Excitement in Osun as Sen. Fadahunsi Dazzles Constituents with 150 Buses, 300 Motorcycles, Sewing Machines, Others

By Damola Emmanuel

It was joy unstoppable for the people of Osun East Senatorial District, on Saturday, June 11, 2022, as their Senator, Chief Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi, gave lifelines to different categories of people in the district through his economic empowerment programme.

The beneficiaries included transporters, tailors, farmers, hair dressers, and various levels of artisans. The items were officially presented to them at the agrarian town of Ilase-Ijesa in Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State.

In all, the beneficiaries got 150 units of mini buses, 300 motorcycles, dozens of sewing machines, generating sets, hair dryers, clippers, agricultural inputs, farm implements like hand sprayers, cutlasses, safety aprons and boots, wheel barrows, shovels, iron sponges, and more than 1,000 bags of fertilizers.

Among top Nigerians that witnessed the epochal event were: Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde; PDP’s candidate for next month’s gubernatorial poll in Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke; and National Vice Chairman (South West) of PDP, Mr. Soji Adagunodo.

Hundreds of citizens defiled the heavy downpour to witness Senator Fadahunsi put smiles on the faces of his constituents in Osun East Senatorial District.

Governor Makinde flagged off the trail-blazing event by presenting the keys of one of the mini-buses, popularly known as korope, to a constituent, Mr. Taofeek Olanrewaju, from Ward 8 in Ife South Local Government.

While presenting the keys, an elated Governor Makinde enthused that his party, PDP, was known for its track records of bringing tangible dividends of democracy to the people. The empowerment programme by Fadahunsi, he noted with satisfaction, was one of the great initiatives of PDP aimed at ameliorating the sufferings of the people.

The Governor appealed to the people of Osun State to support PDP in the upcoming July 16, 2022 governorship poll in the state, as well as in the 2023 general elections.

Makinde contended that the people of Osun State would be doing incalculable damage to themselves, and the nation by extension, if they failed to support PDP to win next month’s gubernatorial vote; as well as next year’s House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate, and presidential polls.

The people of Osun State, according to him, should not reward what he termed as the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to deliver the dividends of democracy to them but to roundly reject the ruling party at the polls on July 16, 2023. He urged them to allow PDP to come back to power in Osun State.

Like Makinde, Senator Ademola Adeleke, who lauded Fadahunsi for the massive empowerment programme, solicited the support of Osun people for him to become governor because he had the interest of the state at heart and had what it takes to make the citizens smile.

Adeleke noted that his family had invested so much in the state, providing jobs for many people across various demographics. He promised to do more should the people of Osun State elect him as governor. He charged them to ask the Gboyega Oyetola Administration to pinpoint the investments they have made or brought to the state in their four years at the saddle.

In his address, Senator Fadahunsi thanked Governor Makinde and Senator Adeleke for gracing the occasion and boosting the confidence of his constituents in Osun East Senatorial District, and PDP in the state.

Fadahunsi enjoined the people of Osun State to vote massively for Adeleke during the July 26 governorship election for the all-round transformation of the state.

Fadahunsi offered profuse praises to God Almighty for helping him to fulfill his promises to his constituents.

“To the glory of Almighty God, I have jealously kept to my campaign promises,” he declared. “In less than three years, my mid-term projects, programmes, and activities aptly showcase my fidelity to the social contract we signed with the people.

“It is an eloquent testimony to the fact that my ultimate priority in office is to transform the living conditions of my constituents through sound leadership, empowerment programmes, entrepreneurial trainings, facilitation of modern social amenities, such as solar-powered streetlights, boreholes and food pantry initiatives.

“Others include: provision of working tools for artisans, provision of mini-buses for transportation, construction and rehabilitation of educational facilities, electrification project, women and youth development, promotion of sporting and recreational activities, as well as the creation of employment opportunities for graduates and young school leavers.”

Fadahunsi did not stop there. He expressed his profound gratitude to his constituents for their “continued and unrelenting support in the face of varying challenges and difficulties.”

“But like Olive Twist, I will ask for more,” Fadahunsi continued. “I still need your fervent support, understanding, cooperation, collaboration, your esteemed interventions and policy inputs to enable me deliver bigger and better dividends of democracy.

“Additionally, I will continue to rely on your prompt information dissemination to my constituency office. Your regular comments, assessments, as well as objective criticisms with regards to our projects, programmes and activities have helped me greatly. I believe that your unrelenting synergy with my team, political and technical staff, as well as major stakeholders within our district, will go a long way to further put Osun East Senatorial District and, indeed, the entire Osun State on higher pedestal.”

Fadahunsi roused the enthusiastic crowd at the event in Ilase-Ijesa, declaring that PDP would not only win the July 16 governorship poll in Osun convincingly, it would also regain the presidency come 2023.

What is his basis for this optimism, our correspondent asked? He accused the APC administration of “gross ineptitude and incompetence through which it has brought untold hardship and hunger to the people.”

“To end the misery in Osun,” Fadahunsi submitted, “the people must vote out APC, and vote PDP into power. I am very confident that we are going to make it. We are going to have total victory, even at the national level. We are going to have total victory. Enough is enough. Enough of hunger. Enough of poverty. Enough of insecurity.”

In his welcome address, chairman of the Senator Fadahunsi Empowerment Committee, Prof. Sola Ehindero, told the audience that the day’s event was a culmination of good thinking and extensive research into the scale of preference of the people in the senatorial district.

“About 10 months ago,” Ehindero recalled, “Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi, set up a 10-man committee to assess the contemporary social, economic and political challenges facing the good people of Ife-Ijesa zone as a result of the bad governance and poorly articulated policies of the APC administration.

“The committee was requested to come up with an implementation blueprint to meet such disturbing and unacceptable challenges through a series of phased strategic and accountable empowerment programmes.

“An important component of the committee’s consideration was to implement the empowerment programme in ways that justify PDP’s focus on ‘Power to the People’ and to propagate both the ideals and ideas of the party members in the constituency.

“This phase of non-partisan constituency project, like the previous ones, focused on giving of grants, loans, mini buses, tricycles, motorcycles, solar-powered boreholes and streetlights; infrastructural developments – road construction, building and equipping of schools, classrooms, laboratories and health centres, fertilizers and agricultural inputs for farmers, grinding machines, sterilizers, hair/head drying machines, clippers and shovels, wheelbarrows  and other materials that can alleviate poverty, hunger, insecurity in all ramifications, through entrepreneurship, vocational educational engagements training and economic self-reliance.”

Ehindero, however, stated further that the empowerment programmes would take place in phases, promising that “those who did not benefit from this phase will be given priority in subsequent phases.”

But he urged them to continue to support Senator Fadahunsi and the PDP and in subsequent elections in the senatorial district, the state and nationally.

Some of the beneficiaries of the empowerment programme included Mr. Taofeek Olanrewaju from Ward 8, Ife South Local Government; Mrs. Funmilayo Ayoola from Ife North; and Deacon Aofolaju Wole. They thanked Senator Fadahunsi for the gesture and pledged their support and continuous loyalty to him and their party.