LADO’s comedy of distraction and ‘DNA test politics’ versus Yayi’s scorecard
By Segun Olatunji
The opposition in Ogun State must collectively bury their heads in shame for doubting the James Hardly Chase-like investigative prowess and brilliance of the Ladi Adebutu Democratic Organisation (LADO) and its spokesman, Afolabi Orekoya. While the rest of them were strategising on campaign modes for the 2027 elections, the “philosophers” at LADO cracked the ultimate code of progress for our dear Ogun State! For these “eggheads” at LADO, what matters most now isn’t how to make life better for the masses in the state. Rather, the real issue is how to use their GPS to determine the precise location of the umbilical cord of the 2027 All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, popularly called Yayi by his massive supporters across the state.
Just when everyone was brimming with the thoughts that Ogun State politics should focus on trivial existential matters like job creation, roads, hospitals, schools, access to potable pipe-borne water, regular electric supply, security etc, the LADO camp has awoken groggily from their malaria-induced reverie to tackle what they consider the “real pressing crisis of our time,” – the ancestry of Senator Adeola Yayi.
In a charlatanic display of their camp’s investigative prowess, LADO spokesman, Orekoya hurriedly dusted off their ultimate political playbook and headed straight to a radio station in Ijebu-Ode. Giving up on beating Yayi’s camp on performance, track record or even popularity, LADO and Orekoya simply pulled out a map and a magnifying glass, probing for the exact spot where the APC governorship candidate’s forebears began farming in Ago-Isaga, Pahayi, Ilaro.
Incredibly, LADO and its spokesman stopped short of asking some “vital questions” to “save” Ogun State and perhaps forgot to find out if Senator Yayi uses the correct Yewa dialect to call for “Amala” whenever he’s eating out. Or if he can prove the actual day of the week his mother gave birth to him. Better still, they failed to find out if Senator Yayi’s childhood bicycle had a valid Ogun State number plate and licence. These, methinks are the things the LADO team should have focused on, instead of breezing into the studios of a radio station to waste their saliva on just Yayi’s ancestral origin.
It’s an indisputable fact that Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola Yayi is a bonafide indigene of Ogun State; currently representing Ogun West Senatorial District at the National Assembly in Abuja. This cold fact renders LADO’s claims baseless, laughable and politically motivated. Their claim is at best a classic exhibition of political desperation – an outdated, recycled piece of badly concocted propaganda targeted at misleading the public and detracting from the historic development strides being wrought across the state by the APC governorship flagbearer.
Of course, cold and unassailable facts abound to dismantle this patent falsehood being peddled by LADO and its spokesman. Yayi’s lineage is verifiable as a true son of Yewaland. Contrary to LADO media handlers’ false narrative, the incumbent Senator’s ancestral roots in Ogun State are well-known, well-documented, confirmed and attested to by the traditional leadership of Yewaland and the recognised custodians of culture in Ogun West. It’s a well-known fact that Senator Adeola Yayi hails from Ago-Isaga, Pahayi in Ilaro, Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State.
For clarity, truth and historical integrity, Senator Yayi’s active role as the Aremo of Yewaland – a prestigious traditional title conferred on him by the Olu of Ilaro and Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle – is a validation that the ranking Senator is a bonafide, beloved son of the soil. No traditional ruler worth his throne would bestow such a sacred ancestral title on a foreigner – it’s a taboo! If LADO and its spokesman still hold the erroneous belief that the people of Ogun West consider Senator Adeola Yayi a non-indigene, then they must have been fast asleep and snoring away during the 2023 general elections when he won the Ogun West Senatorial District’s poll in a landslide. But he didn’t just contest, he won the senatorial seat garnering the largest votes in the history of the area. The good people of Ogun West massively voted for him because they saw him as their own son. And his victory effectively buried the toxic “Tekobo” tag once and for all. So, LADO’s probing of Senator Adeola Yayi’s indigeneship at this point in time smacks of an insult to the intelligence and democratic choice of hundreds of thousands of Ogun State electorate.
