By Kayode Fasua
It is benumbing to see the Social Democratic Party, SDP, which has been in the cocoon of inertia all this while, to suddenly decide to ply the low road to sudden popularity, by giving vent to cheap blackmail and ridiculous lies.
The attitude the party has exhibited is only tantamount to a short cut to a dead end; in that, the media is replete with stories of how various well-spirited private individuals and committed party members in the All Progressives Congress, APC, have been making generous donations to bolster the gubernatorial campaigns of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
While some donated vehicles, others contributed memes such as fez caps, T-shirts, branded food items that included rice, beans, condiments, and others.
To therefore cook up a sour story that the governor diverted relief or palliative items and then rebag them for distribution to boost his campaigns, can only evoke loud laughter because there is no basis for it.
Swooning in envy as to the positive impact the candidature of Governor Aiyedatiwa is having on the public to warrant people to be making voluntary donations to boost the governor’s campaigns, the SDP and its co-travellers have virtually gone berserk, running to the market with their tar brush, to paint a wrong picture.
Try as they may, detractors cannot possibly demonise Governor Aiyedatiwa who is loved by the masses whose standard of living he has lifted through various laudable programmes that ennoble their wellbeing.
What with the award of various road projects under the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAMP) in a bold move to checkmate the rural-urban drift and enable local farmers transport their farm produce with ease?
Have they also forgotten that the governor has so far disbursed over N2 billion as grant-in-aid to support vulnerable Ondo State residents and empower them to ply their respective trades?
Besides, salaries, wages, and entitlements are being paid as and when due under the Aiyedatiwa administration, to the admiration of all. Only two weeks ago, the governor announced the approval of N73,000 minimum wage, which is chummily higher than the benchmark set by the federal government.
Not only that, as a way of subsidising education, the governor provided free bus shuttles for school children and also awarded bursary to students of Ondo State origin in tertiary institutions, among other such jaw-dropping feats in the education sector.
With all these and innumerable other landmark achievements breasted by Governor Aiyedatiwa in only 10 months in office, it thus sounds as the whimper of a nonentity, for a registered political party of the toga of the SDP to unfurl a big lie that Aiyedatiwa has been renting campaign crowds at N10,000 per head. It has never happened, and will never happen.
The Ondo State SDP is thus advised to undergo self-cleansing that leads to orientational rebirth, and come on its knees with palms clapsed, praying to be able to join the moving train of the APC before the November 16 governorship election.
The party is herein counselled to help itself by escaping the fate of a dog destined to get lost, which turned deaf ears to the whistle-blow of its hunter owner.
A word is enough for the wise.
•Fasua is State Director of Information, Lucky Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation Foot Soldiers Independent Council, LACO-FSIC.
