Extra: I Hope Iyabo Obasanjo Fails, By Bamidele Johnson

Iyabo Obasanjo is throwing herself into this governorship bid with admirable stamina. I hope she fails. Why? Because I am a man of spite and loathing. Not the recreational kind. Mine is sorta personal interest-driven.

IO (nee IOB) represented Ogun Central in the Senate. Ogun Central includes Lambe, my former hood, and the stretch of neglected humanity that answers to names like Alagbole, Akute, Oke Aro, Adiyan, Ope Ilu, Agbado and Ijoko. These are places that exist on maps but not in policy imagination.

Before the choir rises to remind me that a senator is not a governor and, therefore, cannot build roads, I ask why she did not do what countless members of the National Assembly do, which is attract at least one tangible infrastructural project.

One road, one properly funded intervention, one visible footprint that says, “I was here.” We got zilch. Legislative office is not decorative. It comes with influence, committee leverage, appropriation bargaining, constituency projects and federal agency pressure points. Senators lobby, negotiate, insert line items and fight for their districts. That is the JD.

If you cannot leverage a senatorial seat to deliver even the most basic infrastructural relief to communities that practically choke on neglect, on what evidence should anyone entrust you with an entire state?

What did that axis get? Scowl after scowl; a face like a diseased arse. The roads in the axis are not merely bad. They are geological features. When the rains come, they become a study in erosion and despair. During the dry season, they are a rehearsal venue for Dakar Rally. For 26 years, that corridor has been treated like an afterthought by everyone who has represented Ogun Central in the National Assembly. She included.

It does not end there. Not one member of the Ogun State House of Assembly in 26 years has mounted a sustained, aggressive case for that axis. Not one. No coalition of outrage. No budget war. No public crusade that made the executive uncomfortable enough to act.

It is always the same ritual. Campaign season brings promises.

If you cannot leverage a senatorial seat to deliver even the most basic infrastructural relief to communities that practically choke on neglect, on what evidence should anyone entrust you with an entire state? Ambition is not qualification. Energy is not achievement. A scowl is not a strategy.

My spite, as declared, is not baseless. It is anchored on asphalt that was never laid, on communities that have waited since 1999, and on the stubborn fact that representation should produce results.

If governorship is the next rung on the ladder, then the previous rung must be inspected. And in this case, it looks a lot less than sparkling.