By Dr Segun M. Teniola
The Governor of Ondo State, Hon Lucky Ayedatiwa, on Monday held a meeting with some members of the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the International Culture and Event Centre (The Dome), Akure, the state capital.
The meeting was attended by the purported supporters and recruits of the governor across all the political wards in the state. Also in the meeting were a handful of the APC leaders in the state. The composition of the meeting was intended to veil the real intention of the governor and give an impression of bringing the Ondo APC members together in the interest of peace and unity.
Governor Ayedatiwa referred to the attendees as major stakeholders in the Ondo APC. However, the claim of His Excellency should be seen as dishonest. This is because most of the people that can be regarded as the major stakeholders were not invited.
At the meeting, it was reported that the governor said party leaders who were neglected by his former boss, the late Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, would be included in his inherited government. Reports said sums of money raging from N200,000, N150,000 and N100,000 were doled out to the governor’s selected stakeholders.
In addition, Governor Ayedatiwa was said to have promised to continue paying all the invited leaders on a monthly basis as he did at the meeting. Consolidating the political noise the event would generate, the governor said: “There is no vacancy in Alagbaka currently.”
Beyond the cash gifts and the euphoria that the assembled stakeholders generated, according to one of the attendees, the meeting did not achieve the major objectives it was planned to achieve. The meeting was held to remove the perception that the governor is a stranger to the leaders and majority of party members in Ondo state. It was also to reintroduce the governor to the leaders and members of the party. The governor’s group is aware that the majority of the people within the party are aversed to his aspiration. The need to remove the fear of rejection at the poll propelled the meeting.
From the reports read online and from conventional media platforms, many of the major and important stakeholders in the party were not invited. Hon D. I. Kekemeke, Hon. Mayowa Akinfolarin, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, Jimi Odimayo, Dr Paul Akintelure, many National Assembly members and other notable party leaders were absent. Chief Olusola Oke, SAN, in his response, said he got the invite to the meeting around 2.30 midnight when he was asleep and only saw it 7am on Monday when he was preparing to go to Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
Reading the body language of Governor Ayedatiwa and the numerous promises he has made, his approach to governance smacks of panicky response to the challenge of lack of structure and crisis of confidence he elicited through the way he heartlessly kicked his former boss, the late Akeredolu, while he was on his sickbed and his life ebbing away.
Leadership is never bought. It is earned. The governor must understand that governance should not be seen as a big basket where you deep your filthy hands to share patronages that you can not sustain. The governor should not join other governorship hopefuls whose only credential is the supposed fat pockets they brandish up and down the state.
Enough of turning Ondo governorship contest to a bazar market and a contest of the highest bidder. Governorship seat of Ondo State is not for sale.
Dr Segun M. Teniola, an Ondo State indigene, writes from ilesha, Osun Sate
