By Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe
This intervention is borne of conviction, not malice not vendetta. I write this out of love for our party the APC and for the progressive democratic struggle to which I have committed the last three decades of my life. I am a product of the struggle but you are a product of collective sacrifice and a beneficiary of collective effort. I came into this movement through struggle, not patronage, and I have benefited from the labour of men and women who toiled in the trenches long before you arrived.
You came later, and you have benefited from that same heritage of sacrifice and struggle. To now watch that heritage being dismantled by exclusion, division and executive arrogance will be a betrayal of my conscience and of our history. Those of us with institutional memory cannot pretend that all is well. It will be a moral failure for men who still value party, principle and legacy to keep quiet. Silence at this moment is complicity. I refuse to be quiet. It is for this reason that I must call you out Mr Governor, and demand that you retrace your steps before the damage becomes irreversible.
Mr Governor sir, you are guilty. Not guilty in the criminal sense before a court of law, but guilty in the deeper political and moral sense of failure to perform the duties and responsibilities that the people of Ondo State entrusted to you. Guilty of abdication. Guilty of exclusion. Guilty of administrative and political dishonour. Guilty of presiding over a government that has lost the rhythm of party, of governance, and of vision.
The first charge is against the party. A Governor is not just the Chief Executive of a State. He is, by tradition and by necessity, the leader of his party in that State. Leadership in politics is not a title you inherit. It is a duty you perform daily. You failed in that duty. Instead of rallying the troops, you chose deliberate exclusion. Leaders who built the party, stakeholders who stood in the rain and sun for the APC, were pushed to the margins. Those who contested against you in the primaries were not reconciled with. Their grievances were not healed. Bitterness was allowed to fester until it became division. The result is what we see today. I mean a party so fractured that your own aggrieved supporters have opted for anti-party activities, and rather than condemn it, you went on national television to endorse it. “I have nothing against the rainbow coalition as long as they are working for Tinubu,” you said. The question is simple, how about the other candidates? When the head of a party sanctions division, the body cannot be whole.
The second charge is against democracy itself. Your tenure has been marked by an encouragement of violence and anti-democratic practice in the conduct of party affairs. The visit of Mr President immediately after the burial of Aketi your predecessor was turned into a spectacle of violent division rather than unity. The events of February 17 and 18, 2026 during the Congress were not accidents. Ditto for that of the primaries. They were the product of a climate where might is substituted for process and ptogress.
Where thugs are preferred to delegates, and where the will of the people is negotiated in back rooms rather than expressed in open ballots. When those who should protect democratic norms become the ones who subvert them, the entire structure begins to rot from the head.
The third charge is against representation and integrity. Governance without consultation is autocracy in civilian clothing. You chose, singlehandedly, Councillors in Wards and Chairmen of Local governments. You attempted to handpick National Assembly candidates until the centre in Abuja had to step in and reverse the illegality. That is not leadership. That is imperialism. Beyond that, you have been guilty of subterfuge and deceit. You speak of reconciliation in public but set up a weak reconciliation committee made up of your apologists. You say one thing in the open while your body language and private utterances contradict you.
Today the APC in Ondo State is a party constantly under strain due to your lack of leadership experience. For instance, you are not in tandem with the three Ministers from the State. You are not at peace with the 12 National Assembly members and majority of the Ondo State House of Assembly. You are not at peace with party leaders. The party is now divided into those for you and those against you. That is not coalition building. That is isolation.
The fourth charge is against governance and resources. Despite the humongous amount of money that has accrued to the State from the Federation Account, your performance is below par. You failed to allow local governments to work as an autonomous tier. Their allocations are spent from your office in Alagbaka. You mismanaged every opportunity to bring the party together through inclusive governance. You appointed close to 1500 aides and turned many of them into instruments for anti-party activities rather than for service. You set up the presidential election campaign team solely by yourself, without consultation with Ministers, National Assembly members, or party elders. You failed to fund about seven support groups set up by you, and you are openly hostile to the about 17 support groups formed by the Hon Minister of Interior, Hon Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo. You have also shown lethargy in honestly working for the re-election of Mr President.
