All politics is indeed local

According to Abayomi James Oluwanifise’s article “Beyond Parochialism: Why Yayi’s Alleged Ekiti ancestry is no-brainer” of 19 September 2026, “When this rumour first reared its funny head, perhaps the camp of Senator Adeola would have probably waved it away as one of those malicious rumours that would die naturally with the belief that they usually have the lifespan of a mushroom.” The argument is not that Yayi comes from Ekiti or Mars, but to validate that he is indeed from Pahayi in Yewa, Ogun State. If we do remember Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s song, of 1980… Argument, argument, argue…Somebody don take something, wey belong to another person. Enhen! It is ‘yabis’ time.

Let’s start with the comparison of Obasanjo’s paternity and Yayi’s claim to be from Pahayi, a farmstead of Ilaro. Let’s assume Obasanjo would submit to a DNA test, then the truth or otherwise of such a claim to being of Igbo parentage can easily be established. However, it is beyond any doubt that Obasanjo is an indigene of Abeokuta with ancestral roots in Sojuolu in Ifo area of Ogun State. What about Senator Olamilekan Yayi? If he truly wants to establish his ancestral roots and claim to be from Ilaro, then he can submit himself and the Ogundimu family in Pahayi to a DNA test. The issue here is to put an end to all doubts once and for all. I think Yayi’s family and siblings can persuade him to submit to a verifiable DNA test and thus settle the controversy. Afterall, Caeser’s wife must be above suspicion.

For the records: Yayi’s plot to become the governor of Ogun State was actually hatched in 2014 during the two day celebration of Yewa Day in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. The event attracted a large number of Yewa descendants who saw it as an opportunity to celebrate their ancestral roots. Yayi invited a number of the prominent Yewa sons to his house in Atlanta, including Oba Olugbenle Ashade Agunloye IV, the Olu of Ilaro while the arrow head of the plot to smuggle Yayi into Yewa politics was the 94-year old Dr. Ibikunle Ayinde, an Ilaro elder. Let Yayi come out and deny that this didn’t happen in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States!
The second point is that every politics is local, thus the people of Yewa should be able to present a bonafide candidate, and not an interloper. If indeed Yayi is from Ilaro in Yewa South, why would he have to be running from pillar to post to establish his ancestry? According to Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, a tiger does not need to proclaim its tigritude. Twice, Senator Olamilekan ‘Yayi’ had tried to pass off as an indigene of Yewa, and twice he’d failed. First, he went to stake a claim in Isaga Orile where the people, in pure mischief gave him a plot of land located in Yewa North to build a house. Second, he claimed to be from Ago Isaga in Ilaro but he could not point to his ancestral home nor identify who his parents were! The third time around, he claims to be related to Pahayi, a satellite of Ilaro Township which is just like Ijado, Ijana, Ilobi Omuwa, settled homesteads of people from Ilaro quarters: Ona Ola, Ona Otun, Ona Osi, Ilu Ata, Oju Orona, Oju Oja, Ago Isaga, Oke Ibeshe, Akinniku, and others. Still, he does not know which Ilaro quarter his parents are from. Given his association with the Ogundimu of Pahayi, how come he doesn’t know that his people are domiciled in Ona Osi Quarters, with Ogundimu Alagbede, the blacksmith as perhaps the most famous! By the way, when you need Ilaro-Yewa indigeneship certificate, you don’t fill in a farmstead, but the quarter you’re from.

Again, Oluwanifise writes: “Before going to town with this type of claim, there should be the little matter of which particular town and more so, the family lineage he comes from in the particular town. Let me go a beat personal here. My mother is from Ikere-Ekiti. I started schooling there. Her father’s house is in a place called Oke Ugele area of Ikere-Ekiti. Anyone familiar with that town will naturally know where Oke Ugele is in Ikere-Ekiti. Now, more critically, someone also familiar with that geographical location will easily tell you that there are people of the same age bracket with someone claiming to be from that area would have grown up with.”

