VIDEO: Click to watch Asiwaju Yinka Fasuyi with Project Management Team leading dignitaries, including OAUTHC Board Chairman Alhaji Shehu Ningi, on a tour of the completed and functional Ijesaland Geriatric Centre, also include Owa Dr. Adekunle Aromolaran visit to the facility.
Some community projects begin with government intervention. Others begin with the generosity of a wealthy individual.
The story of the Ijesaland Geriatric Centre is different.
It began with a conversation among Ijesas, developed into a carefully researched health intervention, and eventually became a demonstration of what collective determination, professional expertise, strategic mobilisation and disciplined leadership could achieve.
At the centre of that story was Asiwaju Olayinka Fasuyi.
The project was not conceived simply as the construction of another hospital building. It emerged from a broader question: What healthcare intervention could Ijesas collectively provide that would respond to a genuine need, endure for generations and demonstrate what the people could achieve when they pooled their resources?
That question set in motion one of the most ambitious community-funded development projects in contemporary Ijesaland.
The journey formally gathered momentum on December 10, 2020, when the idea of a “2021 IJESA HEALTH IS WEALTH” initiative was introduced on an Ijesa platform. The proposal quickly attracted sympathy, endorsement and support, spreading beyond the original platform to other Ijesa-based groups. What followed was not an immediate fundraising campaign but a period of consultation, investigation and professional assessment.
That distinction is important.
Fasuyi and the project team did not simply decide what to build and then ask people to provide the money. They first sought to establish what Ijesaland actually needed.
Health practitioners were consulted on medical requirements, available services, personnel, equipment, operational feasibility, sustainability and the possibility of securing government support. The objective was to ensure that the intervention was based on evidence and professional judgment rather than sentiment alone.
THE DECISION TO BUILD FOR THE ELDERLY
The consultations produced a significant conclusion.
A specialised Geriatric Centre emerged as the intervention considered most valuable to Ijesaland.
The decision introduced an important dimension to the project. Rather than concentrating only on the general population, the initiative recognised the healthcare needs of elderly citizens—people who had spent decades building families, businesses, institutions and communities and who would increasingly require specialised medical attention.
The project therefore became more than a construction exercise. It became an investment in dignity in old age.
To provide the necessary professional foundation, a Technical Advisory Committee was established. Three distinguished medical experts—former Minister of Health Professor Isaac Folorunso Adewole, Professor Biodun Ilesanmi and Professor Oye Gureje—accepted to serve, with Professor Adewole as chairman.
The committee was charged with examining existing medical services, identifying gaps, assessing infrastructure and personnel, determining the most appropriate intervention, developing an equipment acquisition plan, considering sustainable management and estimating the financial requirements.
This was the first major lesson of the project:
The mobilisation of money came after the mobilisation of knowledge.
FROM IDEA TO A PROJECT WITH A STRUCTURE
The project was subsequently organised around a three-tier structure comprising the Project Technical Advisory Committee, the Project Monitoring and Evaluation Committee and the Project Management Team.
The arrangement was designed to separate technical advice, monitoring and overall coordination while ensuring that major financial decisions and key matters could return to the general house for approval.
The proposed centre was to be located on land belonging to the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, close to CAPPA along the Ijebu-Jesa Road in Ilesa.
Even before construction began, arrangements were being made for the training of appropriate personnel and for a sustainable management model involving the teaching hospital and, eventually, private-sector participation.
The project was also deliberately designed to be modular, allowing development in phases as funds became available and as service demand increased.
This was vision translated into architecture, governance and financial planning.
THEN CAME THE BIGGER QUESTION: HOW WOULD IJESALAND PAY FOR IT?
The answer was community mobilisation.
The project developed different partnership windows for individuals, corporate organisations, societies, families, royal dynasties and strategic partners.
The initial financial plan envisaged contributions at different levels, allowing more Ijesas to participate rather than restricting ownership of the project to a handful of wealthy donors. The project also deliberately pursued equipment donations, including through international Ijesa networks.
The strategy was simple in principle but demanding in practice:
Bring as many Ijesas as possible into the development process.
The project was therefore not presented as Fasuyi's personal project. It was presented as an opportunity for Ijesas to make a collective statement about responsibility to their homeland.
And Fasuyi himself became the chief mobiliser.
His approach was intensely personal—telephone calls, WhatsApp engagements, direct appeals, consultations, meetings and persistent follow-up. The strategy was not merely to announce a fundraising target but to explain why the project mattered and persuade individuals, families and institutions to see themselves as stakeholders in its success.
THE ₦36 MILLION THAT OPENED A NEW CHAPTER
There was also an important financial bridge from the immediately preceding community development effort.
Following the completion of the Owa's Palace project, a reported ₦36 million surplus became the seed fund for the 2021 Ijesa Health Is Wealth initiative that eventually produced the Geriatric Centre.
The significance was greater than the amount itself.
Money generated from one completed community project was not simply allowed to disappear from the development cycle. It became the foundation for another intervention—moving from cultural infrastructure to specialised healthcare.
It was a demonstration of continuity in community development.
The next challenge, however, was considerably bigger.
