Sorry, ‘Mr Manchester’, Yayi Doesn’t Need To Erase OGD, SIA
By
Segun Olatunji
There has been yet another dispatch from the diaspora elite! It is truly touching that Mr. Adebayo Osonuga took time away from the chilly rains of Manchester to worry his long-distance heart over the political “soil” of Ogun State. Writing with the dramatic flair of a Shakespearean tragedy, our dear author warns us that Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (alias Yayi) is a “serpentine” force plotting a “hostile takeover” to erase the “towering legacies” of former governors Otunba Gbenga Daniel (OGD) and Senator Ibikunle Amosun (SIA).
Bless his heart. It must be very comfortable to analyse Ogun politics from a coffee shop on the backstreets of Manchester, completely detached from the actual, physical reality of what these so-called “towering legacies” look like on the ground. Let’s do a quick reality check for our friend in Manchester: if Yayi is guilty of an “erasure” campaign, he isn’t erasing people—he is erasing poverty, bad roads and decades of underdevelopment left behind by the very political gods Osonuga worships. And for your information, ‘Mr Manchester’, any day, Ogun voters will not hesitate to choose Yayi’s infrastructural deliveries over ancestral tales.
The Cult of ‘Organic’ Underdevelopment
Osonuga’s main grievance is a hilarious exercise in identity politics. He claims OGD and SIA are “organic products” because their ancestors are buried in Ogun soil. Apparently, in the Manchester school of political science, the ultimate qualification for governance is not what you do for the living, but where you bury the dead. Interesting!
Now, let’s talk about these “organic” legacies. For decades, Ogun West—Yewa/Awori land—was treated like the neglected stepchild of Ogun State politics. OGD had eight years as governor. SIA had eight years as governor. Together, that’s sixteen years of “organic” governance. Yet, they left Ogun West with roads that looked like cratered moonscapes, schools with collapsing roofs, and youth with zero economic prospects. If being “organic” means watching your people suffer while you build personal political empires, then thank God Yayi brought a different model. But in Mr Manchester’s wildest imagination, Yayi’s project is dominance. No! It’s real development. It’s real revolution.
Let’s talk about achievements, since we love comparisons. While the “organic” lords were busy playing godfather and fighting each other for territorial control, Yayi came to Ogun West and quietly initiated an infrastructural revolution that has left his detractors dizzy. Today, to use your word, Mr Manchester, he’s “Jagaban” of development.
Let’s look at the scoreboard, shall we?
- Infrastructure: While previous administrations left projects abandoned, Yayi has facilitated the construction of over 70 roads across Ogun West, including the critical Asoga-Ilashe road, Pahayi-Ilaro road and major township roads.
- The Power Matrix: For years, dozens of rural communities in Ogun West lived in total darkness under the watch of our “indigenous” leaders. Yayi single-handedly distributed and installed over 150 transformers to restore power and boost local economies.
- Economic Empowerment: In the largest single empowerment scheme in the history of the state, Yayi provided financial grants, laptops, sewing machines, block-molding machines and deep freezers to over 20,000 youth and women. He didn’t ask for their ancestral burial certificates first; he just saw a need and met it.
- Education & Healthcare: He has built and renovated over 100 classrooms, provided thousands of scholarships worth hundreds of millions of Naira to over 5000 students drawn from even beyond his immediate constituency and constructed modern primary healthcare centres equipped with ambulances. These are tangible legacies that are silencing Yayi’s critics and the opposition.
When was the last time OGD or SIA touched the lives of the average Ogun West citizen on this scale? We’ll wait. The truth is, Yayi’s “war chest” isn’t filled with “inducements”—it’s filled with tangible, undeniable capital projects. If delivering dividends of democracy to people who have been neglected for sixteen years is considered a “hostile takeover,” then by all means, let the takeover continue! Yes, Yayi’s unprecedented scorecard is shaking Ogun’s old guard. No doubt.
The Replicating ‘Lagos Model’ Scare
Our Manchester friend, in his article, trembles at the thought of the “Lagos Model” being imported to Ogun. This is perhaps the funniest joke of all. Lagos—a state with a booming economy, world-class infrastructure and a functional civil service—is somehow being used as a bogeyman. Oh, the horror! Imagine importing a model that actually makes things work!
Osonuga laments that Yayi spent his legislative years in Lagos. Yes, he did. And while there, he mastered the art of governance, financial engineering and legislative lobbying. He brought that elite-level experience back home to Ogun State. While his opponents rely on ancient sentiments and nostalgic stories of “belonging,” Yayi relies on performance. The people of Ogun West didn’t vote for Yayi because of where his grandmother was buried; they voted for him because they were tired of eating “organic” dust while Ogun East and Ogun Central enjoyed development. So, one wonders why the hysteria over a ‘Lagos model’ that actually works.
The Dawn of Performance-Based Politics
The narrative that Yayi wants to “liquidate fellow leaders” is pure paranoia. Yayi isn’t destroying any structures; the structures of the past are collapsing on their own because they were built on selfishness, empty promises and elite arrogance. The political foot-soldiers aren’t being “bought over”— they are simply migrating to where the light is. They are choosing a working Senator over old politicians who only remember the grassroots when election season approaches.
Ogun State is indeed a citadel of enlightenment and sophisticated thinkers, just as Osonuga noted. And because the people are sophisticated, they know the difference between a leader who gives them speeches and a leader who gives them hospitals, roads and electricity. They can identify a leader interested in structural upgrade. And that’s the truth about Senator Yayi. His is a dawn of deliverables. He has redefined Ogun politics.
So, dear Mr Osonuga, you can keep sipping your British tea and worrying about the “serpent” in Ogun State. Down here, the ground is shifting. The era of godfatherism based on empty sentiment is over. Yayi isn’t trying to own Ogun State; he is busy developing it. And if that makes him a “Jagaban” in your reckoning, then long live the Jagaban of performance! Mr. Manchester, you’re really behind the times. It’s Yayi O’Clock!
OLATUNJI, A JOURNALIST, POLITICAL/CRISIS COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST, WRITES FROM ILARO, OGUN STATE
