HAS DAPO ABIODUN HANDED OGUN TO YAYI?

By Alagbawi Eda 

The question is no longer whispered in political corners in Ogun State. It is now being asked openly on the streets, in markets, in palaces and in local government secretariats: Who is governing Ogun State today?

Is it Governor Dapo Abiodun, the and constitutionally saddled with the responsibility, or is it Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, popularly called Yayi, the Senator representing Ogun West?

The evidence on ground is disturbing and cannot be ignored.

In recent times, Senator Adeola has embarked on a frenzy of road construction, provision of boreholes, transformers, empowerment programmes and market construction across Ogun State, mostly outside his senatorial district of Ogun West. From Ijebu-Ode to Sagamu, from Abeokuta to Ijebu-Igbo, the Senator has become the de facto governor, commissioner for works, local government chairman and constituency project executor all rolled into one.

Just this week, Senator Adeola himself boasted that he had embarked on 15 infrastructure projects in Ijebu Ode alone, including roads, a four-storey hospital building and the renovation of the Ojude Oba Pavilion. In Sagamu, he did not merely promise; he ordered the immediate reconstruction of the Oko-ati-Ada Road leading to Shimawa and pledged transformers to the local government, as if he were the sitting governor directing a state agency.

Even more alarming is his own public admission at Sagamu that a Senator from the West district is now touching all 20 local governments of the state with empowerment for farmers, market women, road construction and boreholes. 

What then is the job of the Senators representing Ogun Central and Ogun East? What is the job of the House of Representatives members? What is the job of the 20 local government chairmen? What is the job of Governor Dapo Abiodun himself?

This is not representation. This is usurpation. This is a reckless overreach that exposes a dangerous abdication of responsibility by the Governor.

A Senator is elected to represent a senatorial district, to make laws, to perform oversight and to attract federal presence to his constituency. He is not elected to become a parallel governor. When a Senator from Ogun West begins to execute 53 mega-projects across all three senatorial districts in Ogun State, as has been widely reported, something has gone fundamentally wrong with our constitutional order. 

The case of Ijebu-Igbo is the most scandalous of all. Senator Adeola is presently constructing a market in Ijebu-Igbo. Market construction is a role clearly reserved for local government councils under the Constitution. It is the most basic grassroots responsibility. When a Senator takes over the building of a market in a town outside his district, he is not helping the local government chairman; he is humiliating him, rendering him redundant and telling the people that their elected council is useless.

And the Governor watches. He applauds. He follows the Senator from town hall to town hall as if he were a mere aide. At Sagamu, the Deputy Governor was present while the Senator was dividing the people's demands into three categories: those he will do now, those he will do with a supplementary budget and those he will do with a full-year budget. Supplementary budget? Full-year budget? Since when does a Senator prepare a state budget? 

That is the language of a governor. That is the posture of a man who has already been handed the keys to Oke-Mosan before the election.

Let us be clear: No one is against development. The people of Ijebu-Ode deserve good roads. The people of Sagamu deserve a good road to Shimawa. The people of Ijebu-Igbo deserve a befitting market. But development must follow due process, constitutional roles and institutional respect. Otherwise, we are building a cult of personality, not a state.

If Governor Abiodun has become too tired, too distracted or too politically compromised to govern, he should say so. If he has entered into a pact to hand over Ogun State to Yayi before May 29, 2027, the people deserve to know. What we cannot accept is a situation where the Governor abdicates his office while a Senator runs a shadow government with federal constituency funds, using state-wide projects as a campaign war chest.

Ogun State is not a personal estate to be handed over by one man to another in a backroom deal. It is not a constituency project to be shared. It belongs to the over 6 million people who live in its 20 local governments.

The Senators of Ogun Central and Ogun East must wake up and defend their mandates. The House of Representatives members must speak up. The local government chairmen must stop clapping while their functions are taken over in broad daylight. And Governor Dapo Abiodun must either govern Ogun State or admit that he has already handed it over.

Because as it stands today, Ogun has two governors: one elected and sitting in Abeokuta, and one unelected for that office but acting, building, promising budgets and commissioning projects across the entire state.

That is not democracy. That is abdication.

Alagbawi Eda  Writes  from Abeokuta