By Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe
In a democracy, the space between praise and protest is where governance is tested. It is therefore with some concern that I read a recent piece by my friend and brother, Dr. Debo Akinbami, titled “The Organised Calumny Against Aiyedatiwa.” In it, he suggests that criticism of the Governor of Ondo State is not born of conviction, but of financial inducement. He frames interrogation as abuse, and questioning as a commodity for sale.
With the greatest respect to Dr. Akinbami, that framing does a disservice to the very profession he teaches. As a teacher of print journalism and public relations at Adekunle Ajasin University, he knows better than most that Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution charges the press, and by extension the citizen, with the duty of holding government accountable at all times. That duty does not come with a price tag. It comes with a responsibility.
Let me speak from record, so we do not deal in abstractions. We have asked questions. Not for inducement, but on behalf of the people.
When blood flowed and deaths were harvested during the APC Congress in February, we were not silent. We said our party should not be involved in such inanity. When the APC primary across Ondo was bungled by lack of consultation, we spoke out. Not to destroy the party, but to save it from the consequences of exclusion. For a governor honoured with Ambassador of rule of law, we view many of his actions not in consanguity with that honour by his actions in Supare, Irun and Ifira. We mentioned the disobedience of the Order of the Federal High Court in February. Were we paid to do it or was it wrong to have raised a red flag?
In each of those moments, our intervention was simple; obey the rule of law, respect the people, and do what is right. That is not calumny. That is citizenship.
To reduce every critical voice to a paid agent is to misunderstand how democracy works. It is also to measure others by the lowest possible standard. When citizens ask questions about a 2.38km flyover, about procurement, about the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), about the Status of the contractor, about alternatives, about priorities in a time of austerity, they are not engaged in calumny. They are engaged in citizenship. The moment we label all dissent as sponsored, we close the door to the very public engagement that makes government better.
Dr. Akinbami argues that Governor Aiyedatiwa is doing wonders, and that his public rating is soaring. If that is true, then the record should speak for itself. Governance is not defended by assertion. It is defended by evidence. By data. By projects completed, by roads tarred, by hospitals equipped, by security improved.
When we are asked to show what a government is doing, and the answer we receive is rhetoric instead of results, then the problem is not with those asking the question. The problem is with the absence of answers.
It is also important that we separate persons from principles. My disagreement is not with Dr. Akinbami as a person. I respect his academic work. But I must disagree with the premise that criticism is inherently malicious. The governor cannot always be wrong, and his critics cannot always be right. But democracy dies the day we decide that leaders are above interrogation.
A university intellectual by sheer intelligence should understand that distinction more than anyone. To equate constitutional scrutiny with beer parlour gossip is to diminish the very role of the ivory tower in a republic.
Politics indeed has its seasons, and it can be brutal. But the answer to rough politics is not to silence questions. The answer is to answer them. If there are those who truly engage in blackmail, let them be named with evidence. But to paint every critical voice with the same brush of financial inducement is to create a climate of fear where only sycophancy survives. That climate does not serve the Governor. It does not serve the party. And it certainly does not serve the people of Ondo State.
Governor Aiyedatiwa deserves to be judged on his record, not on the noise around him. And the people of Ondo deserve the right to ask whether that record reflects their priorities without being called agents of destruction. That is not abuse. That is democracy.
So, I invite Dr. Akinbami, and indeed all of us, to return to substance. Let us debate policy, not motives. Let us compare projects, not personalities. Let us ask, as the President himself has asked; is this necessary now? If the answer is yes, then the evidence will defend it. If the answer is no, then criticism is not the enemy. It is the correction.
Dr. Akinbami may not be totally wrong to say some critics have become enablers of the evil they once opposed and have sided with the present occupants of Alagbaka, but it is wrong to expect or suggest by a cintila of thought that, it is the only way to exist. Such supposition is inelegant and invalid. He ought to think deeper and look further as people are not the same.
In the end, reputations are not protected by calling critics paid. They are protected by performance. And the history of Ondo State will be written not by who shouted loudest, but by who delivered most. We see the role of sitting in the gap for the society as revolutionary and it will be too late in the day to chase us out of that position based on invalid supposition and characterisations.
We won’t shift an inch of the ground. God forbid we do any such thing.
Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe,
writes from Akure, Ondo State
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