Oyo’s Developmental Paradox: How the Pacesetter Became a Second Fiddle | By Timilehin Kolade
OYO’S DEVELOPMENTAL PARADOX: HOW THE PACESETTER BECAME A SECOND FIDDLE
By Timilehin Kolade
There is a paradox at the heart of contemporary Oyo State. It is a state whose identity is inseparable from the idea of being a Pacesetter, yet it increasingly appears to be struggling to produce the kind of new ideas, institutions and developmental breakthroughs that justify that historic identity. Oyo is still called the Pacesetter State, and its anthem still declares, “Asiwaju ni wa”—we are the leaders. But the uncomfortable question is whether Oyo still sets the pace or has gradually become a Second Fiddle in the Nigerian federation. This is not an argument that nothing is happening in Oyo. There have been visible interventions in roads, agriculture, healthcare, education, security, investment and public infrastructure under Governor Seyi Makinde. The more important question, however, is whether these interventions have restored Oyo’s capacity to pioneer, because the standard for a Pacesetter is considerably higher than simply having a functioning government.
The story of Oyo’s Pacesetter identity begins before Oyo State itself was created. The state was created on 3 February 1976 from the old Western State, initially encompassing the territory that would later include Osun State before the latter was carved out in 1991. Much of what is celebrated today as Oyo’s historic “firsts” was, strictly speaking, achieved by the old Western Region, whose administrative and political headquarters was Ibadan. But this technical distinction does not diminish Oyo’s inheritance. Oyo inherited the geographical centre, institutions, intellectual traditions and developmental legacy of the old Western Region. Its Pacesetter identity was therefore not invented as a slogan by a modern public-relations department; it was inherited from a period when Ibadan was one of the principal laboratories of Nigerian modernity.
In 1948, University College Ibadan was established. It later became the autonomous University of Ibadan in 1962 and grew into one of the country’s most important centres of scholarship and intellectual production. In January 1950, Ibadan hosted the General Conference on Nigeria’s constitutional future, placing the city at the centre of debates about the country’s emerging constitutional order. In 1955, the Western Region introduced free primary education, an ambitious experiment in mass education that reflected the conviction that government should invest in human capital on a scale previously unknown in colonial Nigeria. On 31 October 1959, Western Nigeria Television went on air from Ibadan, becoming the first television service in Africa. In 1960, Liberty Stadium opened in Ibadan, while Cocoa House, completed in 1964 and commissioned in 1965, rose as a physical symbol of the economic strength generated by the Western Region’s cocoa economy and became the first skyscraper in West Africa.
The story did not end with these landmarks. University College Hospital established Ibadan as a major centre of medical education and healthcare, while the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture later reinforced the city’s importance in agricultural research. These achievements were not isolated monuments. They formed a developmental ecosystem. Education created human capital; agriculture generated revenue; research improved productive capacity; broadcasting expanded public enlightenment; healthcare developed professional expertise; infrastructure connected economic activity; and institutions created a self-reinforcing environment for progress. This is the deeper meaning of the Pacesetter legacy. The old Western Region did not merely construct impressive projects. It demonstrated a capacity to anticipate the future and build institutions before the future arrived.
That distinction is important because Oyo’s present challenge is not simply the absence of development. It is the loss of developmental ambition. A state can continue to build roads, renovate schools, improve hospitals and attract investments and still cease to be a Pacesetter. The Pacesetter test is not whether something is happening; it is whether what is happening changes the benchmark for others. The question is not whether Oyo is moving, but whether other states are beginning to look towards Oyo to understand where they should move next.
This is where the idea of Oyo becoming a Second Fiddle becomes uncomfortable. Second Fiddle does not mean failure, irrelevance or backwardness. It describes a state that once occupied the front row but is increasingly content with keeping pace while others define the new frontiers. Lagos has consolidated its position as Nigeria’s financial, commercial and creative capital. Ogun has pursued an increasingly aggressive industrialisation strategy. Other states have begun building distinctive identities around technology, tourism, aviation, specialised agriculture and other emerging sectors. Oyo still possesses enormous advantages, but its contemporary identity is not as clearly associated with a new national developmental frontier as it once was.
The danger is that Oyo may be living on inherited institutional capital. The state possesses the University of Ibadan but has not yet transformed Ibadan into Africa’s leading knowledge economy. It possesses one of Nigeria’s historic teaching hospitals but has not fully converted its concentration of medical expertise into a globally competitive medical-research and healthcare industry. It possesses IITA and a remarkable agricultural environment but has not yet become Nigeria’s undisputed agro-industrial capital. It possesses Cocoa House as a historical symbol of economic imagination, but the contemporary economy has not produced an equivalent landmark of transformative economic significance.
This is the historical context within which the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde should be assessed. It would be unfair and intellectually lazy to suggest that his administration has achieved nothing. It has. His government has invested in infrastructure, agriculture, education, healthcare, security and public-sector interventions. Its agricultural policies, including the Fasola Agribusiness Transformation Centre, mechanisation initiatives and the Eruwa agribusiness project, point towards an attempt to reposition agriculture as a commercial engine of the state’s economy. The government has also pursued road construction, healthcare expansion, school interventions, energy projects and investment promotion. These are significant activities, and they deserve recognition.
