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By Debo Akinbami
In Ondo, the last few days smoked the lying birds out of their nests. The culprits didn’t show up on their own terms; the truths constrained them to do so. It was not easy for them to put a face to their pay, but they had to; lest they are taken out of the industry. For too long, they hid their faces behind a finger, despite being handsomely paid to propagate lies against Governor Aiyedatiwa. And now, the wind has exposed the chicken’s anus.
Seeing that the pack of lies were fast falling on their own heads, the contractors charged, bitterly; they rushed plexedly out of their hidings to patch up the lies with more lies, but it was rather too late. The phony activism has been factually faulted at its very foundation; the basis of the lies has been badly bruised.
Poor folks! They struggled to steady, yet they staggered. They ran between the podium and pulpits; poles to pillars. Wailers that they now are, the fraudsters served flimsy homilies about the morals that they lack. Lawyers who have abandoned their calling for hagiography; journalists who are torn between productive practice and the politics of profits; foetus charlatans who blab, teachers who lack the traits they preach and the wandering widow badly seeking survival.
Having fed fat by commoditising Aiyedatiwa, they were badly bruised by the truths, and suddenly, they went wild. They did, helplessly, for the fear of losing the iniquitous job that pays their bills. They attacked the messenger for daring to detonate the criminal burbles beatified as noble arts; but the needless attacks only emboldened the writer. The more they weep, the more they are whipped.
The hypocrites sought to teach a talk- teacher how to talk. Only commentaries that fuel the minister’s unscrupulous ambition is in order; anything else is in error. To be correct, you must either join the gang that maligned Governor Aiyedatiwa or the team that applauded his maligners. The evil business thrived for long, until the truths collapsed it.
For ages, the governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, was wantonly traduced. Not for failure to deliver on quality governance; not for lack of capacity or popularity; but for bad grouse; the beef that predated his term as Governor. His battlers had belittled his gifts, prepared his fall and labelled him for ouster as deputy governor, for specious claims; but providence prevailed.
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The scheme did not emanate outdoors; it was mooted within, by members of his own party. The combat got fiercer the moment it became more auspicious that he would succeed his principal. Even as acting governor, the critics’ affront soared; but throughout the throes, Aiyedatiwa stayed unruffled. His gift of aplomb is unwonted. And when all the machinations could not stop him, the plot to pluck him out of the party’s gubernatorial ticket began.
At that height, hatchet men were let loose. Aiyedatiwa’s denigrators did everything to deflate his prospects. The onslaught shifted to the country’s seat of power. His adversaries deployed all weapons. The president, who had visited the state to sympathise was received with all shades of lies, all of that to make him lose the ticket destiny had placed in his hands. Even that flatly failed.
His detractors did not only play God; they fought God to no avail. Meanwhile, Governor Akeredolu, had preferred Aiyedatiwa, not just as a deputy but as a successor. He was, while alive, enamoured by Aiyedatiwa’s superlative traits; his rarity of humility, intelligence, leadership credentials and loyalty put him apart from the crowd, and placed him steadily on Akeredolu’s mind. The late Governor announced it; even those who dined with him knew the fact but preferred to veil it.
Those who could not stop Aiyedatiwa’s journey to leadership were a set of foes; those who fought Akeredolu while alive and vainly planned to use Aiyedatiwa for revenge make another layer. There are those who futilely sought to dictate the pattern of governance and became disgruntled. The man who must become a Governor at any cost smartly harvested the various categories of foes and brand them as agents who must wear the president’s ambition cap but the minister’s undershirt.
The latter ploy was for the aggregate to pull down the man they could not stop as individuals; to advertise desperate ambition as public affection and swindle unsuspecting citizens. But all the baits have, again, hit the wall. The public can henceforth sieve whatever filters into her space in the form of facts after the fall of the pack of lies.
•Akinbami is Senior Special Assistant to Governor Aiyedatiwa on Public Communication.
