Osunyikanmi tasks Ondo electorate on next governor

DIRECTOR-GENERAL of the Directorate of Technical Aids Corps and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, Dr. Pius Olakunle Osunyikanmi, has urged the people of the state to “look beyond the ordinary” in their choice of a successor to incumbent governor Olusegun Mimiko.

Osunyikanmi, whose agency handles the recruitment and posting of qualified Nigerian personnel to African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in a Federal Government initiative of assisting less-endowed nations to tap from Nigeria’s vast pool of human resources, charged the people to use next year’s governorship election to chart a fresh course of development for the state.

According to Osunyikanmi who spoke at this year’s annual Ramada Lecture organised by the state’s Muslim community where he was the Chairman, “there are a lot of things that are wrong with the state at the present moment and it is time that the people use the opportunity of the coming election to take a break from the past ways of doing things.”

In his remarks to a rich gathering that include top Islamic clerics and Muslim faithful led by the Chief Imam of Akure, Sheik Abdul-Hakeem Yayi-Akorede at the city’s central mosque, Osunyikami said, “our society is groaning and the voice out there in Ondo State is that of discontent, hunger and squalor.

“The cry is a protest against the status quo and a call to action for the state and its people to be moved to the next level of human and infrastructural development.”

Osunyikanmi specifically urged the Muslim community to take up the challenge particularly as the election year draws nearer saying “as next year beckons, Muslims should reject oppression and imposition in the choice of who to lead the state as your choice could make or mar the future of the younger generation.”

He urged the people to weigh all the options before them before making the choice of who to be voted for as the next governor of the state saying, “a lot depends on the choice our people make because things cannot be allowed to continue this way.”

Osunyikanmi also charged the congregation to seek the face of Allah “during this pious month of Ramadan to pray to the Almighty to chart a new course for the state by facilitating the emergence of a governor that will not only have the interest of the people of the state at heart but also supervise the delivery of democracy dividends to them.”

Sheikh Akorede had earlier described Osunyikanmi as a very good friend of the Muslim community who has used his positions in public offices as State Commissioner for Education, Special Adviser to the President on Foreign Affairs and now as DG TAC, to lift up humanity.