Okeho, my precious town, has not been having it so rosy at any time in my little study of the town and development. Although, it is a general phenomenon for Nigerians in respective of their location not having the best of social amenities and infrastructural development, our own story is probably the most pathetic.
It is the duty of government to connect towns and cities to the national grid for the supply of electricity and despite the less responsive government we have been having in the country, several towns, cities and villages were connected to the grid without stress but I was told that it took a conscious community effort, including raising funds, before Okeho was connected to the national grid at a time when most of the towns in its categories had been enjoying electricity.
We were left with an old fashioned postal agency for decades before the community was able to raise enough money for a befitting modern post office for the town. Unfortunately, post office was going out of fashion by the time we built our own, with the community efforts, and was ready for business. I was also told that the community had started raising money for the defunct NITEL service to be extended to Okeho before it went dead.
Okeho /Iganna Grammar School, the first secondary school in the town, was probably built by the community. I’m not very sure about that, but I am very sure about the School of Science. When Okeho School of Science was established, that was the time the one in Pade was also started. The School of Science, Pade, was built up by the government, but in Okeho, it was Egbe Omo Ibile Okeho that built the first block of classroom at the permanent site of the School of Science.
About six months ago, news broke that Oyo State Government had approved the establishment of a satellite campus of Oyo State College of Health Science for Okeho. This one is the most ridiculous government project any town can have; it came with conditions, stringent ones, as if we were starting a private school of our own. According to information I gathered, the community is to provide the facility for the take-off of the school, not land, but built up structures to include Director’s office, lecturers’ office, lecture theatres, accommodation for students and staff of the school and that the school will start with zero naira grant from the government.
This is a very strange arrangement, I schooled at Adeseun Ogundoyin Campus of the Polytechnic Ibadan, in Eruwa. I’m not sure there is a single block of classroom built in that school by Eruwa Community, all the abandoned and dilapidated buildings in the town were even turned into students’ hostels and we paid ‘city price’ for them.
The College of Education satellite campus in Lanlante was equally built up by the government, not to talk about the newly established College of Agriculture in Igboora that was built from the scratch. I visited my mentor from Okeho, Chief Sola Badmus, recently, in Lagos and he was encouraging me to contribute to the School of Health Science but I could not understand what good will those donations do to my town. I love my town and I have been an advocate of its development since my days as student, but I don’t think we should be paying for things other communities are enjoying without payment and stress.
In Okeho, we are the government of ourselves when it comes to provision of basic amenities. Whatever we don’t pay for, we don’t have. Perhaps we should declare our own Republic, set up our Central Bank, our Police and our sovereign government which shall control our resources and provide us with the basic amenities of life if Nigeria and Oyo State governments keep failing us.
There is nothing bad in community efforts towards the development of any community, but we should be directing our efforts towards more productive ventures. What we need more is building of our people, reawakening the consciousness of our youths about success and supporting ourselves as individual to be successful. Our prosperity as a community depends on the personal success of each of us. America became the wealthiest country in the world because most of its citizens were successful.
If platforms like Egbe Omo Ibile Okeho, Okeho Development Association and Okeho Economic Group were strengthened and funded to support citizens through incentives like the offer of scholarship to brilliant and indigent students that Egbe Omo Ibile used to give; seminars and programs that will change our perspective about ourselves and things happening around us; building our human mind, imagination and faith in our future by generating energy and courage to take positive action, our story will truly change.
The fortune of Ilara Mokin in Ondo State was changed by a single individual, Chief Michael Ade Ojo, and the town is now proud of a world-class University, a Golf Course and other amenities. Successful individual can transform the fortune of our community if the government refuses to and we choose to remain in Nigeria.
***This article was first published in September 2015
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