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In the unfolding political contest for Egbeda/Ona-Ara Federal Constituency ahead of 2027, a Yoruba proverb offers clarity, “Oro t’a ba fe so f’omo oloko, oko ni a o fi s’apeere.” When you want to speak to a farmer’s child, you use the hoe as your illustration.
Let us be brutally honest. The political landscape of Egbeda and Ona-Ara is today filled with voices, suits, and rehearsed grammar. Yet many aspirants present a track record that resembles a barren field. A fallow ground where not even five solid seeds have borne fruit in six years. They are still searching for the starting line while the race for credible representation has long been underway.
But one name silences the noise of empty boasting. A name that echoes not from the soapbox, but from school halls, market squares, and rural communities, Dr. Ezekiel Temitope Oladimeji, fondly known as OTOPE.
While others claim to be preparing for office, Dr. Temitope Oladimeji OTOPE has already prepared the ground, planted the seed, and is watering the harvest. The numbers do not lie. Since 2021, through the OTOPE Foundation, over forty distinct empowerment programs and projects have directly touched the lives of constituents across Egbeda and Ona-Ara Federal Constituency.
This is not a promise booklet. It is a ledger of liberation. It is a track record that reflects sustained involvement in grassroots development, deliberately structured to address education, healthcare access, and local economic challenges.
What is even more instructive is the compass that guides these interventions. Dr. Oladimeji Temitope has not engaged in random acts of kindness. He has been deliberately and meticulously complementing the governance blueprint of His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde, FNSE.
In the Pacesetter State, Governor Makinde has laid out a clear roadmap for sustainable development, focusing on education, health, security, and economic expansion under Omituntun 2.0. All of OTOPE’s interventions so far are not a deviation from this path but a completion of it at the federal constituency level. While the Governor provides the state-wide framework and policies, Dr. Temitope Oladimeji OTOPE brings grassroots execution. He ensures the dividends of democracy trickle down to the very last person in Egbeda and Ona-Ara. He is the foot soldier making sure the vision of Omituntun 2.0 is not just a slogan in the capital but a living reality in the villages and wards.
Political observers trace this sustained impact to a historic day at Ilaji Hotels and Sports Resort Hall in Akanran. A day that many say moved the goalpost of empowerment in Oyo State. From that moment, OTOPE refused to put the cart before the horse. He understood a simple truth that to ask for a mandate, one must first offer a helping hand.
That event was not one-off showmanship. It was the opening chapter of a continuous story of support initiatives. Initiatives that respond directly to the needs of the people and align perfectly with the state government’s agenda.
There is a Yoruba saying, “Omo to ba r’eni gberu, ko ni r’eni t’on ba a gbe.” A child who has someone to lean on will not feel the weight of his burden.
How do you compete with a man whose curriculum vitae of compassion includes the facilitation of vocational training for over two thousand youths and young adults? He has equipped them in hair dressing, cake baking and decoration, tailoring, barbing, solar installation, and modern skills like car tracking and GPS technology.
He has given grants to farmers who were losing hope. He has empowered market women and artisans with direct cash boosts to recapitalize their businesses. He has sponsored students for NECO and JAMB examinations on a yearly basis, removing financial barriers to education.
OTOPE has lit up over thirty communities with solar panels. He ensured that darkness is no longer a constant bedfellow in the rural parts of the constituency. Go to public schools across Egbeda and Ona-Ara. There you will find evidence of the distribution of thirty thousand exercise books across thirty different institutions. That is not a trivial matter. It is a bridge between the student and a future free from ignorance.
Visit the motor parks. Ask the Maruwa, Okada, and commercial bus drivers about the free fuel palliatives distributed when the economy tightened the noose around their daily earnings. Walk through the markets and ask the Iyalojas about the man who facilitated modern toilet facilities where dignity was once a luxury. Speak with elders and retirees who benefited from free medical outreaches. Those outreaches became a lifeline for people the system had left out in the cold. And ask the widows whose burdens were lightened through targeted support.
These are not fantasies of a political manifesto typed in a cozy Abuja office. These are nails hit squarely on the head. These are over forty solid projects in a space where most contenders cannot boast of five.
There is a final word for those who think representation is about the glamour of the Green Chamber and not the gutters, farms, schools, and clinics of Ona-Ara and Egbeda. “Ise ni oogun ise.” Work is the antidote to poverty and hardship.
Dr. Temitope Oladimeji is not looking for a job description in 2027. He is seeking a promotion based on a six-year probationary period of sheer, undeniable, and verifiable performance. He is the man who struck while the iron was hot, and he has been forging opportunities for his people ever since.
To present anyone else as prepared would be to bury one’s head in the sand and ignore the blazing sun of evidence. The evidence is not in the clouds. It is on the concrete floors of newly empowered shops, in the brightly lit homes of rural dwellers, in the examination slips of students whose fees were paid, and in the healthier bodies of our elderly.
As Dr. Oladimeji looks forward to representing the people of Egbeda/Ona-Ara Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives in Abuja, his plan is not to start working. His plan is to continue working and to do even more. He is the man who has already tilled the soil. He is the one who deserves the harvest.
The cock may crow on any dunghill, but only OTOPE has 40+ empowerment programs to show for it. He is the most prepared man to represent the people of Egbeda/Ona-Ara in Abuja. He is the one who never stopped working. He is the one who works in harmony with the Pacesetter vision of His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde.
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