By Kayode Oladele
Kehinde Sogunle’s recent article, “Reclaiming Ogun State’s Sovereign Blueprint: The PDP Template,” is a remarkable exercise in selective history, political nostalgia and intellectual appropriation. It takes eight years of one administration, elevates some of its participants into the exclusive authors of modern Ogun State, dismisses much of what came afterwards as an “interregnum” and then asks the people of Ogun State to accept the extraordinary proposition that a small circle of former political office holders still possesses what Sogunle dramatically calls the “source code” of our development.
That proposition is not only presumptuous, it is fundamentally flawed and intellectually arrogant. It proceeds from the extraordinary conceit that a small circle of former political appointees can appropriate the collective achievements of an entire government, confer upon themselves exclusive ownership of Ogun State’s developmental intelligence and then arrogate to themselves the right to determine who possesses the competence and capacity to govern the state. It is revisionism driven by an exaggerated sense of self importance.
Sogunle appears to mistake participation in government for ownership of government. He confuses the privilege of having served with a portfolio to the ideas, institutions and accomplishments produced during that period. By repeatedly proclaiming that “we built the engine,” “we proved the concept” and “we hold the source code,” he reduces the contributions of thousands of career civil servants, professionals, communities, investors and ordinary taxpayers to footnotes in a story in which he and his political associates have conveniently cast themselves as the principal authors. That is not only a distortion of history, it is also an attempt to privatise institutional history.
Ogun State was not invented by Sogunle and his colleagues in 2003. Its intellectual capital did not disappear when they left office in 2011. Its capacity for development is not locked inside the political memory of former appointees from 2003 to 2011 waiting to be retrieved whenever they seek a return to power. The state existed before that tenure, continued after it and will continue long after the present generation of public officials has left the stage.
Sogunle and his associates served Ogun State but Ogun State did not belong to them.
This distinction is fundamental, and perhaps it is time they remembered it.
The political double standard at the heart of Sogunle’s argument is equally difficult to disguise. He proudly celebrates Ogun indigenes who went to Lagos, entered government and contributed their expertise to the development of that state as evidence of Ogun’s intellectual strength and technocratic depth.
Yet the moment Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola’s own Lagos experience enters the conversation, Sogunle changes the standard. What he celebrates as expertise in one instance is suddenly presented as political contamination in another.
One is therefore forced to ask whether Sogunle would have found anything objectionable about Senator Adeola Yayi’s Lagos political career if Yayi had simply remained in Lagos politics and never returned home to seek the governorship of Ogun State. I suspect that, in those circumstances, Sogunle might well have celebrated him as another accomplished Ogun indigene who distinguished himself outside his home state.
The political temperature changed because Yayi came home and is now seeking the same office as Ladi Adebutu, whose campaign organisation Sogunle heads. That is the crux of the matter and Sogunle, in his heart of hearts, cannot deny it.
It is important to note that Sogunle is not writing as a detached historian examining the movement of ideas between Lagos and Ogun. He is the Director General of Adebutu’s campaign organisation, defending the political interests of a candidate seeking the same office as Senator Adeola Yayi. His criticism of Yayi must therefore be read and situated within that electoral context.
From my perspective, the intensity of these attacks is better understood as a political response to the support and huge public following Senator Yayi’s has attracted in the governorship contest than as a principled objection to the fact that he once built his political career in Lagos. Sogunle is perfectly entitled to dispute that conclusion, but it is equally legitimate to ask why Lagos experience becomes objectionable only when the person possessing it returns home to compete directly with his principal and benefactor.
If Ogun professionals could serve in Lagos without ceasing to be Ogun indigenes, then Senator Yayi’s years of untainted public service outside Ogun cannot, by themselves, erase his Ogun roots. Sogunle cannot celebrate the export of Ogun talent when it suits his historical narrative and condemn the return of Ogun experience when it complicates his present political argument. To hold otherwise will amount to an
consistent principle.
Ironically, in yet another instance of convenient political amnesia, Sogunle appears to forget a fundamental fact about the very Lagos history he invokes so confidently. The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 was not a PDP administration.
