Ladi Adebutu: What Money Cannot Do Does Exist

In a world of only bees and flowers, trees fall in one direction and remain there for life. In the world of man, nothing is so certain, not even the influence of affluence. For example, despite having more affluence than he knows what to do with, Chief Kessington Adebutu could not turn his son, Senator Ladi Adebutu, into a governor.

 In Ogun State, intentions are clearly judged and methods are useless in the face of consequent verdicts. From the look of things, most Ogun natives and residents prefer Prince Dapo Abiodun to Senator Ladi. How else can one explain the consecutive losses that the latter has eaten from the hands of the former? Notably, Ladi is no ordinary man. His father, Chief Adebutu, is the lord behind Baba Ijebu Lotto, the business initiative calling in mountains of mint money to the family. Following this affluence, Chief Adebutu wields considerable influence in Ogun’s political and social fabrics.

Public commentators claim that the Adebutu affluence-fuelled influence helped Ladi clinch his senatorial title. Chief Adebutu is supposed to have effortlessly exerted sufficient financial might to position his son favourably, thus earning him the senatorial seat. But the same effort, or double, triple, or 10 times 10,000 times the effort has failed to achieve similar results in the gubernatorial.

By electioneering count, Ladi has lost the governorship seat to Prince Abiodun twice, the first time in 2018 and the second in 2023. Adding the cases in court, especially the last contest whose Abiodun-must-go Ladi-sponsored adventure dragged itself into the Supreme Court, one could say that Ladi lost to Abiodun five times or more.

In a world that thinks that money equals god, and what money cannot do does not exist, here is the Ogun governorship seat waving at Senator Ladi from a distance.