Feyisetan Ogunfuyi
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.
The Agbado axis offers a particularly telling example. Lagos has extended its Red Line rail infrastructure to enhance mobility and unlock economic opportunities for border communities. Yet, on the Ogun side, the complementary infrastructure required to maximise that opportunity remains largely unattended.
Nearly two years on, what should have been a shared economic advantage has been reduced to a one-sided intervention. This is not just an oversight; it is a failure of coordination, and more fundamentally, a failure of vision.
Notably, road infrastructure is not a collection of isolated projects; it is a system. Its value lies in connectivity. A road that does not link to anything useful, a transport project that is not integrated into a wider network, or a rural intervention that cannot connect to urban markets, these are not achievements; they are missed opportunities dressed as progress.
This is why the administration’s often-cited projects in other parts of the state struggle to command broad public confidence, not even the much-publicised airport and agro-cargo hub.
Under Governor Abiodun, the selection of projects appears, at best, uneven; at worst, ill-conceived. When the most strategic corridors, the arteries that drive commerce, industry and mobility, are neglected, the value of projects tucked away in less consequential areas is inevitably diminished.
In simple terms: isolated transformation is no transformation.
The condition of key routes reinforces this point. The Sango-Ota–Ijoko corridor, the Ota-Idiroko Expressway, Ijebu-Ode Epe and the Sango-Ota–Ogba Ayo–Oke-Aro–Akute road are not peripheral roads; they are economic lifelines. Their prolonged abandonment over the past seven years raises uncomfortable questions about prioritisation. Why have the Abiodun administration neglected the very routes that sustain Ogun’s internally generated revenue left in such condition, while attention is diverted elsewhere?
For many residents, the answer is not flattering. There is a growing perception that governance decisions have been shaped less by economic logic and more by political considerations, including a reluctance to continue projects associated with predecessors, with whom the governor has been at loggerheads since inception of the tenure. Whether or not this is the intent, the effect is clear: discontinuity, delay and diminished public trust.
Considerably, nowhere are the consequences more severe than in Ota itself. As the most industrialised zones in the state, Ota should represent Ogun’s strongest economic statement. Instead, it has become a case study in contradiction, an industrial hub constrained by failing infrastructure.
Businesses contend with rising logistics costs, workers endure punishing commute times, and investors face inefficiencies that should not exist in such a strategic corridor. The area that generates value for the state is, paradoxically, denied the infrastructure required to sustain that value.
The dysfunction extends into the rural belt, particularly Yewa North, even with the recent completion of Imasayi–Igan Okoto–Ayetoro Road. Here, the issue is not just neglect but misalignment. Rural roads are sometimes constructed, but without the necessary linkages to major transport corridors. The result is predictable: farm produce struggles to reach markets, especially Lagos and the intended economic benefits fail to materialise. What remains are projects that exist physically but underperform economically.
This is the core indictment of the current approach: not that nothing has been done, but that too much of what has been done appears disconnected from a coherent development strategy. It is within this context that Adeola’s emergence is being interpreted.
The enthusiasm surrounding him is less about his proven capacity and more about a collective desire for departure, from the Dapo Abiodun-led adminitrations’s style of governance that many now view as inattentive to the state’s most critical needs. Put differently, the optimism is not about who he is, but about who he is not. That is a difficult verdict for any administration to confront.
As Ogun approaches 2027, current holder would be seeking elective posts on mother levels, the political conversation is shifting in a fundamental way. It is no longer about continuity as a default virtue, but about correction as an urgent necessity. Voters are asking simpler, more grounded questions: Are projects aligned with economic priorities? Have critical corridors received attention? Are past investments being completed or quietly abandoned for childish steaks?
In answering these questions, roads have become the most credible witnesses. And today, from the border towns of Ado-Odo/Ota and Ifo to the rural stretches of Yewa North, those roads tell a consistent story, one that challenges the narrative of progress and exposes the limits of selective development.
The implication is clear. Achievements, no matter how well-intentioned, cannot stand in isolation. When they are poorly sited, weakly integrated or overshadowed by neglect in more strategic areas, they lose their value in the eyes of the people.
That is why the applause that greeted Adeola was not merely political, it was emotional. It carried a message, however understated: that the present administration has fallen short and that even the uncertainty of the expected-to-come now feels like an improvement.
For an incumbent administration, that is perhaps the hardest judgment of all.
*Ogunfuyi, a student of politics and power, wrote from Abeokuta, Ogun State