Tinubu was elected on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The political trajectory associated with that administration subsequently travelled through the Action Congress (AC), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and ultimately became a major component of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
More importantly, Senator Adeola Yayi’s ITESIWAJU proceeds from a very fundamental and simple proposition: government should be a continuum. Viable projects should not be abandoned merely because the occupant of Government House has changed. Useful policies should be improved rather than destroyed on the altar of partisan ego. New ideas should be added to what works, while programs that no longer answer contemporary needs should be reviewed.
Ironically, Sogunle’s own article validates that principle. If ideas conceived under the administration of Otunba Gbenga Daniel remain useful today, as Sogunle insists, then he has already conceded the central point that good ideas should outlive the governments that conceived them.
Where he goes wrong is in attempting to privatize those ideas. Sogunle repeatedly tells us that “we built the original engine,” “we proved the concept” and “we hold the source code.” Who exactly is this “we”?
Were Ogun civil servants absent between 2003 and 2011? Were engineers, teachers, planners, accountants, contractors, investors,policy makers, legislators, traditional institutions and communities not part of the development process? Were those programs financed from private bank accounts belonging to PDP officials, Sogunle and his associates? Were government ministries, agencies and parastatals private enterprises belonging to commissioners and advisers? Public service is not private property.
Those privileged to serve in government are custodians for a season. They do not leave office with certificates of ownership over the ideas, institutions and achievements of the state.
Whatever Chief Olusegun Osoba achieved belonged to Ogun State, whatever Otunba Gbenga Daniel achieved belongs to Ogun State. Whatever Senator Ibikunle Amosun achieved belongs to Ogun State. Whatever Prince Dapo Abiodun achieves belongs to Ogun State. Whatever the next administration contributes will ultimately belong to Ogun State.
No former commissioner, special adviser or political appointee can appropriate that collective history and declare himself custodian of Ogun State’s intellectual DNA.
There is, however, an even more awkward contradiction which Sogunle has woefully failed to consider.
The period between 2003 and 2011 which he repeatedly invokes was the administration of Otunba Gbenga Daniel. OGD was the Governor. He headed the government. He appointed the commissioners, special advisers and other officials. If there was an engine, to borrow Sogunle’s metaphor, OGD was sitting in the driver’s seat.
However, Otunba Gbenga Daniel is no longer in the PDP. He joined the APC in February 2021 and subsequently won election to the Senate on the APC platform. That creates a rather uncomfortable question for Sogunle. On whose behalf is he laying claim to the achievements of the Daniel administration?
Is he speaking for the political structure of the 2003 to 2011 administration headed by Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who is today an APC Senator, or is he speaking as Director General of Ladi Adebutu’s governorship campaign in the present caricature of the PDP, a party that bears little resemblance to the formidable political organization it once was and has long since lost much of its relevance and past glory? The distinction matters.
Sogunle cannot conveniently appropriate the achievements of one political era while ignoring what became of the principal figure who defined that era. He cannot invoke OGD whenever he needs the achievements of the OGD administration and then pretend that OGD’s present political affiliation is irrelevant when it becomes counterproductive to his lame argument.
There is an additional irony. OGD was among the top APC figures present at the April 2026 Ogun APC strategic caucus meeting at which Senator Adeola emerged as the party’s consensus governorship candidate. Therefore, Sogunle cannot be more entitled to the OGD political tendencies than OGD himself.
Again, who exactly is “we”?
If “we” refers to the OGD administration, the inconvenient fact is that the man who headed that administration is today an APC Senator.
If “we” refers to the present political organization around Ladi Adebutu, then, Sogunle must explain how the caricature of the PDP acquired exclusive ownership of the achievements of an administration led by a man who has since left the PDP. He cannot have it both ways.
He cannot summon OGD whenever he needs the achievements of 2003 to 2011 and make OGD disappear whenever his present political identity becomes questionable and suspicious. He cannot use OGD’s yesterday while pretending OGD’s today is inconvenient or does not exist. And he certainly cannot convert the record of the OGD administration into a political inheritance for Ladi Adebutu merely because OGD was once belonged to the same political party with Ladi Adebutu.
