OJUDU DECLARES: The Morning After

DOTUN ADEKANMBI

Today, (Friday February 9) Babafemi Ojudu confidently walks in the corridors of power. Before this time, as a journalist, he had fought men and women of power to keep them on the straight and narrow path of service to the people. In that previous life, power, in its crudest form, was used to curtail his freedom. Between the past and the present, he has experienced the use and abuse of power from a vantage position.

Now, he is set to go into the the innermost recesses of the house of power. A house where he would be expected to walk his talk. A place where he would get hit far harder than he ever dished to others; no quarter asked, no quarter yielded.

Based on his antecedents, he has been persuaded to ask for the key to the house where most occupants have almost always not come out exactly smelling like a rose. For four years, 2018 – 2022, he would hope to be Tenant Number 1 at Oke- Ayoba, Ado Ekiti: a house so large and so filled with people yet so empty and lonesome to the man on top. Score one for ambition. Tick another for belief. Score yet another for vision. Score an important mark for selflessness.

So many things can be said of Ojudu. But vaulting ambition will definitely not be one of them. At the outset of democracy in 1999, he stayed off accepting offers of public office at a time that several of his comrades-in-arm in the pro-democracy movement lobbied for and got cabinet positions as rewards for having ‘suffered for the masses.’

It cannot be said that he was averse to public service. But it could be argued that serving outside of his home State did not hold any major attraction for him, not the least because the ‘wahala’ at home demanded and still demand more attention.

‘Home trouble’ mounted exponentially before he was compelled to throw his hat in the ring in 2011 to secure a seat in the Senate of the 7th National Assembly. He made his mark when he served as the representative of Ekiti Central. More to his credit is the fact that he was not in any way tainted by any scandal in spite of serving on a couple of Committees that could be considered as ‘avenues to wealth.’

The race for the Governorship of Ekiti is a different ball game. For the simple reason that the State is pretty much messed up. The indices of decay – from moral instability to decay of infrastructure to low socio-economic development – are too evident to be recounted.

Put simply, Ekiti State is, today, everything it was not, even in the immediate past and should not be in the nearest future. Let’s push politics aside. Ekiti 2018 is all about a salvage mission.

It is about using the proverbial ‘agidi Ekiti’ to move mountains. For those who do not know, ‘agidi Ekiti’ is based on principled or conscientious objection as a tool to get things done for the good of all. Let’s face it, whatever is not good is bad. That’s the undiluted truth we were taught in our LA schools back then. As such, 2018 is not about ‘entitlement’ or ‘fit’ for Governor. It’s not about adding another ‘achievement’ to enrich a ‘loaded’ CV. It’s about knowing how to engage the ‘forward’ gear in governance to ‘reverse’ years of misrule.

And how does this apply to Babafemi Ojudu? Let him speak for himself: “I will not watch and see my people perpetually being humiliated by those who have no plan for us…We shall all join hands in this struggle to save our State.”

Well, that is just a way of summarising the many battles he has fought and continues to fight in life. Across time, he has said the same thing in different ways and demonstrated he could be trusted to honour his word.

Babafemi Ojudu promised the ‘Mother of all declarations’ on March 9. He delivered. He’ll make many more declarations in the days ahead. And he will deliver ALL!

How many of the people eyeing the Governor’s seat in Ekiti – across all parties – can look themselves in the mirror, repeat Babafemi Ojudu’s words, mean every word and DELIVER?

THE SEASON OF PLAY, PLAY IN EKITI IS OVER. ORO EKITI GB’ERO…SERIOUSLY!!