By Jimoh Olorede, Ph.D
By his nature, the immediate past Governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola is taciturn, reserved and temperamentally disinclined to talk. On their erroneous perception of his nature as a weakness, some politicians in Osun do take him for granted, using hype-making and spinning with sheer sentiments to whip up public emotions, since he would not just talk. However, Oyetola’s taciturnity is intelligence-based as his silence with which he has fought and won many battles remains golden.
The truth is many politicians in Nigeria have sacrificed issue-based politics of substance for politics of spectacles driven by propaganda and spin doctoring. When they talk, they always tell lies, but you may never know because they often lay the little truth in whatever they say with falsehood, the mixture of which makes it difficult for unsuspecting public members to fathom.
I am not Oyetola’s aid and I never worked with him officially, but as a citizen of Osun State, and keen observer of his government as it lasted, between November 27, 2018 and November 27, 2022, I know some facts not only about the personality of the ex-governor but also his four-year governance of the state. Naturally, Oyetola is gentle and calm, and very intelligent. But what some people may not know about him is that outside of politics, the Iragbiji-born man is not as taciturn; he talks, intelligently, gently and calmly though. By the virtue of my profession (journalism, media and public relations) and for other reasons, I am close to some of those close to him. Oyetola doesn’t take nonsense, as he expects some level of godliness and moral uprightness from his aids. If this is Oyetola in social world, outside of politics, I then concluded that by his very nature, he may not want to tell lies as other politicians do.
Unlike some others in power, the ex-governor doesn’t salivate over luxury or wealth and he also doesn’t arrogate for whatever reasons. He really deserves an applause for his demystification of what hitherto appeared complex and complicated in the governance of a state like Osun, where some past governors, especially his predecessor hoodwinked us into believing that maintenance of recurrent expenditure obligations of government (especially full payment of workers salary) was not only a hard nut to crack, but impossible!
My personal grouse about Aregbesola’s ungrateful, unpatriotic and idiosyncratic dispositions is leaving the state highly indebted by taking humongous loans and still failing to pay salaries of workers, which by its implications was the remote cause (among other unfriendly policies — changing of state’s and schools’ names and introduction of single uniform, wanton demolition and destruction of houses and other valuables belonging to the citizens of the state) of the failure of his successor’s (Oyetola’s) second-term re-election.
As if that significant havoc was insignificant, he (Aregbesola) was also a principal contributor to the immediate causes of the failure of Oyetola’s reelection on July 16, 2023 in Osun State, with his politics of bitterness: creation of intra-party opposition splinter group, open public criticisms and malicious assassination of Oyetola’s character and personality.
Of course, other factors were contributory to Oyetola’s reelection failure. His own “gentle-man approach” to election, which should be a moral norm in Nigerian politics, but which unfortunately is alien to our political culture, was also a factor. And on the part of Oyetola’s aids and appointees, their unfriendly relations with party members, self-centeredness, miserliness, disloyalty, inordinate pursuit of electoral positions and insurbordination of their individual’s interest to their principal’s, which the opposition PDP unscrupulously took advantage of, were some of the immediate causes of the negative outcome of the last election for Oyetola and the APC in Osun State.
Nevertheless, the immediate past governor left unprecedented legacies for which he would remain a recourse in the future governance of the state. This was a governor who inherited about N154 billion debt on assumption of office in 2018, and left some sum of N14 billion naira in the covers of the state by the end of his four-year single term in 2022. But for his managerial efficiency, fiscal expertise, prudence and frugality, the state would have remained stagnated and incapacitated in the fulfilment of her statutory obligations given the inherited throat-taken humongous debt.
Ironically, what Oyetola’s predecessor, the former Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola failed to understand is that if his successor, Gboyega Oyetola was clueless, and consequently the worst scenario had happened during his governance, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and other allied agencies would have invited him to answer questions, which I know would not be too good for him. For instance, there’s no way the former President, Buhari, with his “sainthood” would have appointed Aregbesola Minister, if he was having petitions and queries to contend with at the EFCC. So, Aregbesola is not only indebted to Osun citizens for bearing the economic hardship and brunts of the huge debt which he left behind, but more also and especially to Oyetola for covering his face and concealing his iniquity.
My reminiscence about Oyetola’s quintessence as Osun ex-governor just as I write this piece, was informed by his sincerity, uniqueness and selfless service to the state. He spent over 97 billion that would have been used to advance economic and developmental cause of the state just to service inherited loan debt, and he would not make noise about this. By implications, this would be exclusive of the yardsticks used by unconscious and uninformed minds to assess and judge his performance in office. What marveled a conscious mind however, was his ability to pay salaries of workers consistently in full, and his regular payment of pensions and maintenance of other statutory obligations of his government, while at the same time repaying the huge loans!
To be continued…..
