The long awaited voice of the Oyo State’s governor, Eng. Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja on whether he would be re-contesting in the April elections has finally yielded a positive result. The governor who had been in the news for sometime now was impeached on the 12th January, 2006 following an uproar which was in circulation in Oyo State’s House of Assembly late 2005. Ladoja went to court and was declared innocent of all the allegations that were leveled against him by his traducers. He was re-instated.
Ladoja has been hammering on reconciliation since he was re-instated, but the state’s legislative arm is on the obverse. It is divided into two factions – one for the governor and the other for the self-acclaimed political bigwig of Ibadan politics, Lamidi Adedibu. Adedibu was meant to fathom he has inflicted prejudices in the state over his mudslinging attitude to Ladoja for who should be recognized and who’s authentic or sophisticated in the state. Adedibu has made the state House of Assembly to operate in the House with different scepter, whereas the legislators were elected to power by their different constituencies to represent them, and not to repress them.
Even as Eng. Ladoja was re-instated, the pro-Adedibu’s ‘errand boys’ in the House of Assembly do not sleep in the night all in a bid or mission to bar Eng. Ladoja’s group from sitting in the assembly complex. And Adedibu might be the presiding officer over their (pro-Adedibu) meetings because the two groups do have different sessions. The skirmish, observers say that it’s pro-Adedibu’s group holds it from being resolved, Ladoja is a free minded person and has reconciliatory habit and forgives wholeheartedly. But the Pro-Adedibu’s group has accused Eng. Ladoja of defamatory attitudes, all, was because, he won the allegations the group leveled against him in the court of the law, after his impeachment. The group accused Eng. Ladoja of infusing tension, intimidation, stampede and uncertainty anytime they sit, but observers know an adage which says that whoever that is not carrying anything breaks nothing, but the guilty conscience fears accusation.
How would they, the 18 lawmakers, say that they pledged their support for Eng. Ladoja but vowed that he wouldn’t probe the council bosses as he was re-instated with a view that his quest to do so is against Section 188 (11) of the constitution? The G-18 forgot that the 11-month Eng. Ladoja’s Deputy, Adebayo Alao-Akala ruled in Eng. Ladoja’s stead was illegal, null and void, according to the court. (All transactions done within this period in the state house was also illegal). So, people should see where Eng. Ladoja has the right to probe!
The G-18 should not consider the governor’s move as usurpation of their legislative duties. Even, if it’s not for (peace and harmony to continue to reign in the state), the G-18 has questions and answers in the court for them to not had really investigated well before blackmailing Eng. Ladoja and impeached him.
According to the Oyo State House of Assembly speaker, Hon. Adeolu Adeleke: “A lot of financial frauds were committed. we want to reveal that the sum of N99m was being misappropriated for 11-months. I can’t say precisely how the money was being shared but only two people were signatories to how the money was released. I have all the documents”.
A bitter pill to swallow is the grievance the G-18 is/was having against Eng. Ladoja that “the recent move to organize PDP stakeholders meeting at the premier Hotel without the inclusion of their father, Adedibu, is an indication that the much-touted reconciliation of the governor is a mere lip service”. One may ask them if it’s only Adedibu that was excluded (if there was anything like that) and not any other person. The statement reveals that the G-18 seem to be like the Ostrich which hides her head in the sand in shame leaving the whole of her body on the ground. It also shows that when the world’s people are tired of profounding solution for an issue, they would begin to lay blames on fellows.
These accusations against Eng. Ladoja are being distributed by the G-18 from the man whom journalists called the ‘garrison commander’, Adedibu. There’s report from a source that Adedibu summoned the pro-Adedibu’s legislators in a meeting and the agenda of that meeting was for the legislators to make Oyo ungovernable so that state of emergency would be unleashed out to the state. This meeting was said held in one of the South western states. They’ve been disrupting the G-13 from holding any sitting!
Observers noticed that the G-18 comes to the House with hoodlums, precisely to the assembly complex. They have been making the state look frenzied and by so doing they would create an avenue and impeach those legislators loyal to the governor, Eng. Ladoja, and after that, the engineer would be impeached again. This directive is from their father, Adedibu who have been bringing anarchical state in Ibadan. Following this, it’s reportedly noticed that the legislators loyal to Eng. Ladoja have been receiving series of death threats.
Notwithstanding that before Eng. Ladoja could win in the court of law, his deputy, Adebayo Alao-Akala, with the help of the Oyo Judas, has pocketed the PDP guber ticket for April elections in which party Eng. Ladoja belongs. Against this, well-meaning people of Oyo politics should not wait, but to call a spade by its name before Oyo State is dead by a group of people who do not mean well for Oyo state. The group has applied every political chicanery to make sure Eng. Ladoja danced to their drumbeat to bereft Oyo of development and handover its proceeds to ‘Barrister’ Adedibu but due to Eng. Ladoja is a man whose orientation is built on integrity, he didn’t accede to their scrounging agenda. Does it mean that in Nigeria, any governor who refused to agree with the sharing of the state’s allocations with any self-acclaimed godfather in his/her state should be impeached?
If Oyo must see the dividends of democracy, then the state must reach all its nooks and crannies to support Eng. Ladoja re-election under any party he may choose to flag for in the April elections. He meant well for Oyo state. But Eng. Ladoja should seek advice from people like Dr. Chris Ngige, former governor of Anambra state of what it takes to be strong in governance. One wonders why Chief Ralph Uwazuruike; Fredrick Fasehun; Gani Adams and Asari Dokubo were incarcerated while Obasanjo and his EFCC continue to watch Adedibu’s bold fingers writing Oyo State black.