Looking at the matter from legal and constitutional angles, the clarity of the 1999 Constitution on identity, residency, and political participation is not in doubt. Therefore, the ranking Senator’s historic political transition from Lagos to Ogun State, fondly labelled the “West-to-West” movement, underwent scrutiny and due clearance by all relevant statutory bodies, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). No one can deny the fact that Senator Adeola Yayi holds a valid electoral mandate in Ogun State. So, no amount of media propaganda and opposition blackmail can change the legality of the Senator’s status.
Fear of Senator Adeola Yayi’s statewide appeal and acceptance is the reason LADO and its promoters have suddenly become obsessed with pulling down the APC governorship flagbearer. It’s clear they’re gripped by political panic.
Unfortunately for LADO, Senator Yayi’s unprecedented and unmatched performance as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations as well as his sweeping and massive developmental projects all over Ogun State have endeared him strongly to the people of the state. The APC flagbearer’s statewide appeal and acceptance as a leading political figure and governorship candidate ahead of the 2027 gubernatorial election has indeed left LADO and the entire opposition camp scrambling for relevance.
But unable to match Senator Adeola Yayi’s project-oriented performance or his grassroots-wide acceptance and connection, LADO and his opposition cohorts have taken the easiest route – resort to “indigeneship” politics and identity mudslinging.
But it’s clear LADO and his camp are not in the know that Ogun State has outgrown their pastime – politics of division, bitterness and fabricated ancestry. Our people are rather interested in effective representation, life-changing infrastructure, economic empowerment and visionary leadership. These are, of course, the qualities that have distinguished the Distinguished Senator Yayi, and these he continues to deliver to his constituents on a daily basis.
Rather than dissipating their flagging energy on flogging a dead horse and wasting their saliva spewing pedestrian vituperations in the studios of radio stations while striving to rewrite the ancestry of a Distinguished and bonafide son of the state, Afolabi Orekoya and his LADO team should concentrate on how to resolve the internal political challenges rocking their own fold. The unassailable fact remains that Senator Adeola Yayi is unapologetically a proud indigene of Yewaland in Ogun State and no amount of propaganda in the media can change that fact one bit.
We all know the “Osanyin” whining from that Ijebu Ode radio station with that shrill voice is actually Afolabi Orekoya’s master’s – clearly the hands of Esau but the voice of Jacob. It’s sheer irony that a political camp with its base in Iperu-Remo is attempting to teach the rest of us in Ogun State geographic inclusion. For ages, LADO’s boss, Oladipupo Adebutu’s political calculus has been brimming with the assumption that the road to the Oke Mosan Governor’s Office is a private driveway running only through his Remoland homestead. To LADO and its principal, it’s only when a candidate’s lineage is traceable to the elite inner circles of Iperu that they’re qualified to govern Ogun State.
Perhaps LADO and its principal are under the illusion that governance is a game of chance akin to their family’s legendary flagship business concern, Premier Lotto, the popular Baba Ijebu. He has forgotten that running a complex state economy isn’t the same as “Baba Ijebu” lottery terminal, where random numbers are pulled out of a red box and handed to a player hoping for a winning streak. LADO should be reminded that he can’t stake Ogun State’s destiny on a “permutation 2-Sure” ticket.
Adebutu further needs to know that though he runs one of the largest pig farming and swine production factories, Ogun State electorates are no livestock. The earlier he realises he can’t herd human beings or run a diverse, highly enlightened people of a state the same way he manages his commercial piggery, the better for his governorship aspiration.
LADO wants us to believe that the future of Ogun State depends entirely on Senator Adeola Yayi’s ancestral origin rather than programmes hinged on actual economic or structural development. Hence, Afolabi Orekoya’s enthusiastic attempt to revive the worn-out desperate argument questioning Yayi’s ancestry. LADO’s predictable political distraction has only brought to the fore a hilarious double standard in Ogun politics – an opposition desperately clutching to “ancestry” maps because it has nothing to show on performance.
