Later the same year, the governor expanded his battleground to include the Olubadan in a suicidal political mission to downgrade the palace to his Boys’ Quarters and make the Olubadan just one of the numerous tenants. Whatever the governor’s rationale for tampering with the chieftaincy laws, the malicious intent was not going to be forgiven easily in a state with a long memory, a sharp tongue, and a deep, unashamedly old-fashioned attachment to its myths and traditions.
Insiders said the governor came only inches from demolishing the fence of Tribune newspapers in Imalefalafia, brushing aside attempts to restrain him each time, with the reminder that even if he turns out wrong in the end: “It’s not my money that will pay for restitution. It’s government money!”The summary of Ajimobi’s eight-year tenure is that he did not know how to talk – and worse, he did not know how to listen. I wish I could say it in elegant English, the Ibadan way.
At a time when he would not pay salaries or pensions, he found money to create Africa’s longest Statues Street, lining up images of whoever he fancied, as if the people would eat statues for their labour. When teachers were on less than half salaries, Okorocha still found enough money to make large billboards, with pictures of himself in benevolent smile over a state in misery. In the summer of 2015, he famously celebrated his visit to the U.S.