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Being the Acceptance Speech of Barr. Femi Pius Mokikan on his emergence as the National President of Okun Development Association (ODA) today 20th Oct, 2017.
Omo okun olori re o!
Omo okun olori re ooo!!
Omo okun olori re oooooo!!!
Opening Remarks:
All honour, all glory, all praises be unto God, the creator of heaven, earth and all that is therein. Was he not the one who said : “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations”.
He is the only one that knows the end from the beginning, therefore, he knew about today in my life even before I was born.
Gratitude:
I want to thank everyone that played one role or the other in making this victory possible. I do not want to run the risk of leaving anyone out and thus risk hurting a healthy relationship that evolved over the years or just recently. I therefore will not be mentioning names of individuals, too numerous individuals that I encountered on this journey. Please bear with me and know that I cannot thank you enough. God almighty that used you to make this possible will reward you in ways that man cannot. Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you and thanks!!!
Notwithstanding, may I request that our people from Oworo rise to their feet while the rest of us join me in celebrating them. It is the turn of our people from Yagba West, our people from Yagba East please rise, could our people from Mopamuro please rise to receive their applause, our people from Ijumu please kindly rise to receive your applause. Ladies and gentlemen kindly join me to applaud our Kabba brothers as they please rise. Finally, our people from Bunu please rise to receive your applause. I want to state unequivocally that am greatly overwhelmed by your show of love as demonstrated by the outcome of the election. May God give me the grace not to disappoint you . I urge you to please pray for me.
Our immediate past president (IPP), Ambassador Babatunde Fadumiyo, I recall hearing you in various conversations say that you pray to be able to hand over to someone who will not only do better than you, but will do better than you 10 times! Such a statement could not have come from a mean leader. It can only come from a leader of leaders. Okun people owe you and your executive members immense gratitude. On behalf of all Okun people at home and outside, I want to thank you specially, together with other members of your executive, for your selfless service to your people over the years. I pray that God will answer your prayers for your successors and take you to higher height.
Chief Jimmy Olumudi:
My dear chief, I personally owe you immense gratitude for your role in this election. The competitive spirit with which we went about the campaign brought the best out of us and revealed the incredible creative talents that lay dormant in many of our youths. If you did not contest, how would I have known all the great Okun people that I got to know and developed a bond of friendship with in the course of going round all the districts in Okunland.
I wish the ODA constitution provides for two National Presidents at the same time. You are more than qualified and competent to be our President.
I also believe that Okun people owe you a measure of gratitude for what you did in the past, what you did in this election, and more importantly, what you will still do for our fatherland.
The Journey So Far:
What we are celebrating today is not my victory at the election. It is victory for Okun people. It is victory for the inner yearnings of Okun men and women, old and young, who have silently prayed and hoped for a time when Okun voice will no longer be in whispers that are few and far between, but will be loud, sought after and respected on national, zonal and state matters.
The urge to contest started as an idea from three sources:
The first was from within me. I had the strong feeling that serving as ODA president would be God’s way of answering my prayers for him to still make me relevant in service to humanity after my retirement.
The second source was the south West zone of ODA under the leadership of Chief Akere Owoniyi.
And the third was Chief A K Medaiyese, an accomplished illustrious son of Bunuland who passed on about a year ago. May his soul rest in perfect peace.
The rest as they say is history.
Marketing Myself:
In the course of marketing myself for this office, I interacted with several Okun people, individually and in groups. One of such people was our mummy, a retired director in Lokoja, who by every definition, is a social and political activist. My meeting with her was very instructive. She framed three issues for my consideration. She asked me pointedly-
* What plan do you have and what approach would you adopt that you think will make you perform better than the outgoing executive?
* Okun people do not appreciate people’s service to them even when the individual providing the service excels in serving them. How will you feel if you think you have done your best, which by any objective standard is good enough, and Okun people still feel you have not done anything and keep deriding you?
* How much insult can you take before you lose your head and fight back? Okun people will insult you. Can you stand their insults?
Our discussion on each of this helped a lot in shaping my perception of the role I was preparing to take on myself. Mummy I am grateful!
As I traveled across the length and breadth of the vast land areas that make up Okun, seeing the terrible state of our infrastructures, I was confronted with critical challenges that are uniquely Okun; and from my interaction with our people across strata, I became more convinced that indeed Okun can be better.
The easier part of the job is what we have just seen, contesting and winning the election. The real job that will deliver what our people are yearning for will however start immediately.
The Structure of Community Development Based Organizations:
There are basically two levels of community development associations. The first consist of those associations that are set up by individual cities, towns, villages with the primary goal of promoting development in such towns and villages. At another level is the type of organization that serves as an umbrella for the peoples of all the cities, towns and villages that consider themselves an autonomous entity on the basis of language, culture or any other factor, even though they belong to different towns and villages. ODA fits perfectly into the second category. A healthy and productive relationship must exist between the two. The new team will explore and exploit the benefits of this relationship.
A New Spirit for ODA-Okun Rebirth:
Because this body, Okun Development Association (ODA) is the sole socio-cultural and development Umbrella of the Okun people, with authority to speak and act on behalf of the Okun -Yoruba of our state, on matters affecting our governance, development and sustainable livelihood, our initial focus will be on how to strengthen this body, how to run it to make it earn your trust, your respect, your support and how to make each one of us feel a passionate sense of belonging. Towards this end, I will be proposing to the new executive the following for consideration and approval:
* That we develop a creed that will be recited at the beginning of every Okun-related activity.
* A Structure of ODA executive meeting that will be on a quarterly basis with a one year meeting calendar planned ahead for each year of our tenure.
* That ODA Executive meeting be held on a rotational basis among all the districts that make up the Association.
* The recruitment and selection of matured, experienced and result-oriented official who would be in charge of the day to day administration of the National Secretariat.
* Development of a four year strategic plan.
* Development of a detailed work plan for the first year of our tenure.
The work ahead is enormous. Okun is blessed with the human capital that has the capability and capacity to decisively take on the challenge. It requires that all hands should be on deck so that we may collectively hand over to our children and the yet unborn an Okunland that is most admired and respected.
To make this possible, we will need the support and co-operation of everybody in who the Okun blood runs.
I therefore wish to make a passionate appeal to all our sons and daughters, particularly the high net-worth individuals and those who may not be in the high net-worth category but have the right network at the appropriate places, Okun professionals, and all Okun people to please be prepared to answer us whenever we call. Specifically, we would be calling on you very soon to bless ODA with a befitting secretariat edifice.
God will answer you and provide you with the needed resources as you always respond to our calls.
Concluding Remarks:
I want to close by, again, thanking the outgoing Executive, the Electoral Planning Committee, the Conference Planning Committee, all Okun sons and daughters both at home and abroad, the security agencies. I, on behalf of the new Executive express my deep appreciation to all of you who in one way or the other made today’s event as successful as it has turned out.
Please permit me to single out all the energetic, vibrant, and resilient youths that supported both contestants, who, through a rare sophistication of technological savviness, raised the standard of the campaign to the unprecedented level it witnessed. I tried without success to imagine what the next campaign for these offices will be like. I am personally very proud of you. Thank you so very much. Now that the election is over, we must look for the best way to harness these enormous resources in our youths. Please re-adjust your thinking caps and let us work together to make these bear desirable fruit.
I close with a line from my friend and brother which he made in his acceptance speech when he was elected the president of Akutupa Welfare Association (AWA), Lagos Branch several years back:
ise ya omo okun olori re, ise ya
Barr. Femi Mokikan
National President
Okun Development Association
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