A civil society activist and convener of the Make Ogun State Great Again group, Pastor Kayode Olawoye, has called on Nigerians to redirect their anger over development failures away from the Federal Government and hold state governors squarely responsible for the poor state of governance at the grassroots level, saying that the continued habit of blaming the President for every problem was the greatest error Nigerians were making as a people.
Olawoye made the call at the unveiling of the Make Ogun State Great Again group, known by its acronym MOGA, held in the Ogba Ayo area of Sango in Ogun State, where civil society organisations, Muslim groups and members of the Christian Association of Nigeria gathered to witness the formal launch of the accountability-focused movement.
The activist noted that Nigerians had for too long overlooked the enormous constitutional powers that their governors wielded and the direct responsibility those governors bore for the quality of life in their respective states, opting instead to lay all blame at the feet of whoever occupied Aso Rock. He said this misplaced attribution of responsibility had repeatedly shielded governors from the pressure and scrutiny they deserved, allowing them to escape accountability while the people at the grassroots continued to suffer.
"When the roads are bad, when the economy is down, when the electricity supply is poor, we blame whoever the President is, and that is the greatest error we are making as Nigerians. The people who are meant to be held responsible and accountable for whatever happens at the state level are the governors. If Nigeria must get better, we must hold the governors accountable," Olawoye said.
He noted that President Bola Tinubu had himself made a similar point urging that governors be held to account, and stressed that the message could not be overemphasised given the current state of development across the country's 36 states. He pointedly observed that the current set of governors were receiving the highest federal allocations in the history of Nigeria, yet had little visible development to show for the enormous resources flowing into state coffers, a situation he described as unacceptable and one that demanded urgent citizen response.
With the 2027 general elections drawing closer, Olawoye said it was imperative for Nigerians to make wiser and more deliberate choices at the ballot box, stressing that MOGA was established specifically to drive that consciousness among ordinary citizens at the grassroots level. He appealed to participants to resist the temptation of selling their votes for token sums, warning that the cycle of bad governance would never be broken as long as citizens continued to exchange their political power for paltry inducements. "Part of our mission is to educate and sensitise the people at the grassroots on why they should not sell their votes for N5,000 and cups of rice," he said.
Also speaking at the event, the Chairman of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Ogun State, Solomon Bankole, reinforced the message of accountability and urged participants to consistently demand governance dividends from their elected officials. Bankole also used the occasion to express his disappointment over what he described as the inadequate response of the Christian Association of Nigeria during a period in which Pastor Olawoye faced detention by the Department of State Services, saying that solidarity among civil society actors was not optional but essential. He cautioned participants on certain everyday actions that could attract unwanted legal trouble, including allowing visitors to spend the night in one's home without proper knowledge of their activities, permitting others to use one's personal phone, discarding used airtime cards without destroying them and offering unsolicited assistance to strangers.
Bankole concluded by urging citizens not to remain passive in the face of governance failures, reminding them that demanding accountability from their leaders was not only a civic duty but a constitutional right. The unveiling was attended by several prominent figures including former Ogun State Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Comrade Wole Shokunbi, a CAN leader in the state, Jeremiah Johnson, and the President of Peoples Against Corruption and Injustice, Comrade Fakeye, among others.
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