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The recent video of Local Government Chairmen in Ogun State shamelessly prostrating to Governor Dapo Abiodun to forgive them for the ‘offence’ one of them committed is a pointer to the institutionalised political clownery the state has descended to.
To begin with, the current administration in Ogun State appears not convinced in itself about its programmes in the last four years. Governor Abiodun can’t boast of having done anything significant to improve governance from where he met it.
The decadence the Dapo Abiodun administration inherited from his successors subsists and remains the major problem Ogun residents have learnt to cope with since the current government has shown little will to fix anything.
The gateway state can’t lay claims to own the best health facilities in the Southwest region. Bad roads and schools with dilapidated structures have become issues the state gets associated with in news reports in recent times.
Many primary health centres in Ogun are mere paracetamol dispensers. Residents of the state have oftentimes had to rely on private hospitals or run to Lagos State where public healthcare services are more accessible.
Things have gone so bad that governance in the state has been reduced mostly to photo-ops of substandard or incomplete projects. There’s virtually nothing tangible to show for the promises the governor made during his coming in 2019.
Ogun State is so bereft of basic infrastructure that one would wonder if governance has become rocket science. If the governor is not smiling at cameras to regurgitate the promises he already made five years ago, he is posting crisp photos to announce what he’s going to do. That’s all you get to talk about about as Ogun citizens.
It’s sad that Governor Abiodun seems more concerned about what the people of the state have to say about his fine face than what his position would benefit the people he promised to serve. It’s sad but that’s the unfortunate reality of the residents of the state.
Back to the advertised clownery of the state local government chairmen. The video of the grown-up men and women apologising and prostrating to the governor is not novel to Nigerian politics.
Many LG bosses who wish to climb the political ladder would shamelessly trade the dignity their offices bestow them to get to the level they aspire to be. They will gladly eat crumbs that fall from governors' tables and worship at their feet if that would win them their admirations.
In this part of world, the metric for measuring the performance of LG administrators is based on their loyalty and subservience to the whims and caprices of their political leaders.
It’s, therefore, not surprising to see local government chairmen lying flat on the ground to beg Governor Dapo over the allegation of fund diversion one of them levelled against him, we just didn’t expect to see such dehumanising clownery on television.
The saddest part of the shamelessness displayed in the video was the emperor-like posture of the governor when the local government chairmen lay on the floor like lizards begging and singing for forgiveness. Horrible optics.
The criticisms that followed the viral video prompted the governor to drop a clip to refute the allegation against him. Of course, only a tone-deaf politician would receive a heavy backlash for such optics without pulling some sort of damage control.
This episode of political clownery and the subsequent suspension of Wale Adedayo, the Chairman of Ijebu East Local Government, days after he accused the governor of mismanaging local council funds in the state, is reminiscent of the governor’s reaction to Bola Tinubu’s outburst in Abeokuta, where the then Presidential aspirant said he (Dapo) would not have become the governor of Ogun State without God and his support.
In his response to Tinubu’s belittling jab, the governor took to Twitter to declare that he was not an emperor and that the position he held was not a family inheritance.
However, the clownery in the Twitter post was not really in the words, but in the picture that accompanied the post.
It’s been over four years of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s government in Ogun and the people of the state seem to have seen the best he can deliver. Ogun State has not been lucky with good governance, but this particular one has taken it to an unimaginable level.
Will there be a remarkable difference in the next three years? Only time can tell.
*Pulse Editor's Opinion is the opinion of an editor at Pulse. It does not represent the views of the organisation Pulse.