A member representing Ijero, Ekiti West and Efon Federal Constituency at the lower Chamber of the National Assembly, Hon. Omowumi Olubunmi Ogunlola, has enjoined the generality of the people of Ekiti State to come out en masse on Saturday, 18th June, 2022, and vote for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), as they have all been agitating for a thorough bred person to govern the State before now.
Speaking with Ekiti Standard, in Ado-Ekiti, the State Capital of Ekiti State, Hon. Ogunlola said she’s advising Ekiti people to vote for APC, and beyond APC, to vote for Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, because he has many things to deliver to Ekiti people as dividend of democracy.
“We have been agitating for a thorough bred Ekiti person and God has given us Biodun Oyebanji. We should all vote for him. Apart from being a member of my constituency, I am very close to him. He is a man with his own mind. Everything is in BAO. As SSG. he was able to touch many lives within the limit of what he’s having. The point is, he has been in our midst for long. He was a commissioner, a Chief of staff and even at the creation of Ekiti State, he was there. He knows everything about Ekiti State, at least 90%%”. She vouched
“Nobody should sell his or her right in this next dispensation. I am an APC member. I want to believe that my party will do the needful by putting the right person there”.
It could be recalled that the law maker recently had an empowerment programme for the people of her constituency, the gesture which she said was informed by her conviction to affect lives positively, saying that life is all about affecting others and that her own giving is beyond political
According to her, “giving has been part of me. The people I worked with when I was in the Judiciary will tell you that I was touching lives in my own little way. I was also doing same in my own little way when I was in the State House of Assembly”.
“From the inception of the present seat I am still occupying, we were inaugurated on 6th June, 2019, I trained many people then and I also did empowerment for three hundred women because I am a woman and when it comes to political games, women are usually left behind”.
Recounting further, “that same 2019, we commissioned some projects while we did the larger empowerment in 2020. Any programme I hold, is either I empower widows or the aged because they are vulnerable in the society and many people don’t attend to them. I am inspired to do it”. Ogunlola affirmed.
“Touching lives is my motivation. I can’t be in this position for life but the little time I would spend there, I should be able to do something. Not because I want people to praise me. I do tell people that I don’t have a swollen head. There is nothing you say that penetrates me, either you praise me or something contrary. It’s none of my business. As far as I am concerned, I am doing something because I am convinced to do it”.
Hon. Ogunlola explained that her empowerment is not limited to the ones that everybody can see as she stated that, she gives much behind the full glare of the people.
Narrating further. “when I finished the recent empowerment programme, I said it in the midst of the people that I felt fulfilled and that whatever happens next, I would take it as the will of God for me because the Bible says that the steps of the righteous are ordered by God”.
“That’s my own belief. As far as I am concerned, power belongs to God and He gives it to anyone He wants. If there is anytime that I am very happy, that I feel fulfilled and joyous within me, it is when I give. It is more of a calling to me. It is not politics”. She added.
Ogunlola, who is also seeking a re-election with the hope that she would win by the grace of God made a clarification that, she didn’t embark on the empowerment programme for the purpose of re- election.
Citing the case of the widow she built a house for, she said she never had the intention of building the house. “The mama called me as everybody calls me and said that rainstorm destroyed the roof of her house and that rain was entering the house”.
“I just sent someone to go and inspect the place. When the person got there, he took the picture of the place and sent to me. The person said the house was an old one and that if they should put roof that the roof could bring down the whole house”
Continuing, “the person said if I want to do anything, I should just bring down the whole house and rebuild. When I heard that, it didn’t go down well with me. I just told the person that okay, give me sometimes”.
“But when I was praying the second day, my spirit just told me, go and bring the house down and build it. I said how do I get the money? It’s not that I did it once. Just like the cars I gave out, I usually bought them every month. I used to set aside money every month or I tell the person selling it that I would pay in so so installment”.
“I do inconvenient myself to please others but not to my detriment. It’s not as if it’s something I cannot manage. I am not doing it for the purpose of election but if I am given the opportunity of going for the second term, why would anybody say I don’t deserve it? She queried.
In her word, “It is when you return that you can become something. I am doing what I feel I should do. Not based on anybody’s judgement or what they feel. It’s about me and my God. If I am giving to the widows, nobody asked me to give to them. If I am giving to the aged, nobody asked me”.
“Students, they say are our tomorrow. They are the ones that will occupy the future after we might have weak. That’s why am touching them too. I touch men as well not women only. I am not doing what I am doing to impress anybody. But to impress only my God”.
Reflecting on her experience as a woman who has been in politics for a while, Barrister Wumi Ogunlola opined that the way politics is being played here at the local level is different from the way it is being played back there in Abuja. She said It’s a different bore game when you get to the House of Rep.
“In fact, 2023 politics has already started in the House. As a woman, when you look at the number of Representatives that we have among the women, we have just twelve at the House of Representatives, while we have three hundred and forty-eight men. At the Senate, they have eight women out of one hundred and nine. It doesn’t favour us as women but in the midst of it all, you just have to play your own part and make yourself relevant there”.
