By; Akoko South-West APC Leaders.
No dictum dictates any action in life more than the conclusion of the storybook entitled; The Betrayal. One I read in my secondary school days that will guide my engagements till Jesus comes: “Remember those you meet on your way up, more likely than not, they may still be of help on your way down.
Let us conclude that Hon. Gbenga Omole didn’t read it. However, life and its lessons ought to have taught him better. Going through his rant and rage against his benefactor, we must not but conclude that he has indeed reached the end of the road and he is finding the way out but there is no life after death in politics.
When Engr. Ade Adetimehin (Ondo State APC Chairman) was appointed the Special Assistant on Youth Affairs to the late Governor of Ondo State, Chief Adebayo Adefarati, he appointed Gbenga Omole as his Personal Assistant against the advice of his (Gbenga Omole’s) uncle who knew him better. As his aide, he gave him a car that he first drove in his life.
As a political mentor to Gbenga Omole, Adetimehin ensured that Gbenga was appointed as the Education Secretary of Akoko South West when the administration of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, came on board in 2017. The position he occupied till he aspired to be a Member of the Ondo State House of Assembly. While seeking the support of the Chairman for the ticket, Gbenga took money to the Chairman to assist him with the elective position. The Chairman rejected his unholy offer but instead got his unalloyed support.
The same ungrateful Gbenga labels a man who didn’t collect money from him a tax collector today. This is someone who couldn’t have won a primary election, let alone a general election but for the support of Engr. Ade Adetimehin and other progressive allies ensured his victories at the party primary and the general election. Today he is about to finish his tenure as MHA now.
No sooner had Gbenga become a Member of the House of Assembly than he proved to the world that a friend in power is a friend lost. He didn’t only allow power to corrupt him, but he also proudly portrayed his benefactors and the electorate constituents as fools for their support.
On his resumption as a member of the state legislative body and was appointed as chairman of the information committee, he addressed the press to paint Akeredolu’s administration black about the state of infrastructure of the Ondo State House of Assembly. He lied to the world that the snake fell from the Assembly’s roof while the proceeding was ongoing.
The Internet is our witness. (Google it)
Without any iota of respect to the party and government that sponsored his candidature, Olugbenga Omole brazenly boasted that he didn’t mind if his action would cost him his second term bid. Never did anybody know that he was prophesying his disgrace from power.
The clownish colossus changed camp to fighting his benefactor, the party Chairman, his friends, and constituent who solidly stood by him in his dark days. He heaped up insults on them but he was ignored because his membership which he saw as a political exploit has never brought him close to them in life.
Owó àkàrà omodé.
Many Leaders who knew how the party Chairman and friends brought him to the political limelight including the state Governor cautioned and reprimanded him but he refused to retrace his wrong steps. He railroaded his Constituency as if he would never seek their votes again. He treated members of the party with utter disdain and disloyalty.
The boy felt he had arrived.
During his re-election bid in the 2022 APC primary election, he sought forgiveness from his benefactor and leaders and he was given. Omo eni kònì burú títí k’álé fún ekùn paje. After the endorsement of his candidature by Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, the political warlord came back to Oka and began to mock and insult his perceived political adversaries, most of whom were delegates in the deciding primary election.
He never knew that there would still be primary willy-nilly. The Chairman and Leaders intervened to ensure that the endorsement of the Governor see the light of the day. But the delegates decided otherwise by rejecting him at the party primary poll. The reason he distantly came third in the primary election.
Quite disappointedly, all actions of Gbenga after losing the primary election were to shoot down the political party that gave him the enormous opportunity and its candidates in the last election. According to the report of his people, he campaigned against some candidates of the party and mobilized his supporters to vote against them. By his self-admission, he only mentioned Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the candidate of the party he worked for in his writeup.
The question to ask him is whether Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was the only candidate of APC in the last election. Consequently, the leader of the party in Akoko South West, Rt. Hon. Victor Olabimtan called a meeting to review the fallout of the elections and the various letters from different wards. He, Gbenga Omole was among those suspended from the party in the Local Government.
The party Chairman was properly briefed on the anti-party activities of these members and the subsequent suspension of some of them. While receiving the letter, the chairman said it was a family affair and that the State Executive Council would review it. Additionally, he said the State Exco would make sure that all differences are amicably settled to position the party better in Akoko South West and the State.
It, therefore, baffles one why Gbenga blamed his failures on his benefactor. In our opinion, if Gbenga Omole has forgotten the benevolence of the past, he shouldn’t have forgotten that omoluabi must accord respect to age in Yorubaland.
Nobody deserves greater pity than a man who turns against his benefactors when he secures success and also blames them when vicissitude visits him. Now that his tenure is winding up as a Member of the Ondo State House of Assembly, the fear of life after office and reunion with those offended have propelled his shameful outburst in his shoddy writeup.
Gbenga’s gesture is a story of a man who rewards evil for good. Proverbs 17:13 tells us about the consequence but it is never our wish for him.
Pèlé Gbenga!