I want to congratulate the executive and members of Iwoland Development Coalition for this arrangement. All you are doing for the uplift and progress of Iwoland attests to the fact that you are all hardworking, tenacious and patriotic. It is noteworthy that a chunk of this work was from Hon. Justice Falola’s lecture delivered at Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife(OAU) on Saturday March 5, 2016 at the ‘Eko/Eki Day’ of Federation of Iwoland Students’ Union. According to Rev. Johnson and Prince Adelega FCPA, in their separate publications, Ile-Ife is the home to Iwo indigenes. Prince Adekola Telu, the founder of the ruling dynasty in Iwo was the son of Queen Luwo, the 16th Ooni of Ife. Telu left Ife with others and his first settlement was Ogundigbaro located at the confluence of River Oba and River Osun.
He later moved to Igbo Orita, presumably around where the new Ibadan-Iwo Garage is situated. At Igbo Orita, Prince Ogunfenumodi emerged the ruler after the death of his father, Prince Telu. The present Iwo is ringed by towns such as Ile- Ogbo, Ikire-Ile, Telemu, Ogbaagba, Iwo-Oke, Bode-Osi,Oba Moro, Oluponna, Kuta , Agberire and many more. All these communities formed Iwo Local Authority District Council and later, Iwo Local Government Council. Later, over time it became three councils viz: Iwo Local Government, Ayedire Local Government and Ola-Oluwa Local Government. I went into this details in order to discover where the spirit of patriotism was lost and mistrust started. Wars have brought together different bed fellows, and politics rather than unite, has sharply divided us.
When Chief Gbadegesin Adedeji was the Chairman Iwo Local Government, he convened several meetings of notable individuals, including Chief Adeagbo Odeniyi, Chief Ben Adigun both of Oluponna, Chief R.A. Nafiu, Dr. Pade Aderibigbe, Dr. Ben Ogunkanmi all of Ile-Ogbo, Dr. Oluremi Atanda, Chief Seeni Olatokun and others, to forge a common agenda to move the communities forward. For inexplicable reasons, people from the districts were edged out in subsequent deliberations. What emerged later was Iwo Board of Trustees (IBOT), Iwo Development Council (IDC), Iwo Action Council (IWAC) etc. This explains why elite in other communities recoiled to their shells and felt treated as people that did not matter except during elections.
A united Iwoland gave way to the promotion of individualism and sectionalism. Politics, over time, has been used to weaken our patriotism, socio-economic development and caused mistrust among our people. After Chief Bola Ige lost the 1983 election, houses were either razed or vandalized. What did we gain in return? Nothing. The highest government owned institution in Iwoland are secondary schools. No state-owned higher institutions. What then is our benefit from our vociferous noise in the political arena and the blind loyalty to political parties?. What have we derived from the monopoly of the office of the Secretary to the State Government since the return of civilian rule in 1999? We cannot continue to bring the dregs to the table when others parade their best.
How do people with no other pedigree than being a councilor or ward executive member of a party be chairman where engineers, retired permanent secretaries and professors are around? On the other hand, we remain fixated and kept basking on past glory? There was a time in the old Oyo State, when after Ibadan and Ogbomosho; Iwo was next. No one is sure of where we stand at present. We lost it when we no longer produce strong leadership and started to speak in different tunes. The seed of mistrust germinated in 1976 when 35 councillors were elected to run the affairs of Iwo Local Council. The same thing happened during the Third Republic when we had Social Democratic Party and National Republican. Iwoland witnessed politicians in the two parties who were not in the same group fought each other as enemies. This contributed significantly to the total neglect of our community by successive governments since 1999. We lost it when professionals, academics and seasoned administrators were displaced by politicians. However, the promise of a new start came with the installation of Oluwo. Alayeluwa Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi Telu I, an energetic, dynamic, urbane, connected and widely travelled. Kabiyesi should mobilize our people in the three councils to queue behind him. The mistrust among the chiefs and Iwo traditional council must be addressed.
Kabiyesi should work on palace secretariat, so that chiefs will have well defined roles and functions that befit their respective offices. Although everybody is needed, he should listen less to those who display arrogant disposition which is making a lot of people to lose interest in working for the group agenda. I passionately plead with the Oluwo of Iwoland and Iwo Traditional Council to look for high flying professionals, successful businessmen, officers in the armed forces, top bureaucrats, politicians etc and organize “Royal Dinner” or “Colloquium” for them once a year, using the forum to pass the development agenda message across to them. •Excerpts of a lecture delivered by Professor Alagbe Wasiu Gbolagade, a visiting professor of Computational Mathematics at Federal University of Technology, Minna on the second anniversary of Iwo Development Coalition at Iwo, Osun state.