2011: OGUN ELDERS WANT OLURIN TO CONVENE MEETING

Leaders of thought in Ogun West area of Ogun State have asked the Deputy Chairman of the Ogun State Elders Consultative Forum and President of the Conference of Yewa Elders (CYE), General Adetunji Idowu Olurin, to convene an emergency meeting to bail the senatorial district out of impending political logjam.

The Asiwaju of Yewaland and his Aworiland counterpart, Professor Anthony Asiwaju and Senator Ayodeji Otegbola respectively, made the call in a position paper to strengthen the chances of Ogun West in producing the governor of the state in 2011.

The duo called for consensus building among the people of the area to attain the governorship for the first time in the 43-year history of the state, recalling how consensus had worked in the past, resulting in the emergence of a paramount ruler, Olu of Ilaro in 1994.

The two elders described emergence of a consensus aspirant in Ilaro to run for governor in the forthcoming elections on September 26 as 'the climax of this rapidly emerging regional capability to achieve unity in a Nigeria locality with typical socio-cultural diversity.'

They lamented 'this trend (consensus on governorship choice) now appears reversed by the controversial endorsement of General Adetunji Idowu Olurin, a highly revered elder in the region and indeed, Chairman of the Council of Yewa Elders since 2001 by the Ogun West Consultative Forum.'

Otegbola, the former Chairman of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and Asiwaju, an international boundary expert, warned that the latest endorsement of Olurin negated the earlier adoption of Isiaka, while nursing the fear that 'this latest but unhappy development appears to throw a spanner into the works of progress towards the realisation of Ogun-West-For-Governor project.'

Calling for collective efforts to fall into the mistakes of the past, which cost the area the governorship slot in 1978 and 1991, the Elders said: 'The persistence of the past has been the a factor that has militated against politicians in the region gaining access to the office of the governor since the inception of Ogun State in 1976.'

The duo called for what they called a re-thinking and a quick return to the tradition of consensus building and advised elders to rise above partisan politics by re-directing their efforts 'to ensure a special development focus on the region as a strategic location not only within Ogun State but also wider areas of Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States that is vitally interconnects.