Senator Jimoh Ibrahim’s much publicized ₦100 million “Return to School Program” may sound like a huge empowerment, but scratch beneath the glitter and it reveals little more than tokenism in designer packaging. A thousand students receiving ₦100,000 each that won't last a semester is not structural empowerment; it is a political raffle draw. While he parades this as groundbreaking, his peers in the Senate are busy leveraging their offices to attract federal universities, research institutes, infrastructural projects, and long-term policies that alter the destinies of entire regions. Ondo South, under Ibrahim, is instead handed stipends masquerading as vision.
Senators are not governors and their real power is not in sharing cash but in shaping laws, securing federal allocations, and amplifying their constituents’ voices on the national stage. Senator Ibrahim, rather than deploying his position to fight for federal presence in education, environment and industry for Ondo South, has reduced his mandate to selective giveaways and photo opportunities while junketing the world. Compare this to colleagues who have lobbied successfully for major institutions in their zones and one thing becomes clear: Ondo South is not underdeveloped by accident, it is underrepresented by choice.
If this is what passes for empowerment, then Ondo South has been sold short, yet again. Education is not rescued by a one-off cheque but by sustainable policies and systemic investment. What Ibrahim calls vision will, in history’s honest light, be remembered as tokenism, a performance act that distracted from his failure to deliver real representation. For a region long starved of federal relevance and presence, Ondo South deserves more than staged generosity. It deserves a senator who fights for projects and employment letters in Abuja, not one who sprinkles crumbs in Igbotako.
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