The Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Chief (Mrs) Monisade Afuye, has charged the indigenes of Ikere Ekiti to embrace love, unity and strong spirit of brotherhood for the Ogoga of Ikere, Oba Adejimi Adu Alagbado to achieve his vision of making the town a cynosure of all eyes in terms of development.
Mrs Afuye, who is the Okinlua of Ikere kingdom and the head of princesses, also pledged the support of Governor Biodun Oyebanji’s government to backing developmental programmes being midwifed by the town to uplift its standards.
Afuye gave the charge in Ikere Ekiti, on Saturday, during the carnival-like 2023 Odun Oba Annual Festival, organised by illustrious sons and daughters of the second largest community in the state to promote unity, culture and spirit of togetherness.
At the epoch-making event, Oba Adu conferred traditional honourary titles on some illustrious Nigerians to appreciate their contributions to nation building.
Addressing the community, Mrs Afuye, saluted the monarchs for raising the bar of development and foster peace among the indigenes of the town, describing his reign as memorable and remarkable in all spheres.
She described the community as strategic to the rating of state in terms of development index, revealing that the government is desirous of taking development to every town in Ekiti, and that Ikere won’t be neglected under this context.
Mrs Afuye appealed to the town to be united and coalesce efforts with the monarch to raise the standard of living of the people through communal actions that will secure the town to become the epicentre of development.
Addressing his subjects and the honourees, the Ogoga of Ikere, Oba Adu, commended the indigenes for their generous contributions towards the smooth take off of the the Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere Ekiti, after the upgrading of the existing College of Education.
Oba Adu appealed to his subjects to contribute towards fortifying the local and conventional security networks of the community to ward off cases of Kidnappings, killings, robbery and ritual killings in the town.
“Those who are perpetrating ritual killings, we are not going to tolerate such again. We also heard some people were into cultism. Some years back, about 10 people were killed by cultists in Ikere. We are not going to allow this in our community, it won’t happen again.
“I want all of you to be vigilant. Issue of security is not for government or security agencies alone. We have made it clear that no commercial motorcycle riders should cover his face again. Whoever does that should be arrested”.
The monarch charged the parents to place high value on the education of their children, describing education as the best weapon to combat poverty in the society.
Pledging unalloyed support to the monarch in his unwavering developmental focus, the National President, Ikere Development Forum (IDF), Pastor Tope Orolu, applauded the monarch for his innovation to project the town, and make it a microcosm of development.
“We are happy with the way Kabiyesi has been promoting development, unity and peace in Ikere. We have studied you and we realised that you think more about our growth than yourself.
“We are assuring you that we are behind you. We will continue to support your vision to promote Ikere and make it known for good things nationally and globally”.
Packaged by Mayowa Owogbade
