The 2024 Annual General Congress of the Okun Development Association (ODA), umbrella socio-cultural and developmental organisation of the Yoruba people in Kogi State, which comes up in Egbe, Yagba West Council, this weekend, is an opportunity to reflect on the past six years of the outgoing executive of the ODA and celebrate the resilience of the Okun people.
A new Executive Committee to steer ODA is expected to emerge during the two-day events, from Friday, March 8 to Saturday, 9th of March. This follows the expiration of two tenures of three years of the current Executive Committee led by its outgoing President-General, Chief Femi Mokikan, who took charge in 2017.
All Okun sons and daughters are encouraged to attend the Congress as participants. However, not all participants at the Congress are eligible to vote during elections at the congress. Only delegates, preselected by their various constituencies, and properly accredited, shall be eligible to vote to elect new officers of the Association.
Okunland consists of six local councils, namely, Ijumu, Kabbabunu, Lokoja, Mopamuro, Yagba East and Yagba West.
Interestingly, the 2024 Congress is the first of its kind to be hosted by the people of Yagba West Council, and particularly Egbe people, “who are very reputed for their unrivaled communal and hospitable disposition, and will be hosting the congress”, according to Mokikan, who also added that, “We are already seeing signs that the people are determined to break and set records on hosting events anywhere around in recent memory. They truly want to showcase those attributes that make them stand out. You just cannot afford to miss this year’s ODA Annual National Congress. If you do, you might have to wait for a long time before you would witness anything like it. We eagerly await your arrival for the red-carpet reception”.
Yagba West is home to the Senator representing Kogi West, Sunday Karimi, Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Muyi Aina, immediate past Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr Tunde Irukera, erstwhile Minister of Industry and ex-President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Chief Kola Jamodu, Managing Director of construction giants, GODAB Constructions Limited, Engr Godwin Abayomi, highbrow Lagos-based Management Consultant, Asiwaju Funsho Owoyemi, MD/CEO, First Trust Mortgage Bank, Mr Korede Adedayo and ex-Nigerian Envoy to Sri-Lanka, Ambassador Akenson Rotimi. Erstwhile Member, House of Representatives, Hon Samuel Bamidele Aro is also from there. Sitting Member, House of Representatives, Hon Leke Abejide, although he hails from neighbouring Yagba East Council, he currently represents Yagba Federal Constituency, consisting of Mopamuro, Yagba East and Yagba West Councils.
With funding as uppermost challenge, the performance of the outgoing ODA leadership lay entwined in the intangible manifestation of the efforts to build on the legacies of the founding fathers and rising to new frontiers. Even if the new frontiers are so clearly marked, they are not so easily conquered, going by the farewell message of the outgoing President-General, Mokikan, shared with The Guardian.
Notably, the sustained age-old agitations for the merger of Okun people in Kogi with their kith and kin in Kwara and Ekiti States of the Southwestern geopolitical zone, creation of Okun State and convocation of the Sovereign National Conference, have remained what they were – a mere wish.
The ODA under Mokikan’s watch, however could safely count on such moderate exploits as the Okun Unity House project and its Branch Development initiatives, Okun Anthem, Bridge building across ethnic nationalities, ODA website, visibility through advocacy, tackling security challenges, especially those induced by the herders’ menace and Covid-19 epidemic, among others.
One of the landmark achievements of ODA in the years under review is that the Executive has truly placed the Association in the hands of the owners-the Okuns. As Saturday marks the end of the second three-year term of the outgoing executive, this is the first time that this is happening since the association came into existence.
Mokikan noted: “We took a decision also to make our books open to all Okun people. That explains why we post every information on every money paid into our account on all Okun platforms for all to see. Unfortunately, this has not happened for months because money has since stopped coming into our account. It is fair to say that by a combination of factors, the awareness in the minds of the Okun people about the existence and activities of the Association has improved tremendously since the beginning of our tenure. The strategy of focusing on branch development, and moving our quarterly meetings around the local governments, including two hosting of such meetings in Oworoland contributed significantly to this. The numerous challenges that confronted our people during our tenure pressured them into seeking for intervention and when they had nowhere to go, they knocked at the doors of the Association. These serve as a good measure of how
conscious our people are of the Association. The incoming NEC will
need to continue to build on this”.
One area the Mokikan-led ODA leadership has been open to public scrutiny is its visibility through advocacy. Under its advocacy agenda, the team worked very hard in the last six years, to market Okun wherever there was opportunity to do so. This has led to better exposure, better visibility, and more willingness on the part of other ethnic nationalities to explore opportunities with the ODA.
“We have strongly registered our presence amongst various groups and royal thrones in the Southwest. Today, two of the outgoing NEC members are members of the National Caucus of the Afenifere. I must acknowledge publicly the effort of Dr David Atte in facilitating this. We will do our best in collaboration with Afenifere to ensure a smooth succession in this area”, he said.
