2019: Yewa vs Yewa In War Of Words
This was published in Thisday on Monday. That is what Baglo is responding to…
DON’T TWIST THE FACTS, SENATOR ADEOLA IS FROM YEWA
Our attention has been drawn to the opinion article titled, “Adeola and the Burden of Ancestral Ties” as published in Thisday of Monday, February 13, 2017 at page 19 under the ‘Perspective’ column. The said opinion by Raheem Ajayi of Imasayi purports to dispute the origin of Senator Solomon Adeola as a Yewa man like Ajayi and myself. His take off point was the discussions of an open letter on the social media by Damilare Oloyede.
The making of an issue of the origin of Senator Adeola as a Yewa man can be situated in a desperate and almost hysterical attempt to undemocratically exclude the senator from running for the Ogun Governorship race in 2019. As truthfully acknowledged by Ajayi in his write up, the senator “got an impressive political credentials and anybody would want him to be part of his family….” The grouse of a some individuals including possibly Ajayi is that in Ogun State today Senator Adeola is the talk of the town and foremost front runner in the race for Ogun State governor come 2019 to the chagrin of those that want to exclude him at all cost for their personal interests and those that want to determine who succeed Governor Ibikunle Amosun through the constriction of the choices of the people.
Ajayi, if he is truthful will acknowledge that he is a ‘brotherly’ associate of sort to Senator Adeola to be clear of his origin as a Yewa man in spite of living and representing Lagos State. That must explain his presence at the Senator’s Ikeja Senatorial District office during the empowerment programme of the senator’s riverine constituents with 500 life jackets late last year as captured in a photograph and his subsequent meeting in a nearby hotel with the senator. The details of the transaction on that day is indeed personal and need no elaboration here but it goes to established a prior unstated nexus between the writer and Senator Adeola that relates to their origin from the same ethnic group even while from different communities in the clan.
For reasons best known to Ajayi, he has now join the group that want to exclude Senator Adeola from the 2019 race at all cost using the spurious ancestral obfuscation when they have no legal or constitutional barrier to erect against one that is easily the most popular candidate as of today. No surprises here as virtually all previous winners of such race in the past were similarly pilloried with the same charge. But using falsehood for such “pull him down” campaign cannot be allowed to stand. Ajayi raised the question of why the senator had to “wait till 2014 when he was aspiring to become senator for Ogun West before he came to Yewa?” I wonder the kind of tabs that Ajayi keeps on the senator to raise this question. Would he have been monitoring the senator’s private visits or the senator was supposed to have a log in register of his visits? This question cannot be raised of a man who has built houses in Yewaland prior to 2014. Again the senator was part of the coronation ceremony of the Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle way back in 2012! And as chairman of Oronna Ilaro Festival Planning Committee (2012-16), I can confirm his participation and huge financial contributions to the festival since 2012. So much for his alleged coming in 2014, a year to an election he was to contest.
On the issue of ‘inconsistency’ and alleged claim by the senator to come from Joga Orile by Ajayi if ever such a claim was made, Ajayi cannot claim ignorance of the history of Isaga people of Yewa and the Dahomey war that led to Isaga people dispersal and establishing settlements in many Yewa communities including in Ilaro, Owode, etc, Lagos and even across international borders in Benin Republic. It will be historical ignorance or playing cheap and dirty politics for Ajayi to turn a blind eye to the fact that most Yorubas can rightly claim two or three communities within the same clan as a result of original settlements, farm settlements, new settlements as a result of war as well as maternal origin with cases of the sons of daughters married outside the original settlement sometimes coming back to be a king. This is indeed the case of Senator Adeola whose paternal forebears migrated from Isaga Orile to Ago Isaga in Ilaro and finally to Pahayi while his maternal roots is traceable to Joga Orile all within the Yewa ethnic group. And Senator Adeola direct mother is of Kemta, Egba Alake stock. For the information of Ajayi, the incumbent governor has contested elections from at least three different communities that he has familial relationship with in tandem with historical origin from these places.
From Ajayi’s write up one sees an inconsistency that can only be explained by an “attempt to nail him at all cost”. On the one hand he was challenging the origin of a man by raising ‘ancestral’ question. On the other hands he called on those defending the senator to “speak to the matter not some elaborate lineage history dating back to when Oduduwa purportedly dropped from the sky”. So apparently a detailed lineage history of the Senator has been provided but Ajayi for reason adumbrated cannot be convinced. Too bad as ‘ancestral’ issues are matters of lineage history.
