Ogunlewe’s Comment About Awo Is Insulting, Scandalous, Irresponsible And Absurd -By Agboola Osabia Esq.

In his interview with the Cable News, Ogunlewe remarked that “Tinubu has more achievements than Awolowo, MKO Abiola”. In the said interview, the following is an excerpt: “He (Tinubu) is the most prominent Yoruba person that has paid his dues and is knowledgeable about the politics of Nigeria. I am confident he can lead Nigeria well if he becomes president,” he said.

“How can I say that the north will deny Tinubu and he will end up like MKO Abiola? All these people are enemies of progress… Hasn’t he (Tinubu) done more than MKO Abiola? Hasn’t he done more than Awolowo?”

“Maybe not in terms of performance but he has more in terms of skills and wisdom. Look at the way he has been able to cover all parts of Nigeria.”

“Look at the number of people he has been able to promote from nothing to be governors, ministers and even Vice-President.”

“Believe it or not, whether you like him or you don’t like him, you must give him credit. All those saying negative things are not knowledgeable about Nigerian politics. If you are knowledgeable about Nigerian politics, you should know that you cannot remove the man’s achievements from him.”

Kingley Adeseye Ogunlewe is from Igbogbo in the Ikorodu local government area. He is an alumnus of the prestigious University of Ibadan. He is a lawyer and a retired civil servant. In 1999, under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) Ogunlewe, was elected to the Nigerian Senate and he later defected to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and when he sought for re-election in 2003 he lost to the candidate of his former party. His new party compensated him with a ministerial portfolio and he became the Federal Minister for Works between July 2003 to March 2006. Shortly after he became a minister in 2003, he announced “the federal government would invest about US$2.85 billion in rehabilitating and upgrading the nation’s highway network, and planned to make all roads in the country accessible by year-end. In March 2006, he was dismissed and shortly after, he was among the people that urged the then President to seek for the third term.

In November 2009, Heineken Lokpobiri the Chairman of the Senate ad hoc committee on transport, submitted a report to the Senate that revealed allegation of “serial malpractices” in the road contracting over a ten-year period and recommended that Ogunlewe along with past ministers Anthony Anenih, Obafemi Anibaba and Cornelius Adebayo should all be indicted for corruption.

In July 2002, while a senator, Ogunlewe and Senator Wahab Dosumu both accused the then Lagos State governor Ahmed Tinubu of abusing public trust through the awards of contracts to his cronies. In 2019, Ogunlewe is now a bonafide member of the ruling party APC.

What sort of a person will attribute success in office with people who effectually exhibit nepotism? To the likes of Ogunlewe, if you raised a few men and women to become governors, senators and ministers at the expense of building social housing, hospitals, schools, industries and commerce, roads, railways then you have become an achiever. I know his type and nothing is an abomination as long as the reward is a bowl of porridge, they will sell their souls.

Is he not the same man that urged the then-president to seek for a third term by amending the constitution so that he can be fed with the crumbs that fell off the table? The same man that accused Tinubu of corruption in 2002 now is the lead singer for the 2023 campaign. Look at the state of the federal roads. By his own words in 2003, he said he was going to rehabilitate and upgrade the nation’s highway network and that all federal roads will be accessible. The man lied. Federal roads in the nation are still a death trap. Adeseye Ogunlewe can support the candidacy of Tinubu or whosoever he chooses as that’s his prerogative, however, bringing the name of Awo into that deranged analysis is simply blasphemous. He should be enjoying his retirement and playing with his grandchildren instead of trying to be relevant and begging for another paying job. Scores of Nigerian youths are in a deep problem when the likes of Ogunlewe are still looking for employment. I will not talk about Awo’s achievement today but will inform all the Ogunlewes that if Awo existed 300 years before his birth, he would have been deified and thus, become not only one of the Yoruba gods but the greatest of them. There is no Yoruba person dead or alive that touched the lives of the Yoruba people like Awo did. It is not Ogunlewe that will advise intellectual minded minds on who to vote because his antecedents are plagued by self-interest and corruption. Awo is revered not only among his people but the entire humanity and Ogunlewe’s principal is unfit to untie Awo’s shoes.