27th December, 2024

Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, SAN
Jehovah’s Compound
Agbala Itura
Heaven

My Dear Arakunrin,

REPORT OF THE DAY AFTER…

I do not have to doubt if you are with your Maker because by our understanding in the  Comradium (The Palmwine Drinkards Klub or Kegites Klub) every Kegite would go to heaven simply because we are Drinkards. If you drink,  you sleep, those who sleep do not steal, engage in corruption, commit adultery or engage in any sinful act. If you don’t sin, you are clean of all human impediments that could make the angels and Fellow Jesus to deny them. When you die they are not denied entry. If they are not denied, there is a mansion for them in heaven and they are welcomed to the right side of Jehovah to enjoy Eternal Bliss thereafter. Even the few that sin, the angels are said to be so angry with them that they want to throw them into hell fire but in their fit of anger, they (over)throw them so much so that they land beyond the burning furnace of hell into heaven or better still, the angels (in)advertently ” smuggle” them into heaven. Only our club members enjoy this grace. Aketi, as a Archival and General  Songito, your place is kept in Baba God’s house.

Now, what is left for me is to report to you what happened after you got to heaven as one of your eyes and ears here. It is titled ” Report of The Day After…”

Oga, believe me, your passing was met with maximum controversy typical of Aketi. Apart from the issues sorrounding your health, the date, where and what, were as confounding as you are. Those who were supposed to know gave conflicting reports. The good thing was that you returned to your Maker like all mortals. If you were to be here when all the controversies were ragging you will simply say in Yoruba ” won ni eniyan ti ku, e tun n’wadi ibi to ku si, ati iru iku to pa? E yin le mo oo”. Meaning, they said someone died you are fighting about where he died and how he died. Well, that’s your problems oo or na una sabi oo.

It never ended there. While many were shocked, sympathetic and wished you had survived, many were happy, rejoiced and slapped each other at the back. Historically, a new phrase “E ku Orire” was added to the lexicon of the day and had stayed with us thereafter.

From that day, just immediately after your passing was made public, the atmosphere changed.  If it was the gathering of your political enemies, those you fought to a standstill, those you dealt with politically and economically, those you were made not to assist and those that were blackmailed from getting any assistance from you, those who worked for you but you failed, refused or neglected to compensate and they refused to forgive you, those who  supported your political journey but for one reason or the other you never compensated or assisted, or those who were side- stepped to pave way for your own or that of Babajide or that of Mama.

If it were this people that betrayed you, it was  understandable.  Unfortunately, almost everyone who ate at your table, everyone that your children and family brought under your cover, those you promoted unduly, those who claimed ” Aketi is the book they would read for eight (8) years”,  those who ordinarily are not worthy to be Councilors in their wards or those who were said not to be competent to be Secretary of local Councils but you made Commissioners or people who lied to get financial security through you, were those who denied you just like Peter denied Jesus. Those who were brought by your son and wife from some backroom political associations and you gave political appointments against those who worked day and night to make you a two term Governor.  They ate into you and burrowed holes into your helpless body, nothing was too small or too big for them to use against you and what remained of your reputation and legacy. The ones that came from your family became too big, too comfortable, too powerful and so uncontrollable for them to control. They became the ” Tormentor- in- Chief and harassed them to no avail.

This people  joined your critics and political adversaries to provide them with enough arsenal to injure your reputation, your legacies, and your person. Your family and your government became their target. I do not mean your enemies, I meant your friends, your mentees and those who you are their benefactors. Oga, awon ti e pe ni eniyan mi, “wun-jured” you.

Fast forward sir, your final burial was out of this world. I was there as the head of the WA  Team, that is, Wale Akinterinwa group. We ensured our presence was felt and we made a great show of your passing. We were distinct and different. We celebrated you in our own way. The State government did not spare any effort to make the burial a carnival. The government  did its best in terms of money and what it considered the best way to celebrate you. The Federal government was present and the President came some weeks after to commiserate with your family, the people of Owo and the people of Ondo State. It was a first of it’s kind. The President met privately with your wife and also visited your resting place. This has never happened before.

Oga, part of the mistakes you made based on your naivety and “weakness” as a political head and a family man showed and manifested immediately after your death. Like I said, before, those who ought to be counted as your political family failed you woefully. You never had one because you failed to develop one. You only developed your immediate family and some of your friends and those close to your family while you left askance your political family and your political benefactors. Those who you made never stood for your legacy including members of your immediate family. They failed woefully to understand power relations and how to maintain it relevance. They dilly-dallied and left what they ought to do for what they ought not to do. It was very disturbing and distabilising. They left you open and vulnerable. Your legacy now is in danger of been lost.

Still on your immediate family, two issues became worrisome. How they left your final resting place for goats and weeds some weeks and months after your burial got me teared up when I visited. Also, many of your trusted allies, who put their heads on the chopping block have been sent away and became ” personal non granta” to your family. Your wife has not changed from her previous behaviour while you were here. I thought your passing would have tempered her. Unfortunately, she had become more critical and angry to the point of becoming an irritant. Her actions have become more of an embarrassment to the remnants of those still left behind carrying the flag of what you represent. This case has become the matter of ” amunibuni eran ibiye…”. For those of us who are being daily harassed, intimidated, embarrassed and ostracized because we stood with you while you were here and now that you have left. Your wife is not helping us by her many unnecessary public fights and altercations. Instead of rallying the troops to protect your legacy, which she is claiming she cared about, she is fighting everyone to assert a legacy they deliberately refused to protect when it mattered. Her current fight to protect your legacy is a wrong fight which she should not be the one fighting but people you made and people who believed in you. To be candid to you, there are people who are still determined to be an Aketist but they are too embarrassed because of the way Mama is carrying the fight. For your information Maxwell Adeleye, a journalist who always stayed at the back of Olabintan’s car and was always on laptop dishing out stories in 2016 and 2020 as an example.

