It is that time again when residents of Oyo State will go to the poll to exercise their civic right tomorrow, Saturday March 18. Expectedly, one out of many candidates will win the game as the trophy belongs to a person. Before now, political campaigns have been held with different groups, personalities and other folks supporting their own candidates, which is constitutional.
In the case of Oyo State, there are three major contenders – the incumbent governor, ‘Seyi Makinde, APC candidate, Teslim Folarin and Accord Party candidate, Adebayo Adelabu but the campaigns have come and gone.
For two day, the former Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has been parading APC states to canvass support for the candidates and Oyo has not been an exemption. He recently came to beseech the people of the state to vote for Folarin, a move which I see as ‘failure supporting a failure’. Undoubtedly, Aregbesola, was by no means, a topical governor during his time in Osun State as the governor. His total failure is one that is legendary among failed governments in Nigeria. The Governor was responsible for bad leadership and maladministration, which gave the state a negative posture among other federating units.
Now, he is at it again, engaging in a childish self-glorification in Oyo State by going all over to campaign for the Teslim Folarin of the APC to bring, like himself, another failure to govern the state, but I want to believe that their plans and intended woes to people of Oyo State will not come to pass. I will want to encourage our people to fight against this duo and their cohorts so that there would be no repeat of the mistake and misfortune that befell Osun State in Oyo state.
I make bold to say that this move being made by Rauf Aregbesola is the height of desperacy by APC to take over power from the incumbent governor. Loking back at his antecedents in Osun State in the areas of students performance in public examinations, welfare package for health workers, he failed woefully. Also, lecturers, and civil servants embarked on series of strikes for several years due to non-payment of salaries. There were a lot of death traps on township roads including Ejigbo, Iwo, Ede, Ikirun, Ila Orangun, Ilobu and other cities in the state during his tenure.
As a regular visitor in the state, the road from Osogbo through Iwo to Ibadan, which the governor boasted would be rehabilitated by Julius Berger in 2012 was never started. How much more need be mentioned for people to see that Rauf Aregbesola is a failure who is breeding another failure. It is, therefore, imperative for the people of Oyo state to stand tall and say no to this ill-fated ambition of Folarin and support of the ‘failure brother’ from Osun. There is only one way to do this, it is through the mandate they have.
The people of Oyo State does not need to elect an individual who is taking notes and direction from an ex-governor whose legacy in his state include meaningless and monumental debts, with workers and pensioners in anguish, sorrow and endless gnashing of teeth. They need to shine their eyes.
Yinka Aderibigbe is a political analyst and writes from Bodija-Ashi, Ibadan.
