By Wale Ojo-Lanre
Former governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, you are unfair to the Yoruba race. You are even more unfair to Nigeria
This is because you are not an ethnicist.
I know the measure you gave to the Yoruba.
You will foolishly use it for anybody, no matter where he comes from.
Haba! Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola!
Honestly, you are not fair to the Yoruba race.
And I am ashamed of you!!
Walai, you are not.
I am not proud of you
But why should you do this to the Yoruba race?
A aace which moulded you and burnt you solid with all its cultural elements?
Why?
Though I have been trying to suppress this feeling of making it public; but the Yoruba race may not forgive me, if at a later day discovered that you did this deed and I, Wale Ojo-Lanre from Usi Ekiti, knew about it but covered it up just because you dangled a carrot at me
And I know Ebora Usi, will not forgive me also.
So I don’t want to earn the curse of the Yoruba race and the fury of Ebora Usi.
I am sure you will be shocked by my deliberate decision to tell it all to the public.
I know you don’t expect this act of yours to be leaked on the pages of newspapers and social media.
But I have no apology for this, since you have decided to wrong the Yoruba race, I also have decided to do the needful.
Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, you know you have benefited a lot from being a Yoruba man
At least, it is because you are a Yoruba man that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu brought you out from the Fridge Village in Lagos and made you, you, an agrarian Ijesha man a powerful commissioner in Lagos State.
Though you performed well, but stupidly, you failed to enrich yourself and acquire properties all over Lagos.
Also, it is just because you are a Yoruba man that the people of Osun State voted for you to become their governor for two terms; regrettably though, the drastic dearth of funds and failure of effective communication almost made a mess of all your fantastic plans for Osun State.
Despite this, you still performed above average, particularly in the area of cultural tourism, educational infrastructure revolution and services, road network, urban renewal and health services. No one can deny you of these good deeds of yours in Osun State, they are there for all to see.
But you also know that it is because you are a Yoruba man that President Muhammudu Buhari joyfully appointed you as the Minister of Interior, to oversee a powerful ministry for that matter, where your performance has been described by both eminent and common people as first class and classical, making you the best person to have occupied that position in the past 18 years.
Although many Nigerians, not only Yoruba, have testified to the fact that you are so kind and always stressing yourself to help whoever meets you with reasonable obligations; but that is where the beauty stops!
And that is why I am wondering why did you do this.
And you called yourself a Yoruba man!
Why should you do this at all? We are all complaining that there are some banza Yoruba, who are criminal-minded and useless. The kind of people who should be exterminated from the race; a race which you so much gained from.
Why are you aiding and abetting the swelling and growing deluge of social miscreants within the race, particularly outside the country?
Why are you encouraging evil-minded elements to stay abroad and damage the image of Nigeria?
It is also a criminal act for a Yoruba man, and a Minister of Interior of Nigeria to have caught a Nigerian in the US committing blue character assassination and stalking and allowed that fellow to go scot-free.
And to crown it all, you, I mean, yourself, Ogbeni Adesoji Aregbesola, was the victim of the criminal. act.
That you, on an official visit to the US. That you went to a restaurant to eat after working so hard.
That one Nigeria boy, who was there too, without any permission from you or a contract signed with you to appear in his next film, started making a live video of your activities for the whole world – an act which terrorized your dignity, tormented your emotional stability, jeopardized your personality and which subjected you to humongous embarrassment and stark ridicule, which you have never experienced in your life.
And that after the Nigerian was accosted for an act, which is criminal with 10 years jail term and a fine of $500,000, if found guilty, I leant that you, Ogbeni Aregbesola, just counselled the man and allowed him to go!
Just like that.
Unsatisfied with your disposition to this issue and bearing in mind the malicious and mischievous intention of the foolish boy, we decided to take the case up.
Some of us, who felt that you have been unjustly and unfairly treated, assembled some brilliant lawyers and visited you in your office in Abuja.
We furiously and fiercely convinced you, nay, with legal sections, precedents and rules that the boy must rot in jail.
It is disappointing that, all our solid points and facts in issues never moved you.
After a while, you rose and said, “I thank you for your concern. Thank you. Look, the young man is a Nigerian, eking out something in the US to stabilise himself, probably his family. Yes, he, out of sheer impetuosity of being famous in the new media made a video of me. I realised the legal angle. But sincerely, I won’t press a charge against him, no matter the pressure. He has been warned. That is enough. I know he too must have realised his mistake. So what will I gain if I pressed a charge against him? What would I gain if he is sentenced to a 10-year jail term?
A young man likes that. If I do it now, some of you may praise me today. But, tomorrow, the case will assume another dimension. In Yoruba, it is ‘àlọ ni ti alábahun, àbọ̀ ni ti àna ẹ̀.’ He can be from any place in Nigeria. I will not press a case against him. It is you people – the media – who will praise me today and tomorrow and be making wild analyses of the action. My advice to all Nigerians in the diaspora is to be of good conduct and respect individual’s privacy rights.”
So, has Aregbesola been fair to Nigeria, because as he said if that boy is a non-Yoruba, so far he is a young Nigerian, he would not still press a charge?
To me this is rubbish. He should have pressed a charge and let the young man rot in jail.
He should have forgotten about the jagbajantis of the Yoruba proverbs and wise sayings.
At least, he should have jailed the stalker, let him rot in jail today, instead of considering one useless tomorrow.
Nonsense
Are you minding me?
Ok.
Vote for Tinubu-Shettima!
The Renewed Hope of Nigeria!!
•Ojo-Lanre writes from Ibipeju Oniru Chamber, Irede Estate, Upper Ogudu River, Temidire, Usi Ekiti and can be reached on
+2408033490986.
