Adetutu M. Ogunlade
Recently, at the June 12 Democracy Day Lecture in Osun State, Dr Yemi Farounbi, an elder statesman and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the Philippines made a profound statement about the hallmark of democracy. It is that “power still resides with the people”.
One of the highest expressions of disrespect and scornful abuse of the people is to regard them as docile species whose minds are easy to sway, especially in a democracy. The citizens of Osun in particular are not that kind of people. Osun is blessed with enlightened minds and people of great sociocultural awareness.
Citizens of Osun and members of the All Progressive Congress have functional eyes and ears. They see and know what is going on in the State and within the Party, and they have observed the activities of those who are trying to disrupt the peace that the State of Osun and the ruling party is enjoying.
Consequently, they have spoken against the activities of the so-called “The Osun Progressives”, without a gun to their heads or any form of coercion.
The people are aware that the group at the centre of this controversy has no flag, no scruples, no character; a group that is neither a political party in its right nor a civil society group. A group of aggrieved people seeking relevance by creating confusion.
Adegboyega Oyetola came into power in 2018, with Prince Gboyega Famodun as the Party Chairman; it was a good permutation at the time to the now wailing wailers because they thought the structure will favour their cancerous dynasty. Now that they have been shocked to their bones by a man who keeps making positive things happen from the wreckage he inherited, they have resorted to spitting into the same plate they once ate from, showing up in 2021 to incite the public against the government that has epitomised good governance.
Besides, both Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Elder Adelowo Adebiyi were from the same Senatorial District in the previous administration, and it was both acceptable and plausible to the clout-chasing “progressives”.
If there’s anyone or group trying to forcefully impose itself on the people through cheap propaganda like the opinion published by one Inwalomhe Donald (who presumably has cowardly used a Pseudonym), it is the so-called Osun Progressives.
Let it be known to the detractors that power still resides with the people, not with any splinter group. The people are speaking based on prima facie evidences of the epoch-making interventions of the Oyetola’s administration in Osun. They will yet speak when it is time to make their choice of who represents the All Progressive Congress in the 2022 governorship election, and who will steer the affairs of the State from 2022 till 2026.
The political group alluded to in the opinion, Association of Progressive Political Parties (APPPs), calling out Oyetola to fulfill his campaign promises to the people, perhaps need one of Oyetola’s interventions in the health sector, “Jigi Ileri” (free eye care), to see how much he has done in health, education, commerce and empowerment, youth development, workers welfare, citizens welfare, infrastructures, and a host of other sectors, in less than three years.
Citizens are watching and listening, and of course know where to look when chaos interrupts the tranquility Osun has been enjoying under Oyetola, because their emissary has announced his paymasters’ intentions in the second paragraph of his article to “…make Osun not peaceful and unstable in the years to come.”
● Ogunlade writes from Ikirun, Osun State
