‘We Have Done Our Best’: Ogun Deputy Governor Begs Yayi For Water, Despite APC’s Years In Power

There is a moment in politics when the mask slips. When the carefully crafted narrative of progress collapses under the weight of a simple, unscripted admission.

That moment happened in Ogun State this week.

The Deputy Governor, Noimot Salako-Oyedele, stood before an audience and appealed to the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate for 2027, Senator Adeola Olamilekan, to help fix the state’s water crisis.

Her words were not scripted. They were not vetted. They were a raw, unfiltered confession: the government she serves has failed to provide one of the most basic necessities of life to its people.

The admission is not just a gaffe. It is a damning indictment of a ruling party that has run out of excuses, ValidViewNetwork reports .

THE ADMISSION

“Water has become a luxury in many of our communities. Our people are suffering. We need your intervention, Senator Yayi, to restore pipe-borne water to our homes.”

The Deputy Governor was not speaking about a distant country. She was not describing a war zone. She was describing Ogun State, a state in Nigeria’s South-West, a state governed by the APC, a state that is supposed to be one of the country’s industrial and agricultural hubs.

And she was not asking an opposition politician for help. She was asking a fellow APC member, a senator who is seeking to govern the same state in 2027, to intervene.

THE UNASKED QUESTIONS

This is where the analysis becomes uncomfortable.

The APC controls the federal government. The APC controls Ogun State. The APC controls the state House of Assembly. The APC controls the local government councils.

The APC controls the water agencies, the budgets, and the policies that are supposed to ensure that every citizen has access to clean, pipe-borne water.

And yet, the Deputy Governor of Ogun State is begging an Aspirant for water.

The question that no one in the APC wants to answer is simple: if you cannot provide water to your people after seven years in power, what have you been doing?

If you have the resources, the mandate, and the machinery of government, and you still cannot deliver one of the most basic services, what is the point of your governance?

The Deputy Governor said the state had “done what we can.” But what does that mean? What has been done? Where is the water? And why are the people still waiting?

THE MIDTERM LESSON

In the United States, the midterm elections last week delivered a devastating lesson for the Republican Party. The party lost control of Congress because voters were angry about the cost of living, the state of the economy, and the perception that the ruling party had lost touch with the concerns of ordinary people.

The lesson was not unique to America. It is universal. When voters feel that their basic needs are being ignored, they punish the party in power.

The APC in Ogun State should be paying attention. The people of Ogun are not asking for luxury. They are not asking for flyovers or high-speed trains.

They are asking for water.

And the government that is supposed to provide it is asking a Governorship Aspirant for help.

In a sane society, this admission would be enough to end a political party’s chances in the next election.

The Deputy Governor’s statement is an admission that the APC has failed. It is an admission that the government she serves has not delivered on a basic, fundamental responsibility.

It is an admission that the people of Ogun State have been abandoned.

In a functioning democracy, the opposition would seize on this admission. The media would investigate. The voters would remember. The party would be held accountable.

But in Nigeria, the response is likely to be silence, denial, or spin. The government will say that the Deputy Governor’s words were taken out of context.

That she was merely seeking collaboration. That the water crisis is a national problem, not a state one.

But the people of Ogun State know the truth. They know that their children are drinking from boreholes. That their women are walking miles to find water. That their farmers are watching their crops wither. And they know that the government they elected has done nothing to help them.

THE ANALYTICAL LENS

The Ogun water crisis is not a failure of resources. It is a failure of priorities.

The APC government in Ogun has spent billions on infrastructure, on roads, on flyovers. It has spent on consultants, on publicity, on political campaigns.

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But it has not provided water to its people.

The Deputy Governor’s appeal to Senator Yayi is a recognition that the state government has failed. But it is also a political strategy.

By asking Yayi for help, she is drawing him into the water crisis, making it his problem too. If he becomes governor in 2027, the water crisis will be his to fix.

But the people of Ogun State are not waiting for 2027. They are waiting for water now.

And the party that has promised it, the party that has been in power for seven years, the party that controls every lever of government, has just admitted that it cannot deliver.

The admission has been made. The question is whether the people of Ogun State will remember it when they cast their votes in 2027. ValidViewNetwork reports.