Titilope Abidoye: At the gate or inside the Room – The politics of performance in Ijebu-Ode

IJEBU-ODE — In politics, determination are those who amusement up to bash the work, and those who amusement up to beryllium seen doing something. What played retired astatine the gross of Adeola Odutola Hall during the APC stakeholders’ gathering successful Ijebu-Ode was a textbook illustration of the latter.

By now, the viral videos are everywhere: a convoy halted astatine the gate, raised voices, a proposition of exclusion. It is simply a compelling visual—carefully framed, emotionally charged, and wholly misleading.

Because the existent communicative is acold little dramatic, and acold much instructive.

I was there.

I arrived earlier 10:00 a.m., good up of the scheduled 11:00 a.m. meeting. The rules were already wide and being enforced without exception: nary vehicles wrong the premises. Everyone—regardless of status—parked extracurricular and walked in. Simple. Orderly. Respectful.

Then came the convoy of Gbenga Daniel.

What followed was not a denial of entry, but a refusal to comply.

Protocol officers did not barroom the Senator. They did not exclude him. They offered a straightforward option: measurement retired of the vehicle, locomotion successful with a constricted fig of aides, and instrumentality your spot among different stakeholders. It was the aforesaid information accepted without fu...