The fact is that LADO’s comedy of distraction is trapped between Senator Adeola Yayi’s scorecard and Ladi Adebutu’s endless court drama following his 2023 woeful loss in the governorship election to the incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun. Since LADO’s principal, Ladi Adebutu’s defeat in that election, Senator Adeola Yayi has facilitated the construction and rehabilitation of no fewer than 229 roads and distributed 322 transformers across Ogun West, including vital socio-economic arteries like the Ilogbo, Maltina and Itele roads in Ado-Odo/Ota alongside the Idogo-Ipaja and Igbeji roads in Yewa South LGA. While Adebutu continued to battle with the litigations over his loss in the election, which were eventually dismissed at the Supreme Court for lacking substance, Senator Yayi had put in place several well-equipped public health centres, including 32 modern Primary Health Care Centres and delivered two state-of-the-art Intensive Care Units (ICUs) at the Sango-Ota State Hospital, as well as smart schools.
Also, while the PDP candidate faced money laundering trial and alleged vote-buying charges arising from malpractices allegedly perpetrated by his team during the governorship election, Adebutu’s political fortune further dipped with his arrest and brief detention by the DSS over his alleged deployment of unauthorised security escorts to disrupt local government council polls; compounded by chronic internal disunity within LADO’s party, Senator Adeola Yayi has awarded scholarships and bursaries to over 5000 students in Ogun West as well as the two other senatorial districts – Ogun Central and Ogun East; built modern ICT centres at several schools and successfully drove the legislative bill, which has now upgraded the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro to a full-fledged Federal University of Technology (FUTI). Senator Yayi also illuminated rural and urban communities that had been living in darkness and systemic neglect for decades by distributing 332 electricity transformers and installing over 62,000 solar streetlights, bringing a visible change and improvement to the “night economy” of several border towns in the state.
Even within the LADO political family, his then running mate, Adekunle Akinlade, publicly shredded Adebutu’s leadership style, saying he lacked the temperament, maturity and independent capacity to run a state.
For a politician whose major contribution to his state’s recent history is legal bail conditions, internal party squabble and serial electoral losses, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the only strategy left for his media team is the probe of the ancestry of a leading contender. While LADO is busy spewing bile on radio, Senator Yayi has been using his tenure to transform legislative influence to heavy infrastructure delivery across the state. So, for the people of Ogun West and even the entire state, the question about the location of the graves of Senator Yayi’s ancestors is of far less significance than the tangible capital investments facilitated by the APC governorship flagbearer; which they interact with on a daily basis. To them, the sheer volume of Senator Adeola Yayi’s achievements renders LADO’s unsolicited probe of his ancestry incredibly small-minded.
Now, ahead of the 2027 election, Adebutu is left battling with the heavy burden of an empty scorecard. This, perhaps, is why his camp prefers to now assume the role of a self-appointed immigration office probing Yayi’s indigeneship rather than debate developmental scorecards. Talking about performance, Adebutu would actually need to reel out a legacy of public service devoid of courtroom battles, police investigation and intra-party squabble. Adebutu’s political journey is a tragic reality of a consistent masterclass in missed opportunities and losses.
The point is this: when traders now using the newly constructed Ultramodern Pahayi Market, Ilaro or the Ajibawo Market, both facilitated by Senator Adeola Yayi, haggle prices under very secure structures, they won’t be asking to verify his birth certificate or the community his umbilical cord was buried. And when local youths secure jobs after acquiring digital literacy at ICT centres funded by Senator Yayi, they won’t raise any eyebrows about his dual success in Lagos and Ogun states.
LADO, its spokesman and their principal need not be told that Ogun State electorates are too highly enlightened to exchange the provision of motorable roads, functioning electricity transformers, scholarships and bursaries for a toxic debate on ancestry and origin. If they wish to be taken seriously as a political alternative in the 2027 governorship election in Ogun State, they must stop their hunt for genealogy and begin to make efforts to present their own development scorecard. But until they do that, Senator Yayi’s concrete achievements will continue to sound louder than LADO’s hollow noise over indigeneship from inside the studio of that radio station in Ijebu-Ode.
. Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist writes from Ilaro, Ogun State