Pertaining to national discourse on the Nigerian project under different nomenclature, what has been ODA’s scorecard in six years?
Mokikan stated: “Restructuring, regionlisation, confederation, constitution review, among others, have been in the public domain for some years. We, as an Association, in collaboration with other eminent Okun stakeholders, have continued to use every opportunity available to promote our position, which is for the government to give us our own state, Okun State, that will include all Okuns in Kogi, Kwara and Ekiti states, and realign the new state with our kith and kin in the Southwest zone. Where state creation becomes impossible or farfetched, then a realignment of territories to properly situate us with our kith and kin in the southwest will be a welcome alternative. Our advocacy effort saw us pay a visit to the Aro’le Odua, the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II. Our visit was to draw his Imperial Majesty’s attention to what we considered an unfair marginalization of our Yorubaness by the Southwest Yorubas, and the neglect that appeared to be a product of that. We note with delight that following our visit, the situation improved. Invitations are now being extended to our people, including our Royal Fathers to participate in one thing or the other that affect the interests of the Yorubas generally. We are happy to also note that we enjoyed the active support of some prominent citizens of the Southwest in our fight against insecurity in our land.
“At the state level, because the state government is the government for all citizens of the state, and not for any one party, our Association took the position that it is in our best interest to collaborate with the government of the day for the benefit of our people. Our advocacy agenda therefore took us to the state government a few times for strategic issues that affect the interests of Okun people. We also had sessions with various Okun stakeholders, including politicians, our senior citizens, and distinguished elites, all in our effort to
explore opportunities for promoting the good of Okunland. While we are still very far from where we should be as an Association, given the rich endowment that God has bestowed upon us in the quality of our people, one can say with some confidence that today ODA commands more respect and attention amongst our people. And for the right reasons too. Today people are falling over each other to occupy National Executive Council offices. This is good for the Association if the trend continues. And it can only get better”.
To give a broader perspective of the Okun Nation, especially to Okuns in the diaspora, than they would otherwise have, ODA developed a website and an email address for the use of all sons and daughters of Okun at home and in the Diaspora.
Said he: “Technology is the language of the world today. It can never be reversed. Instead, it is going to get more confounding and more complex. The National Executive Council decided that Okun must not be left behind. To the glory of God, we now have a website and an email address for the use of all sons and daughters of Okun Kingdom at home and in the Diaspora. You can visit us at https//okundev.org and send all emails to info@okundev.org
“This website, like all websites, provides us an opportunity to have a feel of home wherever one may be on this planet. the site gives us access to all the benefits that a website makes available to a website owner. Some of you here probably know more about it than some of us. The challenge we have now is to create the awareness amongst our critical stakeholders, including our community development associations at village/town and district levels, to flood the website with stuff so that Okun people can feel at home wherever they may be on the planet”.
The Okun Unity House, Kabba, an initiative of the outgoing leadership, is an ongoing project the leadership has taken the first few steps towards the realization of a befitting Secretariat for the organization.
Shedding light on the project, Mokikan disclosed: “We have a two-acre property gifted to us by the Obaro of Kabba and his Traditional Council,
for the purpose of building a befitting Secretariat that will be the envy of all. We started work on it through one of the virtues that we promised to promote, which is the spirit of volunteerism. The land was voluntarily donated. The survey plan was voluntarily donated. Fencing was done largely from voluntary efforts. The architectural design and the quantity survey were voluntarily donated by our sons. People volunteered their services, people donated cement blocks, cement, etcetera in response to our passionate appeal for us to be able to fence it. After the architectural design was ready, we were stuck. No money. And we appeared hopeless.
“We approached people, including our elected officers in the National
Assembly, but no committed responses. We had more of promises.
When we were about to give up, God beckoned on Hon Leke Abejide, Member representing Yagba Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. He was the only one who came to our assistance. He
committed to personally supervise the spending of N20,000,000.00 on
the project. He did that. Today the foundation of the OKUN UNITY
HOUSE is completed. We hope and pray that the incoming NEC will be
able to complete it and move in during their tenure”.
He added, “We like to extend our gratitude to the Kabba Development Union and their very understanding and accommodating President-General, Engr Emmanuel Ajibero, for giving us a leasehold on their National Secretariat whenever we needed to use it. We cannot acknowledge enough the contributions of Evang. Imotola Theophilus, Arc Emma Sola, and Hon Leke Abejide, the people God used to give us the site survey plan, architectural design, quantity survey plan,
and the foundation of the house respectively”.
National, College or Community Anthems are usually means by which people give expression to virtues and values they consider dear to them, which they desire to keep alive as a behavioral guide in their consciousness through a form of rendition. The outgoing ODA NEC in their wisdom thought it appropriate to have an Okun Anthem, which will be used during traditional and official ceremonies.
