Democracy Day in Oke-Ogun, Ogbomoso: A Celebration on the Altar of Captivity

Today, June 12, Nigeria rolls out the drums to celebrate Democracy Day. Red carpets are swept, television stations are filled with elite panegyrists, and political actors are congratulating themselves on the endurance of the Fourth Republic. But if you leave the air-conditioned state capitals and travel down the neglected, pothole-riddled roads into the sprawling land of ‘Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso ‘, the silence is deafening.

In Oke-Ogun—the food basket of the southwest, the land of ancestral heroes, the home of resilient and peaceful citizens—we are forced to pause and look deeply into the mirror of our current reality. We must ask ourselves a painful, piercing question: “Is it truly worth it to celebrate democracy when our children, our sisters, and our teachers are currently sitting in the brutal captivity of kidnappers and terrorists?”

Democracy, by its fundamental definition, is a social contract. The people give their loyalty, their taxes, and their votes; the state guarantees their security, their welfare, and their freedom. For decades, Oke-Ogun has fulfilled its side of this bargain with religious consistency. We have turned out in our hundreds of thousands at the polling units, queuing under the scorching sun to legitimize democratic transitions in Oyo State and Nigeria at large.

Yet, what is the dividend of this decades-long democratic journey for the average Oke-Ogun indigene?

The journey so far has been an exhausting cycle of structural neglect, systemic exclusion, and an agonizing deficit of security. Our vast, fertile lands—lands that should be generating billions in agrarian wealth—have been turned into hunting grounds for marauding criminals. Our forests have been compromised. Our highways have become economic landmines.

The ultimate tragedy of our democratic experience is that the vulnerability has breached the sacred walls of our classrooms. Education is supposed to be the ultimate liberator of the poor, yet today, teachers and students in our communities have become bargaining chips for bandits.

When a society reaches a point where an instructor cannot walk into a classroom with dignity, and a child cannot read a book without listening for the sound of approaching gunfire, any talk of “celebrating democracy” becomes an insult to our collective intelligence.

How do we look into the eyes of a mother whose child is still missing in the bush and tell her to celebrate June 12? What is the meaning of a “free country” to a teacher whose freedom was bartered away while the state apparatuses looked the other way?

We cannot continue to dance to the tune of a democracy that feeds the elite but leaves the grassroots to be consumed by insecurity. As our elders say, “A kì í bini f’orò k’á tún f’orò s’ápò”
—you cannot claim to heal a wound while you are still driving the nail deeper. You cannot celebrate the freedom of a nation when sections of that nation are structurally chained.

This Democracy Day is not a day for Oke-Ogun to march in parades or sing superficial anthems. It is a day of deep sober reflection, mourning, and intellectual rebellion. It is a day to demand that our political actors—from the local governments to the government house in Ibadan, up to the federal executive—realize that the legitimacy of their offices is tied directly to the safety of our borders and the return of our captives.

The journey so far for Oke-Ogun has been a story of unyielding resilience in the face of absolute betrayal. We do not need speeches; we need security. We do not need ceremonial promises; we need our children back in their classrooms and our farmers back on their fields. Until the lowest citizen in Ofiki, Okeho, Igboho, Saki, Ogbomoso,ikoyi ile and every corner of Oke-Ogun can sleep with both eyes closed, this democracy remains an unfinished, blood-stained manuscript.

The Scribe’s pen has recorded it, and our conscience will not be silent.

DAVID ALANI IGE
institutional archivist &Public Commentator
Phunshor01@gmail.com
07039641096