By Chief Olu Ayela

Sir: It was Edmund Burke that submitted in the 18th century that for the forms of government, let the fools contest, what is best administered is best. It is from this point that one can view a ragtag group of ignorant politicians who confronted the forward looking Governor of Ondo State, Mr Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa with daggers drawn on their myopic definition of governance and dividends of democracy.

The mission of these political Lilliputians was to unwittingly create fear in the minds of the peace loving people of Ondo State that they were suffering, in a blind effort to stoke the fire of disunity among the people. It was another scheme that failed because the people know their friend, and they are more intelligent than the political jobbers.

How can anyone in his right senses call Aiyedatiwa’s renaissance in Ondo State “catastrophically bad?” While we do not expect the blinds to see the fantastic work the action governor is doing, political hatchet men should know the limits of irascibility.

Incoherently, they claimed: “What we are witnessing today is a disturbing collapse of leadership capacity, political coordination, intellectual seriousness, and governance direction. A state blessed with enormous human and natural resources has been reduced to administrative drift, lethargy, and embarrassing mediocrity.”

The attempt to reinvent themselves as defenders of the people is a tilted gimmick of quacks parading themselves as intellectuals, professionals and other borrowed robes in exploit of democratic freedom.

The irony is that without any poll or market survey, they threw their daggers about carelessly. The spillover effect of such vituperation is that the uninitiated may ordinarily be swept off the solid support that the government enjoys.

These jobbers parading as intellectuals and professionals should go to other states to see how stakeholders collectively rally round their state governments by sitting down together at quarterly summits to discuss economic and financial policies. They compile surveillance reports that would include, in addition to the conventional data, up-to-date information on, structure and the maturity discourse at neighbouring states negotiations. But for our stomach infrastructure writers, name calling, character assassination and pillorying are their masterpiece.

None of the critics’ blackmail mentioned on the large scale infrastructural exploits, the opening up of villages for better life to the citizens, investment in education and health.

Their concern is that exhibition of monstrosity on newspaper pages, as such further authoritative measures must be kept in their proper order of priority, after, and not before the socialisation of the people.

The critics forgot that for the first time since the creation of Ondo State in 1976, all the politicians of note in the state are now under one umbrella. Thanks to Aiyedatiwa’s political sagacity in all fronts. The governor has provided quality leadership, audacious grassroots engagements in all the 18 local governments of the state. He is loved and respected across the state because of his calm approach in the discharge of his duties.

These attributes also attracted him greatly to the opposition parties, encouraging them to collapsing their political structures into the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state.

All those that contested the governorship election with Aiyedatiwa in 2024, have defected to the APC. The last opposition structure in the state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of the state under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), recently decamped to the ruling APC. He attributed the action to Aiyedatiwa’s great performance within the short period in the saddle, as governor of the state, and his love for President Bola Tinubu’s giant strive at the federal level within three years in office. Aiyedatiwa is undoubtedly a thoroughbred politician who engages the professionals/intellectuals while also engaging the students, artisans and the unlearned in the state.

Aiyedadiwa, is ambitiously galvanising the electorates in the state for the reelection of President Tinubu. If there’s a state that will possibly give Tinubu 100 per cent votes in the January 16, 2027 presidential election, that state is Ondo State. The reasonable, patriotic and responsible Ondo men and women should encourage the governor to do more.

President Tinubu should call Bunmi Ojo, minister of Interior, to order. He should face his duty as a minister in Abuja, and stop hobnobbing and engendering distractions in the political affairs of Ondo State.

Uninitiated politicians like Ojo do not understand that Ondo State politics is highly regimented and well organised to the extent that it would be absolutely impossible for any intruder to disorganise it. Right from the Fourth Republic, from 1999, Ondo North Senatorial District, produced the governor, Chief Adefarati. In 2003, Ondo South, Olusegun Agagu, took over. Thereafter, Olusegun Mimiko. Then, it went back to Ondo North, Akeredolu. Now Ondo South, Aiyedatiwa. When Aiyedatiwa ends his tenure in 2033, it returns to Ondo Central.

Chief Olu Ayela, is a veteran journalist, based in Lagos.