It has been a week of the theatre of the absurd in Ondo State, a week where the stage lights of politics burned bright while the lamps of governance glimmer faintly in the background. The ₦31 billion Judiciary Village, once paraded as a monument of progress, found itself at the heart of a scandal. Quiet whispers grew into confident murmurs that a section of the project had collapsed. While anonymous judiciary workers confirmed that a section indeed came crashing down, causing panic and sending people running for safety, the administration’s response was a masterclass in denial. Drone-shot videos rolled out, carefully edited statements flowed from the Commissioner’s office, and the CPS, all harmonising in a single refrain that nothing happened. Yet, under the cover of this official chorus, repairs were carried out on the damaged portion. But, as always, the government’s instinct was not to fix the rot but to polish the lie.
The week also unveiled one of the most ironic turns in the Governor’s political script. Not too long ago, his media handlers danced across social media announcing the retirement of what they triumphantly called spent politicians. Today, those same elders are seated with dignified smiles on the Governor’s newly minted Advisory Council. This sudden embrace is presented as strategic wisdom, yet it reads more like political theatre. The Lagos model of such a council thrives on earned respect and proven leadership. Here, it is built on convenience, on the governor’s newfound need for allies he once dismissed when he formed his cabinet and rejected their nominees. The hypocrisy is almost artistic.
And then there is the quiet figure of Deputy Governor Olayide Adelami, whose role in government now seems almost ceremonial. His days are measured in photo opportunities and appearances at social functions, standing in for a governor too preoccupied with political positioning. The ministries that once reported to his office no longer do so. His official lodge remains untouched by government funds, turning him into a long-term hotel resident. What ought to be the second heartbeat of the executive arm has been reduced to a polite silence, loyal yet redundant, present yet powerless.
Numbers, however, have no loyalty to spin. Over ₦150 billion has reportedly entered the state’s coffers from Abuja between January and June 2025. Yet the projects inherited from past administrations have stalled, and the grand new ones launched with fanfare and flashing cameras have refused to rise from the ground. The people are left to wonder where the money has gone and why their governor’s gaze seems fixed firmly on the far horizon of 2027 rather than the immediate needs of today. In this one week, Ondo has seen a leader who blooms under the bright lights of political performance but withers in the quiet demands of governance, leaving the state adrift in a sea where the paddles row towards power while the ship of service drifts farther from shore.
In the end, what this week has revealed is not just a government distracted, but a government defined by distraction. It is a portrait of an administration more invested in controlling the narrative than in confronting the problems that choke the state’s progress. For a governor who wishes to be remembered as a leader, there must be more than press statements, ceremonial councils, and drone shots. There must be the hard, unglamorous work of service. Without it, Ondo’s history will remember these days as the season when politics danced in the town square while governance sat abandoned at the crossroads.
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