“To realize this desire”, began Mokikan, “we set up the Deacon Olusuyi Otitoju Committee to midwife an Anthem for us. This Committee worked tirelessly to give us what we now have as our Anthem. I must add that we wanted to try our Anthem in our language/dialect. We did not go far on that before we realized that there is nothing like Okun language/dialect. There are Okun people, but no Okun language/dialect. People protested that their dialects were not heard in those trials. We touched base with our Royal Fathers and we concluded that since we are Yorubas and pushing very hard to be realigned in a restructured Nigeria, we settled for the language that is common to us all, which is Yoruba. We must popularize Okun Anthem. Let us make it a part of our regular
renditions in school, churches/mosques, and other social gatherings. Our schoolteachers have a huge role to play in this regard. We plead for your support”.
The President-General espoused the importance of expansion of operations of the organisation through the encouragement of branches, home and abroad, and enthused that “Branch Development Agenda” is another area the ODA has excelled under his leadership: “The strength of our kind of Association is not in the National Executive Council. The National Executive Council can only be as strong as the branches enable and empower it to be. It follows therefore that the stronger the branches are the stronger the National Executive Council would be. It was for this reason that outgoing NEC committed to growing our branches and supporting them to remain very active. To make this happen, we immediately, upon assumption of office, set up a Branch Development Committee under the leadership of Elder Samuel Omotunde Mesirin. With Solomonic wisdom, Elder Mesirin’s Committee developed a Branch Manual to guide the operation and running of the branches. The Committee saw to it that new ODA Branches were established in some States/Cities of the country, including Abuja, Ojoo, Ota, Ayangba, Badagry, Ikorodu, and Ogun. It is an embarrassment that in our six years in office, we could not establish any branch anywhere in
Okunland. I want to plead with our people in Yagba West, you are already popular for breaking and setting records. Let the new NEC take off with ODA Branches in Igbaruku, Odo Ere, Ejiba, Egbe, etc.
“Let me say a few things about the new ODA Branch in North America. You will recall that on March 10, 2019, an Ethiopian Airline flight crashed killing all the 157 people on board. One of the dead was one Canada- based, globally sought after, prolific writer and public analyst, Prof Pius Adesanmi, one of the finest brains in his calling you can find anywhere in the world. It was after the tragic incident that some of us got to know that this brilliant young man was from Isanlu. Yes, our own Isanlu. There and then the ODA said never again. We started the process of connecting with our sons and daughters in the diaspora. To the glory of God, we now have incorporated in the US a vibrant ODA for all our sons and daughters in North America (Canada and US). Among them are Professors (serving and retired), Doctors, Al Professionals, Consultants, Business Owners, Health Services Providers, Pastors/Imams, etc. We pray and hope that their Okun counterparts in Nigeria will someday come to see the need for them to mirror what it is with the ODA-NA. With what they have done within the few years of their existence I have no doubt that better days are ahead for the ODA. They provided us with 11 motorcycles and other logistics in support of our security initiatives. Efforts are on to establish branches of ODA in Europe, UK and Asia”.
He added, “I must appreciate the works of all the members of ODA-NA for their support and strong determination to see ODA at home become more impactful. I want to particularly acknowledge and appreciate the
leadership role of Prof Larry Akin-Adeyemi who I like to describe as an uncommon Okun man. Day and night he keeps thinking of our challenges and how to confront them. I pray that God will bless Okun with more of him. Coincidentally, he is from Egbe.I must also appreciate the efforts of Dr Adeolu Ireyomi, who is based in Canada, for his pioneering role in the formation of ODA-NA. He was also the person God used to facilitate the building of a website for ODA at no cost to the Association. He is from Aiyetoro-Gbede”.
Mokikan also scored his executive high in the area of bridge building across ethnic nationalities.
“One of what I campaigned with in 2017 was the promotion of mutual
understanding and respect among the three major components of the
state, the west, the east and the central. Through the sustained efforts of the ODA, the leadership of the umbrella Associations representing the three zones, held series of meetings, which eventually gave birth to the Kogi State Coalition of Umbrella Development Associations
(KOCUDA). The new body was able to organize the first ever Kogi State
Peace and Unity Summit in Lokoja in 2019, where over 400 delegates from the three zones assembled to share experiences and listen to eminent speakers on the various dimensions of peace and unity in the
state”.
Speaking on tackling security challenges, Mokikan noted that if there is any area that really stretched the ODA under his leadership since the beginning of his tenure tenure, “it is in the security of the lives and prperties of our people both when they are in their homes, when they go to their farms, and when they are on the road”.
