- Say Ogun West people not a minority
The Senate Committee Chairman on Local Content, Senator Solomon Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, has said that internal and international conspiracies created the misconception that the Yewa people in the Ogun West Senatorial district of Ogun State are a minority not capable of producing a governor for the state.
Adeola said that contrary to the general belief amongst the other groups, which had been exploiting the misconception in the past four decades to deprive the area the opportunity to produce a governor for the state, the Yewa people, whose homestead stretched across Nigeria and Benin Republic as well two states and eight local government areas of Ogun State, did not lack the huge population to make one of them occupy the number one political office in the state.
He stressed that it was only an unfortunate combination of both internal politics of Ogun and the international political boundaries between Nigeria and Benin Republic that had divided the Yewa people between different countries, states and local governments, saying that these factors had for long deprived the area the benefits of a contiguous block population.
The lawmaker stated this while delivering a paper entitled “Sustainable Development of Yewaland :The Role of Accountability in Governance,” on Saturday in London, as part of the Yewa Conference organised by the Yewa Descendants Union in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
He added in an electronic mail statement on Sunday by his Media Adviser, Chief Kayode Odunaro, that it’s unfortunate that national and international conspiracies had reduced the geographical area of Yewa land to what currently obtained in the Ogun West Senatorial District of Ogun State, whereas a large number of their kinsmen are located outside the country and beyond Ogun West Senatorial District in Ogun State.
Adeola said, “Internationally a large number of Yewa people reside on the other side of Benin Republic, where Ipokia, Yewa South, Yewa North and Imeko- Afon LGAs share boundary and nationally, where Yewa people share boundaries at Imeko-Afon with Oyo State in the north, Abeokuta North and Yewa North in the East. Also Yewa are split by boundaries at Yewa North boundary with Abeokuta North, Yewa South boundary with Ewekoro, Ifo and Ado Odo Ota LGAs. It is also common knowledge that there is a large population of Yewa people in four wards in Oke- Ogun area of Abeokuta North and Ibara /Oke Ilewo area of Abeokuta South.
“Given this scenario and based on the 2006 Census figures, the different population figures among the ethnic groups of Ogun State based on senatorial districts at the detriment of Yewa people are by far compensated for by all the Yewas not in the current four LGAs of Ogun West, as Yewaland was originally far bigger than what now obtains in Ogun West Senatorial District of Ogun State.”
The lawmaker also blamed the absence of accountability in governance for the marginalisation and low development of the supposed ‘minority’ Yewa areas in Ogun State, saying virtually all successive governments, since the creation of the state, had not been accountable to the people of Yewaland in terms of sustainable development, “while development has so far favoured Ogun East and West, as governors from these districts mostly tried to be accountable to them in terms of development projects over the years.”
While attributing the marginalisation and underdevelopment of Yewaland to its inability to produce a governor for the state in the past 42 years, the senator, who is aspiring to contest the 2019 governorship election in Ogun, said if Yewa could get the governorship position in 2019, it shall be accountable to all by evenly developing all parts of the state.
Other resource persons and dignitaries at the event include the Speaker of Ogun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Suraj Adekunbi and others.
