Editor’s note: In recent times, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state is one name that has not eluded the pen of columnists and opinion writers alike. From the alleged maltreatment of teachers in the state to the seeming retardation of the state’s infrastructural development, political commentators have come to dwell on the notion that the governor enjoys the negligence on his people. It is against this backdrop that Olatunji Ololade, in his column for The Nation, writes to challenge the governor to change his steps.

All is certainly not well with Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s government. The tanker that exploded at the junction of Owode-Titun, destroying property and killing people, still lies carelessly flung by the road side, straddling the crater where several lives have been lost and maimed in previous accidents, on the township tract’s bad roads. There is still mayhem at Toll gate junction, Oju Ore, Ijoko, Iju and Ope-Ilu Ijoko among others. The natives are dying slowly even as Governor Amosun enjoys a good life off their taxes.

Amosun’s disregard for the Ogun people

The Ogun state government suffers the affliction of a hideous cancer no doubt but what a greater section of the citizenry considers appalling is the governor’s apparent disregard for their safety. Governor Amosun by ignoring the deadly state of the state’s township roads, substantiates speculation that he could not be bothered even if more natives of the state are violently crushed and mangled to death in bloody road accidents on the gateway state’s famished roads.

Is the governor waiting for that moment when the junctions at Owode-Titun, Oju Ore, Ijoko among others would erupt into bloody volcanoes of blood and garbled torsos in multiple road accidents? Is Governor Amosun waiting patiently for that auspicious or politically expedient minute, when breadwinners would be killed and households would be cast in everlasting sorrow as they lose their loved ones to Ogun townships’ bad roads? Is he waiting to delightfully emerge with a bereaved mien and overzealous aides to misappropriate anguish where he feels none?

What is expected of Amosun

This writer and this page earnestly await the hour when Governor Amosun will summon the courage to meet the demands of his office and rise to his full measure as a man; that defining moment when he would scorn pride and unearned greatness to rehabilitate Ogun townships’ perilous paths and thus assert his mettle, whatever its worth, as a public administrator and a man.

In few days perhaps, Governor Amosun will shun the deception and unearned plaudits heaped upon him by sycophantic underlings, aides and political associates, to repair the townships badly damaged roads. An aide of the governor said the roads would be done by December, in few days to be precise. Let’s see Governor Amosun become the change that he preached to get our votes.

Journalism, the manipulable pawn and necessary evil

The journalistic cult of poverty has a supreme theme; the morally-deficient journalist. This theme is pitifully projected by journalism’s highly celebrated ambassadors in the corridors of power and the public space. Rather than evolve as heroic shiners of light and purveyors of truth, speaking to keep all savagery in straits, in the true tradition of modern, high-cultivated men of letters, they choose to manifest like accidents to society.

As you read, many more newspaper editors and their reporters are manifesting at the ruling class’ bidding and your bidding, into the stamen that lets down the azalea, the comforters that bring grief, the emissaries of needless hate orchestrated in the interest of the ruling class. Today, tyranny attains ultimate refinement in the news columns; this brings to mind that memorable jest by Norman Mailer that “Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.” Journalists are still the butt of the most demeaning jokes and premeditated put-downs in the social arena.

Nobody thinks much of a journalist; in the eyes of big business and the ruling class, the journalist whatever his designation or job title, is the manipulable pawn and necessary evil that has to be courted and tolerated. The descent and humiliation of the journalist still persists in the hands of his employer; salaries still range from N15, 000 per month at entry level to N70, 000 per month at managerial level in most media organisations. Just three media houses endeavour to pay fairly and this has led to the metamorphosis of the journalist into an aberration of the watchdog he ought to be to society.

This resonates badly for the Nigerian mob; the nation’s critical mob to be precise. Mob culture requires that he who would adorn the cloak of defender of the masses’ rights should be upright and flawless in character, work and personal ethics. Such admirable traits are rarely attributable to the Nigerian journalist manager and the press in general.

.