By Abiola Odetola
There’s a type of love that claps. And there’s a type of love that tells the reality. As Ogun State turns 50, it will be straightforward, possibly additionally anticipated to jot down the acquainted tribute, the good names we produced, the firsts we claimed, the achievements we as soon as wore like a crown, or in all probability eulogize the present governor and authorities for its many achievements.
Nonetheless, Ogun is a state of immense pedigree in Nigeria’s fashionable story, a spot that has repeatedly provided the nation with its thinkers, reformers, builders, and dreamers.
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Ogun didn’t merely take part in Nigeria’s story, it helped write it. However anniversaries should not just for applause. They’re additionally for audit.
If Ogun at 50 is just a celebration, then now we have learnt nothing. As a result of a state that’s actually critical about its future doesn’t solely reward the previous, it interrogates the current and prepares the following fifty years with painful honesty.
That is that dialog many don’t wish to have overtly.
I write not as an observer, however as one whose identification is stitched into the Ogun story by delivery, by upbringing, by each day realities, and, to the glory of Eledumare, by work and repair.
I write with the type of loyalty that doesn’t finish at sentiment. I’ve learn in regards to the strides of our forebears, seen Ogun in its pleasure, and I’ve lived its contradictions.
And it’s that contradiction that should concern us most as we speak: how can a state with a lot historical past nonetheless wrestle to translate that inheritance right into a constantly rising future?
The hazard of Ogun at 50 is just not that we are going to overlook our previous. The hazard is that we are going to conceal inside it.
Historical past needs to be a basis, not a hiding place. Legacy needs to be a launchpad, not a resting mat. A folks can’t construct tomorrow by endlessly reciting yesterday.
So the more durable query should be requested, one which cuts past ceremony and nostalgia. Fifty years after the firsts, has Ogun ready the following?
Ogun’s political historical past is inconceivable to inform with out invoking towering figures whose concepts reshaped governance, schooling, federalism, tradition, and civic obligation in Nigeria. Names like Obafemi Awolowo, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, Tai Solarin, Wole Soyinka, Fela Kuti, Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo, Justice Atanda Fatai Williams, and Justice Adetokunbo Ademola didn’t merely occupy places of work or phases; they constructed concepts that outlived them.
However herein lies our quiet failure: we mastered management, however uncared for succession.We constructed icons, however didn’t construct pipelines. We celebrated brilliance, however didn’t institutionalise its switch. We raised legends, however didn’t systematically put together replacements.
Political management in Ogun has too usually turn out to be custodial relatively than generational, centered on preserving relevance, not making ready successors.
The result’s a harmful vacuum the place youthful folks develop up listening to tales of greatness with out being handed the instruments to recreate it.
So as we speak, we should ask with out sentiment and with out concern: who’s the political chief of Ogun State as we speak within the mould of concepts, not workplace? Who is considering Ogun’s future past the following election cycle? Who’s grooming the following Awolowo, Solarin, Soyinka, not in character, however in mental rigour and ethical braveness?
As Ogun marks 50, we additionally stand on the doorstep of one other election season, a second that may quietly form not simply the following 4 or eight years, however the subsequent fifty. But, the indicators are worrying.
