Opinion

By Aare Amerijoye Dotb

Yesterday, I engaged in an intense political dialogue with Hon. Akinbowale Omole, former Majority Leader of the first Ekiti State House of Assembly, former State Chairman of the Labour Party in Ekiti, and erstwhile Commissioner for Information under Dr. Kayode Fayemi. In the course of our conversation, he lamented the worn-out, intellectually bankrupt tactic of labeling people as “betrayers” or “bastards” the moment they dare to deviate from the script written by the self-anointed gods of Yoruba politics. The speed with which dissent is criminalised and ideological independence punished is not only disturbing, it is tragic.

Tragic, because the very man now deified by these zealots has done nothing monumental for the Yoruba people, except trample the sacred ethos of Omoluabi, ridicule the principles of probity in governance, and drag us into the narcotic-forfeiture history of shame that is entirely alien to the Yoruba soul.

Let us state it clearly. Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s narcotics-related forfeiture of over $460,000 in a U.S. court is not a whisper of rumour. It is a documented, certified judicial fact. Yet his fanatics would rather gaslight the nation than confront the moral rot at the apex of their political cathedral.

If Bola Tinubu’s administration were performing, he wouldn’t need to conscript 1,000 social media writers he assembled a few days ago to whitewash his regime of kleptocracy and kakistocracy. I chuckled, yes, chuckled, when members of The Narrative Force bombarded my inbox, panicking over the recruitment of 1,000 online defenders.

I laughed, not in mockery, but in bitter irony. What exactly is there to defend? The hunger? The hardship? The hopelessness? The institutionalised incompetence?

That is not defense. That is desperate damage control. And in this sea of decay, Aregbesola was right, heroically right, to sever ties with the collapsing edifice and the mildew of arrogance that clings to its rotten throne.

When propaganda is stripped away and political loyalty is divorced from feudal subservience, history will not remember Rauf Aregbesola as a betrayer, but as the last honest remnant of Tinubu’s long-abandoned ideals. He is not Judas in this unfolding drama. He is the crucified one, bearing the sins of a political cult where gratitude is demanded like ransom and truth is punished like treason.

To Mayor Akinpelu, your piece is not an article. It is a disgraceful hymn of sycophancy. A cowardly beatification of a godfather who has long buried the ideals he once pretended to uphold. If betrayal resides anywhere in this narrative, it oozes from your pen, not from Aregbesola’s conscience.

Let’s shred your lazy revisionism point by point.

You mockingly described Rauf as a “scruffy man in tebliq trousers.” So what? That so-called “scruffy man” possessed more ideology in his bloodstream than the entire Lagos cabinet Tinubu ever cobbled together. Are we now evaluating political worth by fashion? (You can see how you goofed with such a nauseating assertion.) By that logic, Mahatma Gandhi would never have liberated India. Aregbesola wasn’t one of your boutique politicians in velvet suits offering empty speeches for contracts. He was a man of the trenches, a NADECO warrior, while your Asiwaju was cutting foreign deals in exile.

In the trenches of NADECO, Aregbesola was not a mere spectator. He was in the engine room, distributing anti-military leaflets, organising rallies, evading arrest, and keeping the democratic flame alive. The same NADECO that Tinubu later hijacked for myth-making was the crucible of Aregbesola’s activism, not his inheritance.

You mention 1999 as though it was a divine coronation. Let’s correct you. Tinubu did not make Aregbesola. Their alliance was born of mutual necessity, not a kingmaker’s benevolence. If anything, Aregbesola gave Tinubu credibility, grassroots firepower, a movement’s soul. Without Rauf in Alimosho, BATCO would have died stillborn. Aregbesola’s command of the masses paved the political road Tinubu strutted on. Mayor, perhaps your frequent pilgrimages to Isaac John dulled your memory?

Aregbesola did not ascend through cocktail circuits or media branding. He earned his relevance through sweat and sacrifice. That “scruffy mobilizer” became Commissioner, Governor, and Minister, not by pity, but by unmatched competence.

You lament the infamous “contract story” as if it exonerates you. On the contrary, it exposes the decayed patronage ecosystem Tinubu engineered. That loyalty had to be proven through contracts is itself the problem. Aregbesola refused backdoor negotiations at midnight. So is this a rebuttal, or a lament of failed contract seeking? The real beef is that Aregbesola didn’t give you a contract? He asked you to see him at midnight. What is wrong with that? Midnight meetings are a metaphor for hard work in politics, not a sinister code. If you couldn’t wait till midnight, perhaps you were not hungry enough for the contract. And that was good but stop holding it against Aregbesola.

You glorify Tinubu’s decision to leave Rauf’s commissioner seat vacant “in case he failed,” forgetting this. Aregbesola was not a spare tire. He was the engine. Tinubu trusted his competence and considered it necessary to keep the position vacant for him. While Tinubu protected family ambitions in Lagos, Aregbesola fought the PDP’s election heist in Osun, laying a judicial precedent that reverberated across Nigeria.

