Gov. Adebayo Alao-Akala and the Adedibu 'curse'!

*Sunny Chris Okenwa December 25, 2010

Governor Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State is a special Chief Executive in Nigeria
indeed. Akala is special in many ways! He is very unique when it comes to Governors who want
to turn their natural black skin to white using bleaching chemicals to achieve this objective.
Akala is also special among his peers because he looks every inch like an over-fed ancient Oba
or a royal father who believed before civilisation in a dead god whom he must appease with a
goat or a chicken regularly in order to spare his kingdom and his kingship.

If we remember how and why the pop music icon, Michael Jackson, died then we are sorry for
Akala and his cosmetic body. How, well before his celebrated demise, he became whiter than the
average whiteman -- all in vain search for something unnatural -- it becomes imperative
appreciating the dangers inherent in bleaching one's God-given skin. I have never seen nor heard
of any white man who was desperate to become black or who underwent a plastic surgery in
order to undo what the Creator put in place in His majestic wisdom!

Besides, Gov. Akala is about the only Governor in Nigeria whose love of chains and bangles
cannot be ignored. Shining always like the ex-dictator Ibrahim Babangida (who was known to
have used chemicals also to polish his physical features) Akala always appears publicly wearing
gold wristwatch, gold-plated chains and bangles. Sometimes he reminds one of the bleaching
Congo-born France-based international popular musician Kofi Olomide whose attires and
ornaments attract instant recognition wherever he goes.

I remember watching the superstar put up a great concert in Le Zenith in Paris France few years
ago; his dancers were wonderfully comparable to those dancing for the Positive Force band led
by the Nigerian Femi Kuti, the son of the late Abami Eda Fela Kuti. They held people spell-
bound with their masterful display of erotical dance-steps, jiggling their bodies in perfect
response to the melody. I had equally watched Femi perform wonders with Youssou N'dour of
Senegal in Abidjan's Hotel Ivoire theater many years ago.

One does not know how Alao-Akala as Governor is expecting his subjects to behave as regards
the danger inherent in bleaching the skin and turning a God-given skin from black to white or
yellow. Again when the youths look at him wearing expensive watch, necklace and bangles they
may be thinking that their governor is a rich superstar comparable to Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger (of Commando fame) or 50 Cent, the American rap megastar!

Profiling Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala is a hard task indeed. It is hard in the sense that the
man represents many things embedded in one. Profiling him accurately is akin to profiling the
modern Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar or the notorious porn megastar, the Italy-born
America-based Rocco Siffredi. Akala is to Oyo what Siffredi is to the porn industry world-wide!
Like the King Nebu of old (whom God banished to the jungle to eat grass like animals) he is the
king of the jungle in Ibadan!

Like Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State Alao-Akala is a PDP Governor in a Yoruba region

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of Nigeria where the opposition has reclaimed the states (Ondo, Ekiti, Osun) the ruling party had
won through organized electoral fraud! Like Gov. Daniel, an executive marabout who derives
joy in administering fetish oaths on his aides, sometimes in nude circumstances, Gov. Akala's
marabouts could be found in Ogbomosho, his hometown, where they work diabolically for his
spiritual well-being and political success!

Unlike Gbenga Daniel however (a notorious governor who wanted to rule Ogun State
unchallenged as a monarch) Akala is working in harmony with the state house of assembly
having compromised and cowed them. Gov. Daniel has since made it impossible for the state
assembly to do its constitutionally-guaranteed oversight functions by manipulating and creating
confusion that is still evident today. It is democratically antithetical for a minority to seek to
command a majority! If in any doubt then ask the Kongi!

Barely-educated or should I say a "semi-illiterate" (apology to Mr Sam Omatseye, the award-

winning The Nation columnist) Adebayo Alao-Akala is a big man with big dreams: he wants to
continue beyond next year for another 4 years as Governor but that aspiration is left for the Oyo
voters to decide upon. That Akala has failed as governor is an under statement. As a good
student of Amala politics Akala has become a monster Oyo people do not need either now or in
the future.