Words alone do not matter. Actions do. And your actions show a preference for control over collaboration, division over inclusion. You have a sense of ” I Too Know” (ITK) and you suffer the ” Messianic Syndrome”. That is, if not for me or I am your saviour.
The fifth charge is against the economy and the future of Ondo State. A Governor must be the Chief Marketer and Chief Guardian of his State’s potentials. You have failed on that front. The Olokola FTZ, a project that should be the economic heartbeat of the Southern Senatorial District in particular and Ondo State in general has been left to drift. The Eba Island, where Ogun State has already begun exploration and positioning, has suffered from your lukewarm attitude. You have been quiet. You have been nonchalant, you have been docile and noncommittal. You have turned silence to an art of statecraft and lying as an instrument of governance.
And most grievous, you watched in silence as the Coastal Highway was redirected away from our route without consultation and without a fight. The Minister in charge affronted our sensibility so manically that he said he ” has no regrets about his actions”. What an insult, what effontery, what manerless verbiage? That is asinine to say the least. He said it and did it because we have a governor without a clout and no political scrupples. Yet we have a governor given to speaking in tongues and dancing. What a mistake?
These are not small matters. They are about jobs, about investment, about the next 50 years of Ondo State. To be quiet in the face of such strategic losses is to be complicit. To be nonchalant is to be guilty. I refuse to be part of the foolish and “jekuredi” elite of our dear State always involved in habitual ” penkelemesis”.
The sixth charge is against our children and our educational institutions. Our universities went on strike, and for weeks our students were sent home. These are issues that could have been sorted on a table, with goodwill and urgency. Industrial disharmony is not inevitable. It is a product of failure of engagement. You waited for months before you made monetary promises as if you are doing the workers a favour.
Shamelessly you went to Abuja to receive an award celebrating you on education. Many of your atrophied paid Vuvuzellas went to town singing your praise. Check recent results on education and other statistics and you would discover that the award is worth less than a tissue paper in the dustbin.
Worse still, you deliberately appoint and encourage your appointees to blackmail, abuse and intimidate government critics. When a government uses state resources to harass dissent instead of engaging it, it has lost both confidence and legitimacy.
Mr Governor, guilt is not only about what you do. It is also about what you fail to do. It is about the meetings you did not call. The reconciliations you did not pursue. The projects you did not defend. The voices you did not listen to. The future you did not protect. The right steps you failed to take.
Therefore, if you truly care for the party and for the Renewed Hope Agenda, I, Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe, demand the following on behalf of the 5.4 million citizens of Ondo State, on behalf of the hard working, long suffering and loyal members of the APC in Ondo State and generations yet on born the following forthwith;
First, dissolve, dismantle, enlarge or set up a new reconciliation committee made up of men and women of integrity, not your appointees and political apologists. Second, call a meeting of all members of the National Assembly, leaders of the party, and the Ministers to a round table to discuss how we can win massively for the President and other candidates of our party. Third, take open, cogent and verifiable steps to distance yourself from your supporters who have defected to other parties based on your instructions and support to contest across the State in other parties. Fourth, visit Abuja and convene a meeting of the Ministers and National Assembly members and some select leaders ( not your apologists but credible leaders at the Owena House or any other venue to demonstrate that you are acting in line with your public statements.
That is the only way the wise men in Abuja will know, because the Owl is watching and taking note for Abuja. Just know there would be a day of reckoning very soon.
Ondo State deserves a Governor who unites rather than divides, who consults rather than imposes, who funds institutions rather than starves them, who fights for our economic interests rather than watches them slip away, and who treats governance as service and not as conquest. Until you act, the verdict must stand.
Mr Governor, you are guilty.
I am;
Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe, Scion of Olukoro family, Oraa Ikanmu, Oka-Akoko. First of his name, Seventh of his Generation
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