At one of our meetings when the name to be adopted for the movement was raised Engr. Rauf Aregbesola said he had an inspiration of the name in one of his trip to London of which he announced to myself, Niyi Aluko, Lanre Opadoyin and Bola Ilori and the name of the movement was called ORANMIYAN
The second contact was made by Prince Ajilore between myself, Prince Ajilore and Engr Rauf Aregbesola on Osun project, all this happened towards the end of 2003 after our party lost in the 2003 general election.
After my second meeting with Engr Rauf Aregbesola we resolved to put machinery in motion to first rebuild party in Osun so that we can have a solid platform to run the governorship when the time comes.
The trio Prince Ajilore, Niyi Aluko and my humble self meet regularly to strategize, mobilized our people to join us in the preparation for the struggle. We resolve to the mobilization from our base in ijesaland by resolving the intra party crisis in our party Alliance for Democracy (AD) then between Sen. Akinfenwa and late Chief Lere Adebayo faction of the party. As we are progressing in our contact and mobilization of notable party leader to support our project Hon. Lanre Opadoyin then the immediate past caretaker chairman of Mushin local government in Lagos state join us being an indigene of Osun, Hon. Bola Ilori then the immediate past caretaker chairman of Alimosho local government of Lagos state also join our team. We also worked very closely with Mr Wale Idowu to gain much support in ijesaland.
During our consultation we were accepted by Kabiyesi Oba Mohammed (Olosunjela) and Mr Kunle Odeyemi which gave us road into core ijesa politics. Another layer of our consultation went beyond ijesaland that was when Barr. Wale Afolabi, Kola Akanji Mr Oyewuni join us in a regular weekly meeting in Mr Kunle Odeyemi house at Imo, Ilesha. The five of us meet regularly at our symbol as we use to call Engr. Rauf Aregbesola then because he was the symbol of our struggles to take over government in Osun. We started meeting political leaders in all senatorial zones and leadership of the party at the state level.
During the party Congress in late 2003, we identified with Alhaji Adeoti who eventually emerged as the party chairman at the state and Barr. Wale Afolabi as the secretary respectively as we are moving in our mobilization, we are able to convince the party leadership that our best choice was to support our symbol which they eventually toed our line, that is Adeoti, Afolabi and Odeyemi team of the party, Engr. Rauf Aregbesola commissioned us to look for a befitting party secretariat for our party and he funded the cost of putting the secretariat in place and also funded the running of the party activities in the state. Within a few month of serious mobilization we have disciples in all the local government of the state, hence we appointed our local government coordination for our activities in the state. One beautiful morning we assemble as usual in symbol house in Ikeja GRA, we started brainstorming on which name we are going to adopt for struggle, many suggestions came up but as usual our symbol suggest the name ORANMIYAN and ask us to go and do research on the name as it effect history, after due and diligence research we all agree to adopt the name, then consideration started on the logo of the group, we resolve to adopt, combination of ORANMIYAN staff. Akoko leaf and peak cock. The meaning of the logo component was historic, Akoko leaf is used in this part of the world to crown a King or Chief while peak cork is the leader of all the birds and the staff symbolized ORANMIYAN the warrior. After this we name to assemble all Osun indigene in Lagos to come together and support our mobilization drive, since we believe all of them comes from a family in Osun they will be able to spread gospel of ORANMIYAN to their family members, friends and people in their localities. We meet every week in Aromire Ikeja area to sensitized and strategize.
After the first meeting we appointed Late (Dr) Olu Adewale as the coordinator and Engr. Olowokere as secretary, we later change Engr. Olowokere when we realized that Dr Adewale and olowokere are from the same place. We named the group OSUN SUPPORT GROUP (OSG), we encourage our members to move to Osun and started proclaiming ORANMIYAN, we have OSG members in all local government in the state including area office (Modakeke) and we appointed OSG local government coordinators. We started planning of our official entrance of launching of the group in Osun, our strategy was to mobilize all Osun indigene from Lagos back home via OSG to our AD members at home in Osun, we produce different designs of banners and ORANMIYAN uniform that carries our logo. We started planning round the clock to make that we had a successful launching. I could recollect a day that we were coming from Lagos to Osun, Hon. Opadoyin, Niyi Aluko, myself and Adegboye that join us, we left Lagos late in the evening and lost a Tyre between Lagos and Ibadan, we got to Iwo road around 9pm and looks for spare tyre to enable us to continue our journey, that night we lost two more tyres at the same time around Ikire, we left our bus there and look for how to leave the spot to Osogbo but to the glory of God we got to Osogbo around 1am in the middle of the night, these are the risk we took then in make sure we penetrate Osun.
It was during the preparation for our launching of ORANMIYAN in Osun, the then administration of Osun was not comfortable with our movement so they decided to stop us at all cost a day to our official launching, there was a directive to then commissioner of police by then the then Governor that our launching must not hold, so police placed embargo on all political activities in Osun. We quickly went back to our drawing immediately we heard their announcement. The police sealed our party secretariat at Ogo Oluwa along Gbongan road and road block to all entrance to Osun especially Osogbo. The three of us (myself, Opadoyin and Aluko) met and decided to change the venue of the event to Osogbo sport club, we approached the management and paid for the venue, to secure permit and I personally went to the police to seek for their protection at my birthday party in Osogbo party in Osogbo sport club and police authority assured me of their cooperation and protection not knowing that they are were about to protect a function they have been instructed to stop at another place. The venue was fully secured by the police reading the body language of the then administration, we had been instructed by our symbol to make provision for alternative means of transporting our thousand of Osun indigenes in Lagos back home to witness the event, in case the government blocked road and resist peoples movement to Osun for the event. We arranged with the management of Nigeria Railway Corporations to makes available to us their train to transport our people to Osun overnight, this happens to be our master joker, the police successfully blocked all entrance to Osun and restricted people's movement into Osogbo particularly, if you are sighted with ORANMIYAN uniform but they failed in stopping train for entering Osun with thousand of our peoples that day. The symbol himself was smuggled to Osogbo to beat police checking point despite all of us have succeeded to mobilized our people and party members in Osun overnight to allayed their fear and assured them that the event will hold that same day but at different locations.
In the morning of the launching, the police realized they had been fooled that the event they were preventing somewhere was what they were protecting in another venue under disguise of a get together party, there was nothing they could do again to avert trouble than to allow us to do our launching, that was the day ORANMIYAN officially entered Osun and God delivered the state to us in the spiritual realm.
I won't forget to mention that we prayed severally for the success of the event and to God be the glory our efforts was crowned by God almighty. ORANMIYAN entered Osun and the rest is now history. People that assisted us in the preparation, Hon Layi Oyeduntan made his house available to us as a meeting point when we realized that staying in an hotel portended more dangers and risk to our life, Temilade helped us running around Osogbo while Adegboye was our driver that drove us around day and night, I need to mention Mr Gbenga Fayemiwo who handled our media works during the struggle. Glory be to God.
Hon Ajibola Famurewa
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