By J.O. Abel-Ontop
The 2025 Okun Development Initiative (ODI) Summit is coming at a time when the Okun People need an immediate positive impact to tackle the challenges of the land. This article wouldn’t bore its readers on these challenges but focus on the need to unite to bring solutions as it is a fact that these challenges are existential and in the face of everyone.
The ODI has taken a different dimension to emphasize the need for the Unity of Okun Nation, taking from its 2025 Summit Theme: The Power of One Voice, The Strength of Many Hands.
This theme appears to be all we need as a people to reach our collective goals, provided we can evaluate this theme and, most especially, act on its content.
This theme, ordinarily, is broader than what should be taken in a 2-day summit.
The Theme, The Power of One Voice, The Strength of Many Hands, is loaded and explicit. It is an assumption and quite an assurance that we have understood the details of all our challenges as a people and even the solution to it all.
The theme speaks to the fact that we have all it takes to make Okun Nation become what it should be. Our seeming lack of unity is only what appears to be holding us back.
In truth, what can we do without unity? What can we do without understanding our differences and individuality and harnessing it as a tool to develop our land?
“The Power of One Voice” speaks to how we can channel our dissenting opinions to the advantage of Okun Nation and her people.
It speaks of the importance of respecting our individuality and uniqueness; it symbolizes the impact one person can bring from the outside world to our collective benefit as Okun People. It also emphasized the importance of self-expression, how we can gather our individualistic expressions to be One Voice, and send out Okun-expression to powers that are for a collective goal to be achieved. It also signals the potential for innovation and change within ourselves as Okun People.
“The Strength of Many Hands” represents collaboration and teamwork, recognizing the power of diverse perspectives, emphasizing the value of unity and cooperation, cum the potential for achieving common goals.
Altogether, the theme is asking us to bring our voices together to create a stronger platform to send more impactful messages, unite our efforts for greater achievements, and understand our diversity as a tool to unite us for essential success. In the end, we will identify that empowerment and development come from both individual expression and collaborative action.
In all, the 2nd ODI Summit, if the outcome is executed, would be a path to a long-lasting solution to our challenges as Okun People.
It is scheduled as follows:
30th – 31st May 2025, 9:00am Daily.
Olonijola Event Centre, Kabba.
