Between Puff Puff and the Launchpad: Osun’s Tale of Fried Dough and Forgotten Developers

 

.....would cameras roll if dreams were hawked like puff puff?”

It was puff puff, not a policy, not a startup launch, not an innovation hub that lit up Osun’s news cycle. A governor stopped by a roadside seller, offered help, and the cameras did the rest. Headlines flew, emotions stirred, and puff puff became the latest emblem of governance.

Meanwhile, in the same state, young developers grind quietly on battered laptops. They code apps, design websites, craft digital tools that place the state and the nation's name on global platforms. Yet, while puff puff trends, their work is invisible. The system whispers the same tired line: “go work harder.”

One can’t help but wonder: if our dreams were packaged in brown envelopes, hawked in a tray by the roadside, would the cameras roll too? Would the nation pause to admire them, to broadcast their hunger, their hustle, their brilliance? Or must vision always wear the costume of poverty before it earns attention?

Osun today is caught between fried dough and the launchpad. One fills the stomach for a moment; the other could feed generations if given the chance. But compassion here is often a performance, not a policy. Poverty gets staged relief, innovation gets silent neglect.

We admire the Governor’s good gesture, it was human, it was kind. But kindness is not enough. We demand a state where those who pour their might and talent into decorating Osun’s image with protruding light are also seen, celebrated, and supported. Where the spotlight doesn’t stop at puff puff but stretches to the quiet glow of laptops, the clatter of keyboards, the unseen sweat of digital creators.

This is the satire of our politics: puff puff earns applause while coding earns dust. The woman frying dough deserves help, yes, but so do the thousands of bright minds trapped in the shadows of “work harder.”

And so the question remains: will Osun remain content with puff puff headlines, or will it dare to fuel its future through the launchpad of its developers and digital experts?

Abioye Tosin Lawrence is the publisher of Oriontimes Online Newspaper and author of the memoir underway, Voices from the Fire: My Journey Through a Hollow Empire.