Remember how this glamorous Governor with fashion sense got into office as chief executive of
Oyo State? When the late demon of Molete Lamidi Adedibu decided as the strong man of Oyo
politics to remove by force ex-Governor Rashidi Ladoja he employed both the state assembly
and the agberos to realise his wish. Akala, then deputy governor to the impeached Ladoja, was
installed as the substantive governor, much to his delight.

Though he helped Ladoja to power Adedibu positioned Akala as Deputy Governor so that in any
event that the former misbehaved the latter would succeed him. The late garrison commander in
Ibadan once boasted before death humbled him out of existence to the great beyond (where in all
probability he must have disputed the godfather position in the Hades with the likes of Sani
Abacha, Mobutu and Bokassa) that his godson Akala generously paid him monthly security
votes to be able to maintain the horde of thugs and thieves that came to his house to eat and take
orders to kill or maim opponents.

Alao-Akala has learnt a whole lot from this old ugly thug resting in hell! After he died (to the
relief of many a Nigerian) Akala was thought to have been finished politically by the demise of
his godfather who meant everything to him. Alas he has held his own using brute force and
settlement syndrome --a la IBB -- to overcome any challenge. As a strategy towards his re-
election bid Akala has proscribed the NURTW in Oyo state leading to two factions emerging
and brawling. The two factions, one loyal to him led by one Eleweomo and the other led by the
leader recognised by the law, Tokyo. Akala is using the police to back his faction intimidating
and killing members of the Tokyo group during repeated clashes.

As the godfather of thugs in Oyo state Akala is a rogue Governor! And like Gov. Ikedi Ohakim
of Imo State and Gbenga Daniel he is terribly corrupt. He squanders the state resources on

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frivolous things and uses gifts (like car, rice and cow) as bribe to placate the growing opposition.
It must be added here for purposes of emphasis that some of those he had tried to bribe with the
Greek gifts had turned them down.

Gov. Alao-Akala is busy arming and sponsoring thugs with the aim of using them to once again
rig the gubernatorial poll of next year. With Prof. Jega in charge in INEC however we wait to
see how this is going to happen. But meanwhile we urge eternal vigilance to the Oyo people
even though we know that in a free and fair election in Oyo state Akala will be soundly beaten.
The Amala politics era is gone for good!

It would be recalled that the governor was a former policeman who left active service in
controversial circumstances before becoming a politician by accident. A hard look at Adebayo
Alao-Akala reveals an owambe governor in love with the good life, a man who does not have
time for any hard thinking or innovative thoughts. He is a party man: chop I chop God no go
vex! An executive reveler like him does not have the strategic answers to the problems of the
Oyo people.

His recent public altercation on the pages of national newspapers with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
demonstrated how not to be a governor of a frontline state like Oyo. In the early 90's as a
teenaged student doing my higher education in Benin City I was invited over to the city of Ilorin
by a pastor to attend the dusk-to-dawn crusade by the great international German evangelist Rev.
Reinhard Bonnke. As I left Benin city for Ilorin (the venue of the crusade been a stadium off
Ibrahim Taiwo Road) we passed through Ibadan and one could behold a great sprawling city. I
was very impressed with the sights and sounds of the city especially the Cocoa House. But today
things seemed to have fallen apart.

Few months ago the opposition in the state led by Senator Lekan Balogun had planned to
organize a rally in Ogbomosho. But on the D-day Akala sent his armed thugs to go waylay the
organizers as they were coming to town from Lagos. If not for their vigilance many people
would have been killed; their supporters returned fire as they were fired upon and the hoodlums
sent by the governor took to their heels.

Is Gov. Alao-Akala cursed by the late Lamidi Adedibu? One may not answer correctly such
question given its spiritual dimension but since Adedibu himself was cursed before his death by
the Almighty God of Abraham and Moses the likelihood is there that the sins of the late
godfather is being visited on his godson!

Yet it goes without saying that the manner the Ogbomosho man goes about the business of
misgoverning Oyo state may indicate certain absence of mind. The Nigerian democracy must be
hailed for accommodating such characters even when we had thought that the Barkin Zuwo
syndrome has been put behind us. The Oyo electorate can do next year without an Akara nay
Akala in the Government House.

*soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.frsoco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr

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