IPOKIA’S POLITICAL FORTUNES IN 2019: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PRESENT AND A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE (1)

Its quite some time we engage ourselves on this page. Its as a result of personal engagements and also more importantly to sit by the sidelines watching how events unfolded during the last elections considering the confusions that followed the electioneering in Ogun State.

Nevertheless, the election had come and gone with emerged winners. What is left is a post-mortem analysis to ascertain what is in it this time for us in Ipokia local government. In 3 days time we will be under a new administration to be headed by Dapo Abiodun as the executive governor. But then, as rational minds we need to take a cursory look at how we fare under Gov. Ibikunle Amosun and how we can position ourselves to get the best under the incoming administration.

AMOSUN

Amosun came in in 2011 at a time there was a strong clamour for a governor from Yewa region just like we have in the 2019 elections. He however came on the strength of great popularity and fanfare that had characterized his 2007 campaigns having contested against Gbenga Daniel’s second term on the platform of ANPP. At this time Chief was firmly in control of the then ACN , Chief Osoba was prevailed upon by the Lagos brokers to leave the ACN ticket for Amosun, Osoba’s preference was actually a Yewa ingene. With divisions in the PDP then with OGD’s faction having moved to the PPN with GNI as the Governorship candidate, it became an easy win for SIA as he is fondly called. Governor amosun had promised heaven and earth to make life better for the inhabitants of the state, he promised free education, free healthcare for children and elderly and so many other goodies. In his second term, he had promised to build a higher institution in Ipokia local government, build the road to akere and renovate other feeder roads and also facilitate a world class tourism centre at akere and Whekan. However at the expiring of his 2 term on May 28th this year, none of these promises were actually kept, some were hurriedly put up at the twilight of his tenure and hence could not be actualized. In place of free education today, students of secondary schools are now paying WAEC fees themselves. The so called model school had been abandoned, the only road constructed in Ipokia local government in his 8 years is the uncompleted and rather worsen Odo Afa bridge. In fact we have never had it bad under any government since 1999, we can readily pointed to Osoba and OGD projects in Ipokia local government but no project could be attributed to the SIA administration. Many had said it was because he did not actually garner much votes from this end then.

Nevertheless, no government without its advantages, SIA’s administration had come and will be winding up on the 28th of May 2019. It would be to his advantage that he had taught us how to focus on ones area and develop it when in power. Ipokia and indeed other parts of the state may not remember SIA but Abeokuta will forever be grateful for the Amosun touch. That singular feat is supposed to make every patriotic person sees the need to focus on his or her immediate community when in power. Afterall we had had a deputy Governor sometimes in this local government. Apart from this, it will be to SIA’s credit that he demystified political positions for others and mystified the Governorship seat the more, under SIA, the local council chairmen were turned to mere messengers and glorified executive seats with no personal initiatives and autonomous decision making. Under SIA, we ordinary citizens no longer needs to fill long forms before seeing our chairmen because they now have no jobs but can be seeing most times in the councils among the staffs having a tete-a-tete. Under SIA, both the ordinary onlookers and the commissioners and political officers will have to be running and hitting heads together whenever he pays a visit to any place. Really, under SIa, political appointments and electives posts are not functions of popularity or party loyalty, but more of who he wants and who his favorite leaders wanted. He actually enthroned young leaders but they were people bereft of ideas and hence no visible impacts.

For us in Ipokia, SiA actually tried giving us some political leaders but interestingly they were handicapped and with no visible impacts. Even the HOR member we have and the subsequent governorship candidate have limited dividends he brought to us in the last four years.

However, as patriotic citizens, some of us had to subsume all our grievances and bury our grudges to queue behind our son and brother at least to bring power closer to us having realized the importance of executive power as exemplified by SIANISM. It is only a pity that his own undoings and late cupboard love had actually put us in a disadvantaged position for the next 4 years. For the records, our casting all our eggs into the governorship basket had made us not having any major elective posts for the next 4 years. In 1999- 2003, we had a HOR member and a substantial commissioner of health with other lesser appointments, in 2003 to 2011 we had a Deputy Governor and other lesser appointments and in 2015 to 2019 we had a HOR member and other lesser posts but as it stands today, SIA’s political gambling had ended us in Ipokia local not getting any major lective posts beyond our local government.