For the avoidance of doubt however, the Senator traces his ancestral lineage to Isaga Orile, Joga Orile, Pahayi, Ilaro and Kemta in Abeokuta. The details of such cannot be presented here for space constraint but it was such details that Ajayi, a Yoruba man, derided in his flippant submission of “Oduduwa purportedly dropped from the sky”. One would not join him is such histrionic derision but would counsel him to look for legal and constitutional excuse if any, to exclude the most popular aspirant from a race and a date with destiny on behalf of his long suffering Yewa people that has so far been marginalized in the rulership of Ogun state since the creation of the state 41 years ago.
Chief Kayode Odunaro JP,Media Adviser to Senator Adeola is from Ago Isaga, Ilaro-Yewa, Ogun State.
This Lagos Senator is Certainly Not from Yewa.
February 23, 2017
There is no way to twist the facts: Senator Solomon Adeola is just not an indigene of Yewa in Ogun State, Raheem Ajayi insists
I read a rejoinder by Kayode Odunaro, media aide to Senator Solomon Adeola, in response to my article of February 13, 2017, titled: “Adeola and the Burden of Ancestral Ties” wherein I, on behalf of the good people of Yewa, sought clarification on the origin of the incumbent Senator representing Lagos West and an aspirant in the Ogun governorship election in 2019.
Instead of addressing pertinent questions raised in my article, Odunaro merely went on red-herring and introduced innuendos, insinuating that I was a “brotherly associate” of the Senator amongst others. By making reference to an invitation I honoured from Senator Yayi to a programme in Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, Lagos, several months back, Odunaro attempted albeit futilely to compromise me and vitiate my position against the Senator.
One of the things Odunaro forgot to add was that it was his principal, who invited me to discuss Ogun politics in continuation of an earlier interaction. Odunaro should ask his boss about my position regarding his political ambition in Ogun State when we met a year earlier at a function in Lagos. When Senator Yayi could not convince me, we decided to continue on the discussion at a later date.
That was why I agreed to meet with Odunaro’s boss on June 12, 2016. My meeting with Senator Yayi wasn’t a secret. It was an assignment undertaken on behalf of my people. If Odunaro would be truthful, the outcome of my meeting was made public and I dare him to come out with “details of any financial transaction” as being insinuated. It is an open secret that Odunaro splashed my picture with Senator Yayi’s on the Social media after the meeting, an indication of how much they wanted my support.
Why then attempting a blackmail now, if not for naked desperation. I bet Odunaro didn’t know Senator Yayi has been making frantic efforts to reach me since my article was published. Just how pitiable can people become when they work with a boss with whom they are not on the same page and for whom they will readily sacrifice integrity and if not cheaply trade away their ancestral root?
Odunaro’s rejoinder deviated totally from expatiating on why Senator Yayi initially picked Ishaga in Abeokuta North local government in Ogun Central as his home origin and later shifted to Joga Orile in Yewa North local government and recently Pahayi in Yewa South Local Government. I wouldn’t have written since I had asked him in private, even though he couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.
My write-up was a follow-up to reactions elicited by a letter addressed to Senaror Yayi by Omooba Damilare Oloyede, another concerned Yewa man on the subject matter. If building houses in a place is enough to make an individual an indigene, I should be able to contest for the office of Governor of Lagos State because I also have a house in Lagos. It is condescending for Odunaro, a true born of Yewa, to deride the ancestry of Yewa the way he and his cohorts have been indulging.
How would Senator Yayi’s monetary contributions to festivals in Yewaland confer on him the status of an indigene? I know a friend – a native of Ekiti State who wouldn’t want his name mentioned and who had contributed to such festivals in Yewaland in the past without making a fuss.
A good number of people have been elected into various positions in states other than their states of origin without having to lie or cook up stories to covet indigeneship at whatever costs. Why the desperation and feeble attempts to present fictions as facts? Should we then ask Odunaro why his own origin hasn’t been a subject of controversies? I don’t have a problem when people work to earn their pay but it is however sickening when people stand the truth on its head for whatever the attractions could be.
I challenge Odunaro to ask his boss why he has enlisted several persons to talk to me in the last few days over this matter. Why would there be need for such intervention if truly Senator Yayi has no issues with his Yewa ancestral claim? Odunaro has more herculean tasks to do forcing the falsehood of Senator Yayi’s ancestral ties down the throats of conscientious bonafide sons and daughters of Yewa and Ogun West.
This will be my last take on this matter for now. The people of Yewaland will definitely respond appropriately when the time comes. It is all about us, our homeland and our collective future!
-RAHEEM Ajayi wrote from Imasayi, Yewa North Local Government of Ogun State