He added that, “The threats that the herdsmen and bandits pose in this area is a national challenge and very well known to all. The free pass that the last state government gave to them right at the beginning of our tenure, was a major contributory factor to the increased invasion of different parts of our land. You will all recall that we held a very well attended meeting with our Royal Fathers and other key stakeholders in
Kabba on this matter and we unanimously rejected every proposal that
was designed to flood our place with herdsmen. Sadly, the situation did
not improve. Through the security committee of the ODA under our own
Mr Tunde Ibrahim and the very strong support of one of our leaders in
Okunland, Dr David Atte, we were compelled to turn to other sources for
assistance. i want to specially thank Dr Atte and his friend, Chief Mabogunje, and all others that God used to support us in this area. Following the establishment of the ODA-North America, they immediately took the security challenge in our land as a priority project. It is for this reason that they provided us with funds to purchase 11
motorcycles for distribution to our hunters in their effort to provide protection to our people. About the same time, the BIKY Club, whose members are all Okun Professionals, bought and provided us with six
motorcycles for a similar exercise. We cannot thank these two groups enough. We gave out the 17 motorcycles at a well-attended ceremony at the palace of the Obaro of Kabba and Chairman, Okun Traditional council.
“Despite these interventions, the challenge is still very much alive and
thriving. Notwithstanding the frightening situation, we must acknowledge, appreciate, and thank the state government, and particularly the state Security Adviser, Comdr Jerry Omodara, for all his efforts and responsiveness as and when needed”.
Elusive Lugard House
On August 3, 2023, ODA spearheaded the meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Aso Rock villa. According to the outgoing ODA Secretary-General, Obajemu Henry Ben, the meeting, which was at the request of ODA, in conjunction with likeminds, Kogi West Elders Forum (KWEF) and Okun Think Thank (OTT), centered on issues around the governorship of Kogi State. Obajemu recalled that “The compelling case of power rotation to Kogi West Senatorial District after over three decades of creation of Kogi State was tabled by the group, who expressed Okun people’s unwavering support for the Tinubu Administration and requested the president’s backing for Kogi West Senatorial District to have an opportunity to produce the governor of Kogi State in 2024”.
Whereas, the news of ODA’s engagement with President Tinubu elicited excitement and commendation from across Okunland and Kogi West as a whole, the hopes weaved around the historic meeting with the president and the envisaged prospect of Okun producing the Governor of Kogi State in 2024, 32 years after the creation of the state, were dashed. Power is not given. Power is taken!
Mokikan lamented the elusive power shift to Kogi West and failure to realize the dream of having an Okun man to occupy the Lugard House, Lokoja seat of power during his tenure. He however consoled his kismen, saying all hope is not lost.
“Some of the advocacy initiatives since 2017 were for very strategic reasons. We invested time, efforts, and resources, in most cases, personal resources, into our Lugard House Agenda. Unfortunately, and
sadly, we did not realize our dream of an Okun man occupying the
Government House in Lokoja during the life of this NEC. It is our earnest prayer that under the incoming NEC, an Okun man will become the Governor of Kogi State. It is not enough to chorus Amen to this. We must sit down and do our homework thoroughly. We must be strategic about it. We have enough competent people for the job. It is our earnest prayer that under the incoming NEC, an Okun man will become the Governor of Kogi State. We must sit down and do our homework thoroughly. We must be strategic about it. We have enough competent people for the job. We have enough brilliant and street wise people to conceptualize and design strategies for this mission.
From my learnings during all our struggles for this dream, I concluded
that we are the architect of our own failures. Our politicians and their
supporters must learn to put the general interest of okun people above
their personal interests, make needed personal sacrifice for the collective aspiration of the people for which this generation and the ones to come will remain eternally grateful. The East is not our problem. The Central is not our problem. Okun people are the problems of Okun Kingdom. The new NEC will need to examine this area deeply if we must achieve anything meaningful. And the time to begin is now. God will give you the wisdom you need and the understanding and cooperation of our people in this regard”.
Conclusively, Mokikan declared: “I must add that the little we were able to accomplish was largely through the demonstration of the virtue of volunteerism that is present in us as a people. Our National Secretariat Project, The Okun Unity House, has been all about volunteerism. The land was donated to us free. The fencing, survey, architectural design, Bill of Quantity, and foundation were all through volunteerism. Still through volunteerism, we got two plots of land in Obajana and we paid for two more to make it four plots of land that stands to the name of ODA in Obajana. The condition for granting us the land was that the land would not be sold but developed for whatever purpose ODA may decide. Through volunteerism we were able to build a website for the ODA. All these benefits that accrued to ODA through volunteerism did not enter the ODA bank account. No matter how visionary you are, inadequate funding can frustrate all your vision and efforts directed at accomplishing such vision. The incoming NEC must come up with a strategy that will help improve the funding of the Association”.
