Ayo Mojoyin

Southern Governors’ security meeting at Ogun Governor Abiodun’s private home raises criticism over governance optics, cost, and institutional protocol

I have watched with keen interest the ongoing reactions trailing the recent meeting of Southern Governors hosted by Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun. And frankly, the concerns are valid.

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This was not a social gathering, not a birthday, not a condolence visit, and certainly not a private hangout.

It was an official regional conference on sematter one that affects the safety of millions of citizens across the entire southern region of Nigeria.

Yet, instead of holding this serious engagement in Abeokuta, the official seat of power, the meeting was convened in the governor’s private residence in Iperu.

This raises a fundamental question:
What happens to the official state facilities built and maintained with taxpayers’ money?

There is the Government House in Abeokuta.
There is the Presidential Lodge.
There is the June 12 Cultural Centre.
There is a full array of state-owned structures purpose-built for high-level deliberations of this nature.

So why reduce a crucial regional security meeting to the ambience of a personal home? It sends the wrong message not only to Nigerians, but to the institutions that anchor our democracy. Governance has symbols, and these symbols matter.

Imagine President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hosting the entire national security architecture inside his Bourdillon residence. The backlash would shake the country.

Even Hillary Clinton was heavily criticised merely for using private emails for official communication. That is how seriously established democracies guard official boundaries.

To compound matters, all the governors appeared in matching aso-ebi, prompting a sharp reaction from former presidential aide Bashir Ahmad, who said:

“I just don’t get it sometimes. Why do we always have to do aso-ebi for virtually every occasion? Even for a meeting as critical as a security-related one…?” And he is right.

A regional security summit is not a carnival.
It is not a naming ceremony.
It is not a festival.
It is a solemn environment where leaders are expected to project clarity, urgency, and institutional discipline not cultural pageantry.

But beyond optics, there is a more disturbing angle: the cost of this decision.

Not only is the venue questionable, but when you consider the logistics expenses the elaborate event setup, transportation, heightened security deployment, and the out-of-station allowances paid to government officials compelled to relocate to Iperu the economic waste becomes clearer.

These costs would have been largely avoided if the Governor simply used Government House facilities already designed, funded, and maintained for such purposes.

This behaviour increasingly mirrors the tendencies of a leader operating outside established norms almost dictatorial, even prodigal (“omo oni na kuna”) discarding state protocols and traditions without restraint and depleting taxpayers’ funds with no sense of accountability.

We cannot continue to blur the lines between public duty and private preference. The Southern Governors Forum carries weight.

Its resolutions influence national debate on policing, safety, resource control, and the direction of governance.

A meeting of that magnitude deserves the full dignity and institutional integrity of the office it represents.

Optics in governance are not trivial they shape public trust, reinforce accountability, and demonstrate seriousness of purpose.

Hosting a critical security conference in a private residence, wrapped in aso-ebi uniformity, diminishes the gravity of the issues at stake.

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If we truly desire stronger institutions in this country, we must start by acting like those institutions matter.