AKEREDOLU AND HIS ONDO: TIME FOR THE NBA TO ACT By Dayo Awude

That Governor Akeredolu is ill or recuperating isn’t the problem with the people of Ondo State. The real problem lies in the hush-hush around the Governor. The people of Ondo State are left in the limbo and tension is heightened by the day.

Like the Ostrich which buries its head in the sand thinking all of its body is covered, state officials are trying so hard to cover a reality staring us all in the face. In the divided house our government has become, we wake up to different excuses and justifications for the continued absence of the Governor from the State. These excuses range from the puerile to, sometimes, the very insulting. The recent and most comical reason being that the Governor’s Lodge had (suddenly) become too small to accommodate him and a new one was being renovated. This is a lodge he had used for six years! To these jesters, this is enough reason to keep a governor out of his state for over six months. From their myopic lens, they couldn’t find any building in Ondo State good enough to house it’s Governor. These actors remind one of Ola Rotimi’s famous play, “Our Husbands have gone Mad Again”.

Governor Akeredolu, as the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in 2010, was at the forefront of the agitation for the then ailing President Umar Yar’Adua to hand over power to his Vice President and resign on the grounds of “incapacitation”. He said the President could not love the country more than his health. Today, Akeredolu has been off work and out of Ondo State without resigning or handing over the reins of government to his Deputy as provided by the law. He seems to now love the State more than his health.

In Ondo State now, government activities have become a charade, akin only to the State of Nature described by Thomas Hobbes. As a former Commissioner in the State, I can say this because I know how a government should be run. Governance is at ground zero and the people of Ondo State are now regretably left with the short end of the stick.

Since his return to the country from a four month hospitalisation in Germany, Akeredolu has neither stepped foot on the soil of Ondo State, nor addressed the people of the State. After over six months of inaction and invisibility, one can safely conclude that MR GOVERNOR IS INCAPACITATED and as a mark of honour, should resign.

This should even be a matter of concern and a moral burden to the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, who stood with Akeredolu (it’s then President), in 2010, on his call for an ailing President Yar’Adua to do the needful. With absolute respect to our learned brothers and sisters of the NBA, the body should live to its name by asking Akeredolu to do what he urged Yar’Adua to do in 2010. I must say, all eyes are on the NBA now.

The people of Ondo State deserve to be led by the man they voted for. Governor Akeredolu should either convince us in unequivocal terms that he is fit and has capacity to do his job or honourably resign. As a man reputed to have a huge dose of courage, (I personally believe he does and I respect him for this), resignation shouldn’t be difficult for him to do, in the event that he is incapacitated. This will breathe in a new lease of life to governance in the state, and rein in the jesters under the hoods pretending to be working for the state when indeed they are taking advantage of the situation.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

God bless the people of Ondo State.

Dayo Awude is a former commissioner for Youth Development and Sports (2015 -2017)