WHEN AMBITION WAS QUESTIONED
The proposed Geriatric Centre was ambitious enough to attract scepticism.
The project team was attempting to build a specialised medical facility requiring buildings, equipment, professional input and a sustainable management arrangement. It was not simply a matter of putting up a structure and declaring victory.
But Fasuyi's response to the scale of the challenge was mobilisation.
The confidence and relationships established through earlier community projects were extended to a wider network of Ijesas at home and abroad, corporate organisations, families, societies and equipment donors.
The project documentation shows how deliberately this was done. Individuals could participate as partners; corporate organisations could join separately; strategic partners could support specific buildings or facilities. A permanent record of contributors was also conceived as part of the Centre's Hall of Honour.
The strategy turned contribution into participation.
A person did not merely give money to “Fasuyi's project.”
He or she was helping to build Ijesaland's healthcare infrastructure.
FROM FUNDRAISING TO A LANDMARK
The mobilisation eventually produced a project far beyond the scale of the original concept.
The Centre was completed in 10 months and commissioned on March 31, 2022. The project account placed the completion budget at ₦600 million and listed an extensive range of facilities, including outpatient services, administration, ophthalmology and dental services, physiotherapy, theatres, inpatient wards, digital imaging, adult immunisation, laboratory and other support facilities.
This was no longer merely an idea discussed on an Ijesa platform.
It had become a functioning specialised healthcare institution.
The transformation from proposal to physical reality is what makes the story significant.
The project had moved through four distinct stages:
An identified need.
A professionally tested idea.
A collectively financed intervention.
A completed institution.
LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE
At every stage, Fasuyi's role was not simply that of chairman signing documents.
He became the face of the mobilisation.
He appealed personally to Ijesas to participate. He encouraged individuals and institutions to see the project as a responsibility to their community. He repeatedly returned to the central message that resources should be deployed in ways that would benefit generations yet unborn.
That philosophy was also reflected in his own participation.
The project records show Fasuyi making substantial personal contributions while continuing to mobilise others. The objective was to demonstrate that the person asking others to sacrifice must first be prepared to sacrifice himself.
That is leadership by example.
VISION: BUILDING FOR GENERATIONS
The Geriatric Centre was conceived not merely to solve an immediate problem but to remain relevant for generations.
The original project documentation envisaged a facility capable of expansion as resources and demand increased. It also anticipated international equipment mobilisation and professional cooperation.
The Centre was consequently conceived as an institution with a future—not simply a building with a commissioning date.
This long-term thinking explains why the project attracted contributors from different generations, professions, families, corporate organisations and geographical locations.
INTEGRITY, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Perhaps one of the most important dimensions of the project was the attempt to place professional checks and balances around the mobilisation and expenditure of funds.
The project structure provided for technical advice, monitoring and evaluation, while recommendations on financial transactions and major decisions were channelled through the appropriate structures for consideration and approval.
The project also maintained a continuing public record of contributions and appeals as the construction progressed.
By February 2022, for example, the Project Management Team reported that the project was about 90 per cent of its proposed ₦600 million completion budget and appealed for the final 10 per cent needed to reach the target before the account was to be prepared for publication in the commissioning programme.
That process captures an important feature of the Fasuyi approach:
Mobilise openly. Spend purposefully. Report progress. Return to the people when additional support is required.
MORE THAN A BUILDING
The real story of the Ijesaland Geriatric Centre, therefore, is not simply the story of bricks, equipment, buildings and money.
It is the story of what happens when a community is persuaded to believe that a major project belongs to everyone.
The Centre represents the convergence of professional knowledge, traditional and community leadership, financial sacrifice, diaspora participation, corporate support and individual commitment.
It also demonstrates that community development does not always have to wait for government.
A need can be identified by the people.
Experts can determine the appropriate intervention.
A structure can be created to manage the process.
Resources can be mobilised from within and outside the community.
And, with discipline and persistence, an ambitious idea can become a permanent institution.
THE LEGACY OF THE MOBILISATION
In the broader assessment of Asiwaju Olayinka Fasuyi's 10 years of service and stewardship in Ijesaland, the Geriatric Centre stands out because it brings several elements of his leadership philosophy together in one project: leadership by example, vision, integrity, transparency and accountability.
But perhaps its most enduring lesson is simpler.
Fasuyi did not build the Ijesaland Geriatric Centre alone.
He mobilised Ijesas to build it.
And that distinction is at the heart of the story.
Because when the Centre eventually rose from the ground, its greatest achievement was not merely that a new healthcare facility had been constructed.
It was that thousands of individual decisions to contribute, encourage, advise, mobilise, donate equipment, provide professional expertise and sustain the vision had been converted into one enduring institution.
From an idea raised in December 2020, to a professionally structured intervention, to a massive mobilisation of Ijesa resources, and finally to a completed specialised healthcare facility in March 2022, the Ijesaland Geriatric Centre became a physical expression of collective responsibility.
That is the story this documentary now follows—not simply how a Centre was built, but how Asiwaju Olayinka Fasuyi mobilised a people to build it and that is what places the Ijesaland Geriatric Centre project among the five major milestones of Asiwaju Olayinka Fasuyi’s 10-year stewardship of Ijesaland.
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