Yet recognition of these achievements should not end the conversation. It should begin the more difficult one. Has the Makinde administration moved Oyo from administration to pioneering? Has it created a new institution or developmental model that other Nigerian states will study and attempt to reproduce? Has it established the twenty-first-century equivalent of free primary education, WNTV, Cocoa House or the University College Ibadan? What is the new frontier for which future generations will say that the Makinde years represented a decisive turning point in Oyo’s developmental history?
These questions are not designed to diminish the achievements of the administration. They arise precisely because Oyo’s history imposes a higher standard. A government in an ordinary state may reasonably be judged by whether it delivers basic infrastructure and improves public services. A government in a state that inherited the Pacesetter tradition must ultimately be judged by whether it renews that tradition.
This is why the distinction between development and leadership matters. Development is necessary, but leadership requires something more. A state can construct roads without setting the pace. It can build hospitals without setting the pace. It can support farmers without setting the pace. It can attract investors without setting the pace. Pacesetting occurs when a government combines these interventions into an integrated model that changes the economic and institutional possibilities of the state.
Agriculture offers perhaps the clearest opportunity for Makinde and Oyo. The Fasola initiative is potentially significant, but its real test will be whether it becomes the nucleus of a much larger agro-industrial ecosystem. Oyo should not merely produce more cassava, maize, yam, vegetables or livestock. It should process, package, brand and export them. Oke-Ogun should not remain merely an agricultural production zone; it should become an integrated agro-industrial corridor where production is connected to processing, storage, logistics, finance, research and export markets. The objective should be to create value chains capable of transforming rural economies and positioning Oyo as Nigeria’s leading agro-industrial state.
Ibadan presents an even greater opportunity. Few Nigerian cities possess the concentration of intellectual institutions available in Ibadan. The University of Ibadan, UCH, IITA and other institutions provide a foundation upon which an ambitious knowledge economy could be built. Yet the presence of institutions is not the same as the existence of an ecosystem. Ibadan should be asking how its universities can generate companies, how its research institutions can feed industry, how medical research can generate specialised healthcare enterprises, how agricultural science can move from laboratories to commercial farms, and how young people can turn knowledge into globally competitive businesses.
That would be the kind of project worthy of the Pacesetter identity. It would also reconnect contemporary Oyo with the philosophy that produced its historic firsts: build institutions, create knowledge, develop human capital and allow those institutions to generate prosperity long after the politicians who established them have left office.
The same principle applies to security. Oyo’s strategic location and growing population require more than reactive responses to insecurity. A genuinely Pacesetting Oyo could develop a sophisticated subnational security and peacebuilding model that combines intelligence, community engagement, technology, local institutions and conflict prevention. Security should be treated not merely as a policing problem but as a developmental condition. A state that can pioneer an effective model of community-based security and prevention could create another national benchmark.
The central challenge, therefore, is not that Makinde’s administration has failed to govern. That would be an unnecessarily crude conclusion. The more defensible argument is that the administration has not yet fully converted Oyo’s extraordinary historical and institutional advantages into a new developmental identity. It has demonstrated capacity for administration and infrastructure delivery; the unfinished question is whether it can produce a genuinely transformative Pacesetter legacy.
Makinde still has the opportunity to answer that question. His remaining political and administrative capital can be directed towards creating institutions rather than merely completing projects, strengthening economic systems rather than merely announcing programmes, and building a long-term developmental architecture rather than allowing Oyo’s future to be determined by the electoral cycle. What Oyo requires is not another collection of projects that will eventually become plaques and commissioning photographs. It needs institutions that will continue producing value when today’s political actors have become historical footnotes.
Perhaps the most appropriate ambition would be an Oyo 2050 developmental compact: a long-term framework that positions Ibadan as a West African centre of knowledge, medical research, agriculture and innovation; transforms Oke-Ogun into a major agro-industrial corridor; integrates universities and research institutions with private industry; develops technology and creative industries; improves regional logistics and energy infrastructure; strengthens subnational security and peacebuilding; and deliberately builds an economy capable of retaining and attracting talent.
That is how the Pacesetter identity can be renewed.
Oyo cannot continue to celebrate the firsts of previous generations without asking itself what its own generation has pioneered. History should be an inheritance, not a retirement plan. The fact that WNTV once broadcast from Ibadan does not automatically make contemporary Oyo a leader in digital communication. The fact that Cocoa House once towered over West Africa does not automatically make Oyo a contemporary economic powerhouse. The fact that the University of Ibadan and UCH established historic precedents does not absolve the present generation from creating new ones.
The children of the Pacesetters must themselves become Pacesetters.
This is ultimately the question that Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration must confront. Has it merely governed a state with a great history, or has it begun to create a new history worthy of that state? Has it maintained the Pacesetter, or has it inadvertently presided over a period in which the Pacesetter increasingly plays Second Fiddle?
The answer will not be found in political speeches or campaign slogans. It will be found in the institutions created, the industries transformed, the ideas pioneered, the young people empowered, the agricultural value chains developed and the economic models that other states begin to copy.
Oyo’s greatest danger is not failure. It is comfortable mediocrity under the shadow of extraordinary history.
A state that once taught Nigeria how to think about development cannot afford to spend eternity reminiscing about yesterday’s firsts. The task before Oyo is to recover the audacity that produced those firsts and apply it to the challenges of a new century.
The Pacesetter must stop merely remembering when it led. It must begin leading again.