matter their power and position, literally told the actors behind the impeachment that they were riding a roller-coaster of infamy.
To a request by the apparently financially instigated Ondo State House of Assembly, which was drunk on the bid to illegally impeach the deputy governor, Akeredolu, like a fearless judge that she apparently is, faulted the process of impeachment earlier spurned by the state legislators. In a letter dated July 9, 2020, Akeredolu had told the unruly and ostensibly shameless legislators driven by everything but the love of Ondo State, that their request to her to constitute a 7-man probe panel ran foul of constitutional requirements.
For me, no matter whether or not the legislators succeeded or eventually lived down their apparently influenced bid to impeach the deputy governor, that valiant pronouncement by Akeredolu could only have come from a heroine. This is at a time when men and women of honour, who can look political authorities in their bloodless faces and underscore justice, are becoming very rare in Nigeria.
It also strengthens the hope that we will survive the mercantilists and buccaneers in political offices who are gallivanting about like Lords of the Manor of Nigeria. It probably also confirmed the thesis which Ondo State people flaunt that men and women of honour still inhabit that land.