That is exactly the point. Yayi grew up in Iyana Ipaja area of Alimosho and should be able to tell us who his friends and classmates were. Of course, there will be people who knew him when he was growing up. The assumption is that if he truly is from Pahayi, he should be able to authoritatively point out his ancestral family house in Ilaro, because Pahayi is an outpost of Ilaro. Likewise, when he worked at The Guardian there should be records attesting to his state of origin. What about his NYSC certificate? What about his records when he was a politician in Lagos? All Ilaro indigenes come from a particular quarter in the town. As the population grew, they went to establish satellite communities on the outskirts of the town. Pahayi is such, a farmstead of Ilaro where people from Ago Isaga and other quarters went to hunt and farm. It was founded by a hunter from Ilaro. So, where is Yayi’s family home in Ilaro ancestral quarters? For example, Iyana Ipaja became popular as the road junction towards Ipaja in the Ayobo area of Alimosho. Ipaja was settled by people from Ipaja, after Idogo in Yewa South. So also was Igbogila community in Ipaja area settled by Igbogila people, a place near Dangote Cement factory at Ibeshe, all in Yewa South. Just as Iyana Ipaja people cannot claim to have migrated from Lagos to settle in Ipaja in Ogun state, so also it is that Pahayi people cannot claim to have migrated to found Ago Ishaga in Ilaro. His ‘fixers’ failed that history test. The core argument is that Yayi’s ancestral roots in Ogun West have shifted between different towns, raising doubts about whether he is truly an indigene of Pahayi-Ilaro.

Therefore, if people are contending that Yayi is not an indigene of Ilaro, it goes beyond politics. Let’s talk about filial piety and blood loyalty which are two deeply rooted cultural, social, and psychological concepts that dictate how individuals prioritize their obligations to family and kin. A man whose mode of operation is Machiavellian in nature and driven by the politics of the Godhead, a Mafia-like agenda towards state capture would have no compunction towards appropriating the state for personal gains. It stands to reason that when one claim is suspect, the driving force could be none other than the rich resources of the state. Given the ‘Nigerian factor,’ it is state capture fueled by the persistent struggle to control and exploit the offices of the state. This is a patron-client relationship geared towards access to economic resources. This is what Richard Joseph call prebendal politics, a fraternal democratic dispensation driven by party political machine, oiled with patronage and political godfatherism. Because poverty has been so weaponized in Nigeria, it is easy for the people to harbor hope of greater days ahead with a trust in the politicians although this optimism often invariably gets disappointed. The truth is that many refuse to understand the psychology of leadership, especially when a leader has crossed over into a longing for preeminent power, disguised as a noble longing to excel in serving the people.

Again the writer went on to praise Yayi saying that: “The interesting part of Adeola’s political odyssey is that while many see political positions as opportunity to amass wealth and acquire properties, Yayi prefers to invest in the people on whose mandate he has been attaining these enviable political positions.”

Where did the money Yayi was spending come from? Where? Was it his personal money or from appropriated funds for constituency projects in Ogun West? What was the nature of the projects he was executing and was there any town hall meeting to truly understand the needs of the people? Is the so called donation of motorcycles and sewing machines and others truly a path to empowering the Yewa people? What is the percentage of the recipients to the total population? Why did the people have to pay some money to collect a form before they could be eligible? How many people paid and how many were the beneficiaries? Is there any records kept? For the Constituency projects, is there any audit of the people’s money spent? This is nothing but the Patron-Client relationship, based on a rent-seeking platform. The net effect of this would be generational poverty and underdevelopment. I hope someone remembers Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People.

The writer now contends that: “For so long, politics in this part of the world is that which thrives on prebendalism. It is about how much one can take from an unfettered access to the public till.” It isn’t just prebendalism, but actually neopatrimonial. Prebendalism, according to Richard Joseph’s book Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria is a political system in which elected officials and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and they use them to benefit supporters, co-religionists and members of their group. It is a patron-client relationship. It is the kind of politics which the likes of Yayi plays that ensures Nigerians remains mired in poverty. According to Brookings: “The crippling consequences of dysfunctional governance are experienced in all areas of life in Nigeria. There is a fundamental contradiction between prebendalism and the provision of efficient public services.”

Can prebendal attitudes toward governmental office ever change and, if so, how? Not when the driving force is towards state capture, driven by “Baba sope” (The Boss says). It is the politics of the Godhead, a system of social hierarchy where patrons use resources to secure the loyalty of clients in the general population. As Wikipedia notes, “Neopatrimonialism is a system of governance where rulers use state resources to secure loyalty, blending modern bureaucratic structures with informal patron-client networks. In a neopatrimonial state, public office is treated as a personal resource for private gain rather than a public service.” In terms of the economy and the society, the rights of Yewa people are the last to be considered. Their net worth is proportionately important as the amount of resources and potential taxes that can be extracted from their land. Their vote is just the vehicle towards achieving that goal.

In the history of Ogun State since its creation in 1976 people easily established the ancestry of their governors and knew where Olabisi Onabanjo, Olusegun Osoba, Gbenga Daniel, Ibikunle Amosun and Dapo Abiodun came from. As Yuval Noah Harrari in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind says: “History teaches that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialize due to unseen barriers and that other unimagined scenarios will in fact come to pass.” Should Yayi be worried?

Gbile Oshadipe, Journalist and Historian writes from Ilaro in Ogun State.