You blame Aregbesola and Peperito for Ambode’s downfall. Laughable. What you interpret as sabotage was resistance to tyranny masked as internal democracy. Ambode fell not because of Aregbesola, but because the godfather cannot stomach independent thought. That’s the real betrayal, not Aregbesola’s defiance, but Tinubu’s allergy to dissent. Ambode’s fall was orchestrated by multiple intra-party dynamics. Blaming Aregbesola for Ambode’s political fate is like blaming the moon for tides. It’s a convenient scapegoat. Besides, Ambode never publicly alleged betrayal. That’s your inference.

You say Aregbesola owes Tinubu everything. False. It was Tinubu who depended on Aregbesola’s machine to conquer the Southwest. Osun was the crucible. Oranmiyan wasn’t a slogan. It was a doctrine. Aregbesola pulled Osun out of PDP clutches, empowered artisans, educated children, built infrastructure, and governed with vision. He owes the people, not a political deity.

And when the time came to hand over, Tinubu imposed his cousin, a man with no grassroots capital. Aregbesola, in statesmanlike restraint, accepted him. But that technocrat didn’t just differ. He dismantled Aregbesola’s legacy brick by brick. Tinubu? He watched. He smirked. He said nothing.

And you expect silence?

Then came the insults. The erasure. The sabotage.

The Oyetola Saga: Yes, Aregbesola disagreed with Oyetola’s candidacy. And? Is that a crime? Must loyalty mean silence in the face of disagreement? Even Jesus argued with his disciples. The Oyetola imposition was a classic case of power play, and the people of Osun paid the price. What’s disloyal about saying the truth?

Yet Aregbesola never told all. But you, Mayor, throw around vile allegations, claiming he said Tinubu urinates on himself. That’s not just false. It’s evil. Aregbesola’s metaphor about “people urinating on themselves” never mentioned Tinubu. That your mind leapt to him betrays your own guilt. If the shoe fits, wear it, but don’t weaponise metaphor into character assassination.

You say Fashola kept silent. Fine. But silence is not always virtue. Sometimes, it is cowardice. Fashola chose silence. Aregbesola chose courage. He confronted hypocrisy, rejected nepotism, and walked away from a one-way loyalty cult. That is Omoluabi, not of convenience, but of conviction. Fashola kept quiet even when hurt. So we are now benchmarking leadership by silent suffering? That’s not Omoluabi, that’s slavery. Aregbesola spoke up. That’s courage. Omoluabi doesn’t mean blind obedience. It means principled conduct. Fashola is entitled to his style. Aregbesola chose another, and history will judge both.

Now you ridicule his defection to ADC. Yet Tinubu himself built his legacy by defecting. AC, ACN, APC, ring a bell? His own style of “gang-up.” But now, no one else must dare realign?

Let it be known, I was once a proud PDP member. I carry no bitterness. The PDP was a vital chapter of my political growth. But today, I pitch my tent with ADC, not out of desperation, but conviction. Because men like Aregbesola, David Mark, Tambuwal, and Atiku are returning sanity to a political space desecrated by political cultism.

Aregbesola left APC with his head high, not as a defector, but as a reformer. He is now the National Secretary, not by accident, but by merit, vision, and moral clarity, the very virtues APC abandoned.

Mayor Akinpelu, hear this with finality. Tinubu is not God. He is not infallible. He is not royalty. And Nigeria is not Bourdillon Estate. His presidency does not wash away his sins. It magnifies them. And history, unbought, unbowed, and unsentimental, will write its verdict.

You say Aregbesola hasn’t made amends. For what exactly? Refusing to lick boots? Choosing principle over personality cult? Remaining progressive while Tinubu regressed into a patriarchal hoarder of power?

Mayor, the apology is yours, to the Nigerian people, for kneeling before tyranny and distorting the truth. Aregbesola needs no forgiveness from you. He remains what Tinubu used to be, a rebel with a cause, not a kingpin with a cult.

You ended with a Yoruba song. Permit me to end with a Yoruba truth.

“Bi ènìyàn bá fi ọwọ́ kan iná, ó un jó ni.” — When a man places his hand in fire, he must be ready for the burn.

You quoted: “Kò sí daríjì f’eni t’ó bà dà’lé…”Yes, but who betrayed whom? Is it betrayal to question excess? Is it betrayal to challenge imposition? The real betrayal is turning a movement into a monarchy. The real betrayal is punishing ideological independence.

You have touched the fire, by defending a fallen gospel with fake parables, and you will be scorched, not by us, but by truth, which, when unleashed, is ungovernable.

Rauf Aregbesola is not your villain. He is your mirror. What you hate in him is what you once respected in yourself,conviction, courage, and conscience.

May Nigeria have more Aregbesolas, and fewer Mayor Akinpelus.

Aare Amerijoye DOT.B

Director-General,

The Narrative Force