Many bookmakers had predicted that, with Adebayo’s influence and clout, as a past governor, APC would have little problem, ‘capturing’ the town. Not a few were those that thought that Bamidele would be thoroughly trounced by the APC, as symbolised by Adebayo, even in the lawmaker’s polling unit. But even before the final results were released, it had become very clear that MOB was the golden boy of Iyin-Ekiti, thrashing Adebayo’s APC right in the ex-governor’s polling unit and in all the wards in the town.
Bamidele emerged the preferred candidate of Iyin folks, with the people, electing to pitch their tents with the Labour Party candidate. Residents of the town, who spoke with the reporter, said they had to stand by their son and brother, even though they knew he might not win the election. To them, it was their own little way of rewarding the legislator for the uncommon love he had been showing to the community and its people.
“When you consider what Hon. Bamidele has been doing in this community, the number of people he has helped and the projects he had attracted to the community, there is no way we will not stand by him. It is unfortunate that he lost the election, but even at that, we will always stand by MOB in this community,” a student of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, who claimed he had benefitted severally from Bamidele’s generosity, informed.
Adebayo had never hidden his opposition to Bamidele’s ambition. During the campaign, the former governor had described the Labour Party candidate as an overambitious man.
At a campaign rally for Governor Kayode Fayemi in Iyin-Ekiti, Adebayo had told his kinsmen: “I am the one, who introduced my brother, Opeyemi, to you and appealed to you to vote for him when he wanted to become a legislator. But less than three months after he was elected into the House of Representatives, he came to tell me he wanted to become the governor.”
“I advised him to delay his aspiration till the time it would be okay for an Iyin man to come out but he refused and said he must be governor at all cost and that he could do it alone, with or without the support of the people.”
But in his response, Bamidele described Adebayo as a political liability and a self-centred politician.
“I did not expect Otunba Niyi Adebayo to make such a reckless statement, even at gunpoint. I have never been desperate for anything in my life and had never been adjudged over-ambitious by my brother, (Adebayo) except for this new love for Fayemi.
“I do not need Adebayo’s support to win election in Ekiti. Fayemi will soon realise that the ex-governor is a political liability to his ambition.
“I challenge all sons and daughters of this town to ask Adebayo for a single project or a legacy he left behind in this town after he left office in 2003. Ask him also of how many people he was able to empower within the same time. Ask him also that how many of such he has assisted in the current administration of Fayemi where he is a godfather. Apart from his wife, who is representing the slot of Ekiti State on the board of Oodua Group of Companies; apart from his son, who is a Special Adviser to the Governor on Diaspora Affairs; apart from his cousins, who are Personal Assistants to Fayemi. Please, ask him who again he has helped in this town.”
Asked why the people of Iyin-Ekiti decided to vote en masse for Bamidele, Oluyin of Iyin-Ekiti, Oba (Justice) Ademola Ajakaye, said it was probably because “blood is thicker than water and the people thought, this is our son and we must support him.”
The jurist turned-royal father, who is the first Chief Judge of Ekiti State, said Bamidele had also, over the years, impacted positively on the people of his community.
“He has done many things for the people. When he was elected into the House of Representatives. He said the salary he would earn, he would spend it on the development of his constituency. So, he set up a committee of which I’m the chairman and he appointed some other people across different party lines, including some journalists, some Obas and chiefs, to plan how to spend the money. He used the money for the empowerment of youths and so on. And if you go around the constituency, he did so much, including building of libraries, boreholes, installation of transformers, ICT centres, grading of some roads and so on. So, people in the community really love him. There is no way he wouldn’t have won in Iyin-Ekiti. People felt he should be given support for what he had done and what he had promised to do.”
Another resident of Iyin-Ekiti, David Aluko, said among all the political figures in Iyin-Ekiti, none had identified with the people of the town as much as Bamidele.
“We have people in this town that belong to the different political parties. Some of them are even in the outgoing government. But the people have not benefited from many of them. We have people like the former governor, Otunba Adebayo. We have APC people like Chief George Ojo and Deji Adesokan, Jaruu, a special assistant to the governor. But Bamidele commands more respect from the people. Adebayo for instance has no house in Iyin-Ekiti. What does that tell you? How will such a person not own a house in his native town? But MOB has a house. He stays here, and we can see him. These are the reasons we decided to vote for him. He didn’t get it this time, but I’m sure his time will come very soon,” he said.
Bolanle Olatunde-Bruce, publicity secretary of the Labour Party in Ekiti State, said Bamidele’s love for his people was responsible for his overwhelming endorsement by the Iyin community at the election.
“In the three and half years that MOB has been in the House of Representatives, he has not earned a salary. His salary goes into an escrow account every month. The Oluyin, Oba (Justice) Ajakaye is the chairman, the Ewi-in-Council has a representative on the committee, and so many other people. Every six months, the committee sits and decides what to do with the money. The salaries are strictly meant for indigent students, artisans, workers, orphans, the physically-challenged. Anyone that is indigent. As commissioner in Lagos State, many Ekiti indigenes, at home, or in the local or international Diaspora benefited from him. Every year when this town celebrates Iyin Day, MOB brings his friends home and they donate money to Iyin-Ekiti in millions. He was largely responsible for the renovation of the palace of the Oluyin. He has done so much for this town, so it is no surprise that he cleared the votes in Iyin,” she explained.
Hon. Bamidele, in an interview in his country home in Iyin-Ekiti, told the reporter that he had kept faith with his constituents and justified the mandate given him to represent them in the National Assembly.
His words: “When I was going to the House, I told the people what I would do with my salary and what I would do in respect of constituency projects. And by the grace of God, they see them happening. There’s a primary school behind my house, there is a block of classrooms there which we built as part of our constituency project. In Afao-Ekiti, there’s another one. In other parts of this town, I brought in a public library, I brought two primary health centres to this town, brought four motorised boreholes to the four quarters in this town. Our projects are littered all over the towns and villages of the two local governments that make up my federal constituency. We rounded off our campaign on the last day with the commissioning of two projects in Ado-Ekiti – the comprehensive health centre at Ureje and a motorised borehole. So the people can see what we did for them. This is beyond hypes of any type. These are things that people can see.”
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