Oluwarotimi Akeredolu And His Carrot And Stick Approach By Tunde Akingbondere

Calamity rocked the earth as thunder, the mountains have tumbled, birds chirped in mockery as they all scamper into the refuge of their nests. They have hustled and grumbled, they wallowed in Fela’s world of “shuffering and shmiling,” for they have been derobed in a broad day light. Oh!  goddamn! They have been deprived of their nectars as blossoming flowers, how shall they thrive in their prime? 

Gallons of ink have gone into the travails of the state: ink in its different forms of white, blue, red and yellow. Historians have written a critical theory this, successfully navigated the length,  breadth, corners of our subsequent stories. They became prophets who cursed with wizardry, just like Chinua Achebe  surmised and having diagnosed Nigeria with the lens of some old man. He emerged from the laboratory, just with a touching one as story, how I wish he would paint us in the colour of the kings, or call us the GIANT OF AFRIKA.  He could have been the good man if he has not written that blockbuster, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE, or maybe fathom the issue with Nigeria. He struck it by seeking astute Leadership, not when he also predicted the eventual war of 1967-1970.

1966, a year before, was an epoch of the military, a platform held to ransom by a league of impostors who forcefully masqueraded as the agents of change. They ushered in the first revolution immediately after a period of warm conversion, from the  hood of the thieves(Colonialists), to the place of some borne again AJELEs(typical African Chieftains). The Prime Minister is the stooge Chieftain, the 7-Member delegation to Britain have deputized the whore, who had begged for his head. No wonder we have been visited with complaints: that our constitution is less authochtonous, that our mothers too have been marginalized. 

The latest of calamities just rocked Ondo state, Alas! 

A groping leopard, reared and bred in the tentacles of nonconformism, thereby tampering the sacred principles of Democracy. I later heard his fathers were not the ancestors, nor the leading lights, they used to be the IWAREFAs, the OJELUs. 

He is unrepentant, desperate and callous. He harbours the evil spirit, such like the ones who visited biblical Saul for destruction and had necessitated the need for David. Nepotism is his forte,  what an ideology and which replicated itself in a spirit called Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu? 

AKETI as he is fondly called by friends and foes alike had enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom, he studied and donned SAN, clinched a degree during the age I have called the “AGE OF INNOVATION.” The same man proceeded to the peak of his career as the President of the NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION, not without some touching stories of misappropriated funds though. 

 The interpretation that trailed his triumphant entry into politics could be so funny, in the mist of the so-called fun is some modicum of truth and that had assisted research in no small measure. Aketi was interpreted by the old men as “ASETI,” this, I must come to reiterate as realistic, not when he had failed in all. The grain of sand he dropped as hope is in the area of infrastructure, just a sprinkle shrouded in fraud, betrayal and failure! 

This monumental failure as camouflage had been overrated by the media, the clown governor even wrote KONGI(Prof. Wole Soyinka), canvassing his coming to see for himself the transformation shooting in Ondo. Kongi, garbed in his Regalia of Critical thinking must have come to realize too: that he came to adorn failure, or that he must come to batter Akeredolu with curses, not when he troubled a man who is old enough to be his father with a rue. 

The society is agog with stories as he also gathers his cronies to celebrate his third year in office, they said he has not done well, just like his fathers who betrayed.  Attesting to these statements are the bright strides of his predecessor and which he was blunt enough to commend in public gatherings. He never sustained any, not even the MOTHER AND CHILD hospitals, the COCOA FACTORY in Idanre, STREET LIGHTS. All he does is to nepotistically award #430 Million naira to his Consultant son and out of a stolen, whooping amount of money. The same son made the list of the Committee on COVID-19 as Secretary. He had even slapped at will, all at the discretion of his mindless despot as father. Then Dr. Wahab Adegbenro was noted to have been killed by the dreaded COVID-19, not when he had been forced to kneel down, requesting for funds from a bore who calls himself Jide Akeredolu. The man died of struggle. 

It is understandable to say Akeredolu has betrayed trusts this, I think has projected him as the least qualified to steer the course of Ondo state for another four years. Electing Akeredolu for another four years is tantamount to clamouring unpaid salaries, another barrage of insults on our traditional institutions, a joke as government, stamped in the hands of impostors who had converted the people’s house to their investment. There must be a revolution to topple the table of the Moneychangers. 

It is expedient to call your attention to an update circulated in the space on the 29th day of August, 2020. It was credited to the youthful arm of the All Progressives Congress, and to another Lawal Kolade Paff of the said group. The watery letter unintelligently embellished the Greece gift endowed ADEKUNLE AJASIN UNIVERSITY as reduction in tuition. Apart from the fact that there was no reduction is the fact that this happened few days to the election, not when a student who cannot afford 150,000  would not afford 120,000. This, I just called a ploy by the ruling government to hoodwink Ondo people just few days to the election, it should also be identified as the CARROT AND STICK APPROACH. 

Throwing a Carrot to a child brings him closer, for he wants to eat. His moving closer also warrants his being spanked with the stick. It is nonsensical for Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu to increase a tuition by over Five Hundred Percent and reduce it a bit less than what the whole tuition used to be. #30,000 reduction is callous and must be treated as such, the public must also be abreast of the fact that Law students in Adekunle Ajasin University have been exempted from this scheme of fake reduction. Well meaning individuals should ask questions as to reasons why the said Carrot had been deprived of Law students Society, could it be that they all can surface from luxury, or that they have donned the prestigious course as the privileged? 

Arakunrin Akeredolu is wise at his game of throwing carrot and using the stick, Ondo people must gather to outsmart him. 

Tunde Akingbondere
CAMPUS COORDINATOR, TAKE IT BACK(ADEKUNLE AJASIN UNIVERSITY)