Home Opinion Column What I Think Killed Speaker Of Oyo Assembly – Kehinde Ayoola

What I Think Killed Speaker Of Oyo Assembly – Kehinde Ayoola

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Hon Kehinde Ayoola
Hon Kehinde Ayoola...the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources in Oyo State...

The rather sad demise of The Rt Hon Michael Adeyemo, Speaker of Oyo last Friday, brings to two, since 1999, the death of serving speakers in Nigeria.

If my memory still serves me, Rt.Hon Francis Omoson Megbele, Speaker of Delta died in office on November 22, 1999.

Michael Adeyemo’s death has thrown our state into mourning irrespective of our political differences.

Expectedly, tributes have poured in torrents.

This morning I want to take a different route in paying my own respects.

I want to, God helping me, highlight certain unspoken or silent pains that political office holders go through.

These situations are capable of seriously undermining one’s health and thereby quickening a politician’s journey to the great beyond.

In Nigeria, legislators have had to live with certain stereotypical characterizations. For instance, you are branded a thief. No matter what you say or do to show that you try to play by the rules, you are a thief anyway!

You are expected, once you get to office, to enrich your family, friends and associates. When you try to explain the limits of your powers you are branded selfish and useless.

The kind of stories you hear even those very close to you peddle about you could give you a heart attack indeed!

You are expected to be a cash cow for sundry other elements who mill around you. They always have their children’s school fees to pay, an in-law to bury, a child’s naming ceremony to conduct, a rent to pay etc and so you have these never-ending requests for financial succour. One particular month during my time, I had to stop and go home when I was left with just N20k for that month.

When you later hear what these same people say behind your back, you could have cardiac arrest!

As the Speaker, you have the arduous responsibility of keeping 31 other legislators happy. That is navigating consensus between 31 mostly conflicting interests. One or two of those 31 want your job and so they keep sniffing around you for any kind of slip up. (I leave what a Senate President or Reps’ Speaker goes through in the realm of conjecture).

Then of course, there are the diabolicals!

They deploy all sorts of charms to either cause you to err or render you a vegetable whom they can bend to suit their whims and caprices.

I recollect an occasion here.

A man I had known back in the day came to my office. He needed help – financially.

As he came upstairs, he removed something from his pocket, said a few words to it and licked his lips.

When he came up and told me what he needed I told him I wouldn’t give him though I had enough on me there and then. I said if I gave him he would think it was his incantations that worked. I saw a feeling of compunction sweep over his face. Unfortunately he died 7 days later.

Well you may never know for sure what killed Michael but you now know a few of the unspoken, un-enunciated pains and the silent burdens that your legislator carries about which could give him a heart condition!

May the Lord comfort his family, friends and associates.

It is well, indeed.

Rt Hon Kehinde Ayoola, a one-time Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly is our Editorial Board Chairman

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