The bitter truth is that Ladi Adebutu was not the Governor of Ogun State between 2003 and 2011. Kehinde Sogunle was not the Governor either even if was OGD’s brain box at the time. Otunba Gbenga Daniel was.
If the OGD years are to be invoked as evidence in the present political debate, intellectual honesty requires acknowledging not merely the record of that administration, but also the current political trajectory of OGD who led it. Anything less is selective history that brutally stabs OGD in the face.
Indeed, this is where Sogunle’s attack on Senator Yayi becomes pedestrian and almost self defeating. He accuses Senator Adeola of borrowing political talent while attempting to borrow an entire OGD administration for Ladi Adebutu. Unfortunately, that cannot fly.
He complains that Yayi is harvesting from somebody else’s orchard while attempting to carry the entire harvest of the OGD years into Adebutu’s campaign barn.
What is Sogunle’s current assessment of OGD’s political choice? At what point in time did he become Ladi Adebutu’s man Friday or Adebutu’s Monday morning quarterback ? I certainly recognize the fact that people are not mangoes. Political actors are not the permanent property of those under whom they once served. They have conscience, personal convictions and choices. They change parties. They form new alliances. They are entitled to decide where their experience can best be deployed. That is acceptable in any civilized society.
Therefore, if people who once worked within Sogunle’s political tendency now choose to work with Senator Adeola Yayi, perhaps the useful question is not whether Yayi owns the orchard. Perhaps Sogunle should ask why they left the orchard. And if the orchard remains as fertile as he claims, why are so many of its supposed fruits thriving elsewhere?
If anything, Sogunle should stop attempting to use the OGD era as a political certificate for an untested Adebutu governorship.
Adebutu must stand on his own record. He must defend his own program. He must explain his own capacity. The OGD administration cannot become Adebutu’s borrowed certificate of performance.
OGD’s record is OGD’s record.
Adebutu’s record is Adebutu’s record. Yayi’s record is Yayi’s record. Let each be examined accordingly. You cannot inherit another man’s record merely by remembering it with nostalgia.
This is precisely where the attempt to market ITURA DE as some revolutionary blueprint becomes vulnerable to serious scrutiny. Security, local government administration, agriculture, transportation, youth development, regional planning and economic development are legitimate and important policy areas. However, listing sectors is not the same thing as discovering a new philosophy of government.
Calling a program a Rescue Mission does not transform ordinary governmental responsibilities into a revolutionary development doctrine. What precisely is new about promising security, agriculture, transportation, youth development and stronger local government administration? Every serious candidate for governor should have positions on those matters.
The real questions are harder.
What is the implementation strategy and framework? What are the measurable targets? What is the financing model? What institutional reforms will sustain the promises? What distinguishes the program from the familiar catalogue of aspirations Nigerians hear during every election cycle? A slogan is not a strategy. A promise is not a program.
Ogun of 2027 will not be Ogun of 2003. Our population has changed. Settlement patterns have changed. Industrial corridors have expanded. Technology has transformed commerce and public administration. Transportation needs have evolved. The economic relationship between Lagos and Ogun has deepened. Agricultural value chains have changed. Security challenges have changed. The fiscal environment has changed.
A twenty first century government cannot govern by political archaeology. A master plan may contain principles worthy of preservation and updating. However, no serious development strategy should become a museum piece that politicians periodically remove from a cabinet and display as evidence of eternal foresight. Ogun State needs planning for tomorrow, not permanent residency in yesterday. That is also why ITESIWAJU should be examined on its actual proposals rather than caricatured as an imported “Lagos Template.”
Senator Adeola Yayi did not arrive in public life yesterday. His career has taken him through the Lagos State House of Assembly, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Today he represents Ogun West. His record, like Adebutu’s, should be examined on evidence rather than metaphor. A road is not a slogan. A classroom is not a metaphor. A health facility is not political poetry.
For all the thousands of words Sogunle devotes to Lagos, master plans, orchards, source codes, consultants and political alumni, there is another subject that cannot be buried beneath rhetoric; Ogun West.
