Between Dapo Abiodun And Amosun’s Praise Singers -By Dotun Oladipupo

The moment I saw my Oga’s question paper on principles and practice of advertising for ND I Students where he said “not all communications are advertisement”, I felt the urge to write on the exchanges that engulfed the Ogun state social media space on the now trending “40 days, 35 days a month” slip of the Governor at a political rally in Ado Odo Ota local government, but I had to wait for the completion of the examination paper before I’m accused of leaking questions and compromising the examination process.

Truly, not all communications are advertisement, especially political advertisement, as every intended and unintended communication will be interpreted and analysed to suit a bias narrative of a political bloc especially one that is an opposition. So, it is not surprising when the Governor’s slip made it to the top of trends on the Ogun social media space, especially Facebook with the opposition and non admirers of the governor alluding many denigrating reasons for the slip.

Yes, every human makes mistakes and can slip anytime for many different reasons, but the manner at which this slip was vociferously pounced on by the opposition amuses and at the same time irritates, but it is excusable since all are banters and cruise (at least to me) especially at a time that the social media has reduced very serious sociopolitical discourses to nothingness, cruise and banters on its platforms.

I do not have sympathy for the governor’s vuvuzelas because if you flip this scenario, they will be equally more vociferous in their numbers as voltrons to pounce too. For some of us who are not emotionally invested into any of the sides, it is fascinating and entertaining to see and read the different hot takes for and against.

However, having been a keen observer of the governor, he is not gifted in political eloquence, the type characterized by the likes of Rauf Aregbesola who has one rebellious song or the other to banter political opponents or Amosun who can effortlessly spend all day throwing targeted jabs at opponents in between serious interviews or even spontaneous media interviews.

The governor will likely make more of these slips in the future especially as the electioneering season fast approaches, where he will lead his party’s campaigns in the state and it is expected that the governor would use every opportunity these political campaigns offer to throw jibes at Amosun.

He will run into more slips and that will pose herculean tasks for his social media voltrons (defenders of the universe) to battle with. He should rather continue within “limited resources” to make very telling political statements by completing Amosun’s uncompleted projects that are capable of scoring political points, one of such is the uncompleted Iyana Oloke/ MAPOLY road which incidentally is senator Amosun’s Alma mater.

This will be a sure three pointer goal scored not only for his administration but also for his “data boys” who will have something to banter on at a time there is a resurgence of admiration for Amosun for providing an alternative in Biyi Otegbeye against Governor Dapo Abiodun. We will enjoy it, so let the banters go on.

Footnotes:
I have decided not to make this a long read, I will leave other areas mentioned in passing in the piece for another day as my description of Amosun’s government remain that he was an Abeokuta governor rather than Ogun State governor. Interestingly, like footballers, some of his top strikers and defenders who rationalize just anything at the time are now Dapo Abiodun’s transfer deadline signings.

Dotun Oladipupo writes via dotunoladipupo@gmail.com from Idofa, Ogun State