Despite his efforts, you ignored him and your son abandoned him. While you were here, Dr. O. N. Akeredolu was critical of you. He never hated you or your family, but you let him down despite all his efforts. You never bothered about people who did little things to help you succeed. You let down Orimisan Adelokiki, who left his post as a Police Officer and business man to support you. He lost his Commission and his  successful Chinchin business collapsed. He was blackmailed out of your assistance and remained in penury with many loans to pay today. There are many people like that who were chased away from you. But your immediate family and friends enjoyed the best of time.

For instance, my people in Oka Akoko despite all the good deeds we had been doing for you since 2012 got the worst treatment from you and your government. The last was the LCDA creation by your government. Understandably, those you left behind to carry out the exercise mismanaged and manipulated the exercise against the people of Akoko, Akoko South West and my people in Oka. We were bloodied. What you refused to do for our Chieftaincy had now been done, strengthening the resolve of those who hated someone like me as an Aketi outpost in Oka to no ends.

Dear Arakunrin, despite all the above, do Ondo State people miss you? Yes, they did. Your voice and your  struggle were for  them and since your passing, everywhere had gone mute. Even, Amotekun, your best known legacy has become a shadow of itself in Ondo State.  It had turned to a civil service instrument or rather a propaganda machine or a dog that can only bark but not bite. As we speak, it has lost its spark and many of it’s vehicles no longer have fuel in them. It is that bad. I know some data boyz would come for me, but they know the truth and Chief Adeleye knows the truth.

At the national level where you are always the issue and you represent the aggregation of the Nigerian people’s struggle, no one is that bold, courageous and confident enough to put their views in  perspective anymore.  Everywhere is now quiet and quietened. Eye service and political correctness and chicanery has taken away the best of us.

You were a big loss to our nation, to Ondo State and the legal profession. If you were around, you would have made your views known on the Aare Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi issue. You would have pitched your tent with one of them unmistakably. On many of the current programmes of Asiwaju, you would have taken a stand on the local government autonomy, the tax reform bills and the stampedes across our nation accentuated by hunger due to the reforms by the Tinubu administration. In Ondo State, those of us that had the temerity to bear the Aketi emblem are endangered species. We are opposition within a party we laboured to build. Strangers and aliens, those who chased us with cutgels and cutlasses are at the driving force of our party and the government today. Sir, permit me to say you established that precept but it had taken a new life of it’s own. The good thing is that, even those who propped up the system are finding it difficult to be accepted so soon. They complain that their calls are no longer been taken. For me” wetin concern Martha with Mathaias”? Won o ti ri nkenken. Won se bere. I will be here for four years, without winking or blinking an eyelid.

But now,  your voice is drowned in death and lost to our nation but the silent echoes of it and it’s vibration resonates so loudly and audible enough for all to hear.

For me, I enjoy your leadership, your friendship, your mentorship and your comradeship. I may have been one of the casualties of your political mistakes and political indiscretions but such things are ephemeral. Your courage since 1992 when I met you in Chief Gani Fawehinmi Chambers is a Visa to who I have become today. You meant so much to me. Aketi,  if I have the opportunity of meeting you again, guess what, I will be in your corner. But I will be smarter, brutal and will not play the political fool again.

My leader, this report, is to act as a window to those in power today that your life and struggles, your failures and triumphs represent an example of who we are as human beings. More importantly, no ” Champion Reigns For Ever”. Do what you have to do and leave the rest.

CURRENT CONTROVERSY

There is a ranging controversy as to how to celebrate your one year passing. As usual, the government that claimed it’s a continuation of your government were lax and displayed total incompetence and disdain in not carrying your wife and children along. For me the controversy in needless.

True to type, your wife went on social media to show her anger and poured venon on the person of the Governor and making serious and unsubstantiated allegations. It was irresponsible for government not to have had their by-in but it is worst and unacceptable and height of “see finish” for your wife to descend on the Governor and the government like that. Is it that she has no friend outside Ondo State who could intervene on her behalf. What if the Olowo of Owo, what of Ojomoluda of Ijebu Owo, what of Ganduje, what of Femi Falana, what of Pa Fasoranti, what of Basorun Arogbofa? What of the wife of the President and what of the President? Has whe lost her influence or respect with all these people. What of the son, Babajide, so he cannot act for his father’s legacy despite his visibility when he was here?

This is a needless controversy in the memory of Aketi. If I were Femi Falana, I will personally not attend the programme at the Dome. Like Dele Farotimi said ” do not die in their wars”. This scenario is a pointer to what the two greatest beneficiaries of the man Aketi has turned his passing into.

As I drop my pen, I say sleep well the gadfly! May you continue to live in the hearts of those who appreciate courage and resilience.

I really, really miss you as I say Aketi Eternal!

It’s me Wole (That’s what you used to call me).

*Sola Ajisafe, Esq*
*Former SSA/Project Manager, NPower to Arakunrin 2017-2021*