Ogun State was created in 1976. Fifty years later, Ogun West has yet to produce a governor. That historical fact deserves a place in the 2027 conversation. The incumbent governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, is from Remo. Otunba Gbenga Daniel is also from Remo. Ladi Adebutu is from Remo.
Against that background, the people of Ogun State are entitled to ask what fairness, justice and inclusion should mean in 2027.
At what point does Ogun West get its opportunity? How long should Yewa and Awori wait before their aspiration is accorded the same seriousness as the ambitions of others?
Those are legitimate political questions. They do not determine how anybody must vote, nor do they remove the need to examine competence, programs character and records. However, they cannot simply be wished away by stories about Lagos, SOOTEM, a 2004 master plan or claims that former PDP officials possess Ogun State’s “source code.”
Perhaps, it is against this background that Adebutu’s phrase, Rescue Mission itself deserves closer examination. What precisely is being rescued, from what and by what measurable programme?
There is a difference between presenting a plan for the future and relying upon the accomplishments of a political generation that governed more than a decade ago. There is a difference between respecting past achievements and treating them as an inheritance belonging to today’s campaign.
Yesterday’s achievements are not a promissory note on tomorrow’s government. Most importantly, there is a profound difference between saying “we once served Ogun” and declaring “we hold the source code.”
No, Sogunle. You do not hold the source code. The people of Ogun State do. Ogun civil servants were not PDP employees. The institutions of government were not subsidiaries of a campaign organisation.
You once served. Others served before you. Others have served after you. Others will serve when all of us have left the political stage. That is the humility democracy demands.
Sogunle ends his article dramatically. The music will fade, he says. The comedians will leave and the confetti will be swept away. Indeed, the rhetoric will fade too. The metaphors will disappear. The orchard will disappear. The source code rhetoric will disappear. The claims of political ownership will disappear. What will remain are records, programs and the judgement of citizens.
That is where ITESIWAJU and ITURA DE should meet: in the arena of public scrutiny. Let the programs be examined. Let the costs be questioned. Let the promises be tested. Let previous records be scrutinised. Let Ogun people decide what importance they attach to continuity, change, experience, inclusion and the historic aspiration of Ogun West.
Sogunle quoted me as saying that the ballot will settle it. I stand firmly by those words. The ballot will settle it. Not nostalgia.
Not ownership claims over other people’s political acumen. Not the appropriation of another administration’s achievements.
Not frightening stories about outsiders. Not declarations that one political generation possesses Ogun State’s intellectual DNA.
There is no political estate waiting for anybody to repossess in 2027. There is an election in which every candidate must present his own record, defend his own programme and submit himself to the judgement of the electorate. Nobody owns Ogun State’s engine. Nobody owns its orchard. Nobody owns its political talent. Nobody owns its history. And nobody owns its people.
The late legendary Apala maestro, Ayinla Omowura, once sang: “Inu ń bí àwọn ọ̀tá lásán,” he reminded his enemies that “Olúwa ló ń gbé wa ga; ẹni tí ó bá sọ pé òun á pìtàn, onítọ̀hún á bínú kú lásán.” Envy may produce anger. Rivalry may breed intrigues. Resentment may inspire falsehood and endless attacks. However, none of them determines destiny. If God chooses to lift a person, those consumed by resisting that elevation may ultimately discover that they have exhausted themselves fighting a battle that was never theirs to win.
Also, in another Omowura’s song,
“Bí ikùn l’oloko bí pàkúté l’oloko”, his message was crystal clear: the ground squirrel may claim the farm and the trap may claim it too but in the final analysis, time will be the ultimate decider.
So let Sogunle attack, let hundreds of pseudo historians distort history, let Adebutu spit fire like thunder, all directed at Senator Adeola Yayi, I have said it before and I repeat it: the ballot will ultimately settle it.
Suffice it to say that Sogunle’s arguments pathetically suffer from the very weakness he seeks to attribute to others: it mistakes political memory for political ownership. No individual or administration can claim exclusive title to Ogun State’s development, its ideas, its institutions or its future. Nobody owns Ogun State’s engine, its orchard, its source code, its history or its people. The people of Ogun State do and they will soon decide what comes next.
