By now, the people of Ogun West should have learned to read between the lines. Kayode Oladele’s recent essay, a eulogy to “inevitability” and the so-called gravitational centre of Ogun 2027, reads less like political insight and more like the confession of a man projecting his own ambition onto the state. It is a peculiar thing, claiming to explain Ogun politics while simultaneously exposing your own desperation.
Let’s get something very clear: Ogun West’s governorship push is not a coronation ceremony. It has never revolved around a single man. Any attempt to reduce its complexities to a solitary figure is the work of someone comfortable with fantasy but unfamiliar with the hard truths of political life. Mr. Oladele, the cloak of objectivity you drape over your column does little to hide the obvious. You are speaking from envy, loyalty, or personal ambition, whichever mask fits your mood that day.
You accuse others of cowardice. Yet here you sit, peering from the sidelines, holding forth on who can and cannot stand, who will rise and who will fall. If courage truly resided in your spirit, you would contest openly, stake your claim, and let the people pass judgment on you—not parade your personal loyalties as a substitute for political engagement. You hide behind the ambition of a man you have chosen to anoint while disparaging others for exercising strategy and discretion. That is irony. That is audacity. That is thinly veiled cowardice masquerading as analysis.
Your essay is peppered with noise, theatrics, and exaggeration. Ogun West does not care for op-eds masquerading as prophecy. Lagos state has elections in 2027. Oyo state has elections too. Yet both maintain decorum. Both understand strategy. Both exercise the patience and discipline that Ogun politics deserves. Only you and your ilk insist on heating up the polity with threats, braggadocio, and manufactured hysteria, treating Ogun as your private stage.
You speak of momentum, of inevitability, of one man stepping up. You do so while displaying none of the qualities that actually earn leadership: credibility, acceptability, capacity. You have no grassroots appeal. You are disconnected from your own base in Imeko-Afon LG. In your community, no one sees you as consequential, no one looks to you as a leader. You are irrelevant, tethered to someone else’s ambition, and your attempts at visibility are merely a substitute for substance.
Ogun West’s ambition cannot be foreclosed by your fantasies or your allegiances. Its future does not bend to your keyboard, your op-eds, or your selective outrage. Democracy is a marketplace of ideas, courage, and vision. You have none of these in action, only in print. Your essay is a self-inflicted indictment, a record of envy, a manual on how personal ambition masquerades as public concern.
So here is the lesson, Kayode Oladele: step out of the shadows, show your hand, and let your people judge you. Until then, your commentary will remain exactly what it is a desperate, hollow attempt to manufacture relevance by tethering yourself to someone else’s rise. Ogun West is bigger than your vendetta, more sophisticated than your theatrics, and far too complex to be reduced to the fantasies of a columnist who thinks loyalty to one man can substitute for insight, courage, and gravitas.
Stop hiding. Stop pontificating. Stop pretending. Stand up or accept that your op-ed is the loudest confession of your limitations.
E-signed
Idowu Matthew (Idoma) writes from Afon, Imeko-Afon Local Government.
