Akala, Adeshina
OLALEKAN ADETAYO examines the spate of violence in Oyo State and concludes that it is an obstacle to the growth of democracy in the pacesetter state.
Oyo prides itself as the ‘Pacesetter’ state. But the news emanating daily from the state being governed by Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala leaves one to wonder what kind of pace the state is setting and to whom is it setting the pace. In recent times, the media have been flooded with news of bloodletting in the state, whose governor was a police officer that rose to the status of a divisional police officer. The development has become so worrisome that some well-meaning citizens of the state are no longer comfortable with the trend. Some have even gone to the extent of calling for the declaration of a state of emergency. This definitely could not have been the state its founding fathers laboured for.
A legal luminary, Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), recently took a critical assessment of the state of affairs in the state and returned a damning verdict that the state is far from living up to its slogan of being a pacesetter state. He made the observation in a lecture titled, “50 years of democracy in Nigeria, Oyo state as a pacesetter state” which he delivered in Ibadan, the state capital, in commemoration of the 66th birthday of the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Rashidi Ladoja. Specifically, Akintola argued that in reality, the state only set the pace in culpable atrocities and evil deeds rather than in recording giant strides daily.
In Oyo State, if factional members of the crisis-ridden state council of the National Union of Road Transport Workers are not at daggers-drawn, politicians who are supposed to be after the welfare of the people will be decimating their potential electorate with the aid of their weapons-wielding supporters in the name of political campaigns.
Read More:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201011162272229
No comments:
Post a Comment