Yayi, Abiodun
By all appearances, the public endorsement of Senator Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi) by Governor Dapo Abiodun was meant to steady the ship, an assurance of continuity, stability and sustained progress.
But beyond the applause and choreography of party politics, a different sentiment has taken root across Ogun State, particularly among its most economically active communities. It is not enthusiasm. It is not even conviction. It is fatigue. And from that fatigue has emerged a quiet but unmistakable refrain: any other will be better than the present.
That sentiment, more than anything else, explains the unusual warmth that greeted Adeola at the APC stakeholders’ meeting. By most objective measures, he remains a relatively unfamiliar figure in the Ogun governorship equation. Yet, he was received not on the strength of a well-established record within the state, but on the strength of something far less flattering to the incumbent administration, a widespread loss of confidence in its priorities.
To be clear, this is not to suggest that the Abiodun administration has done nothing. There are projects it can point to, initiatives it can list and sectors where activity has been recorded. But governance is not measured by the mere existence of projects; it is measured by their logic, their impact and their alignment with the broader needs of the state. And it is precisely here that the problem lies.
Across Ogun, particularly in the border communities adjoining Lagos, what exists is not an absence of development but a pattern of misdirected development, projects that appear isolated, poorly sequenced and in some cases, disconnected from economic reality. In effect, whatever gains are recorded in completed projects are steadily undermined by neglect in the areas that matter most.
Nowhere illustrates this contradiction more clearly than Ado-Odo/Ota and Ifo Local Government Areas. These are not marginal territories; they are Ogun’s economic gateways, zones where the state directly interfaces with Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Logic would dictate that such corridors receive deliberate, sustained investment. Instead, seven years on, what residents encounter is a jarring discontinuity: functional infrastructure on the Lagos side, collapsing almost immediately upon entry into Ogun. From Agbado to Ota, Ojodu Abiodun to Iju, Akute, Ijoko and Lafenwa, the story is consistent. Development does not transition, it stops.
