OLURIN meets Adele Olu of Ilaro to express governorship ambition

The former ECOWAS Monitoring Group, Commander, Brig.-Gen. Adetunji Olurin (retd.), and a former military administrator of Lagos State, Brig.-Gen. Raji Rasaki (retd.), on Wednesday stormed Ogun State for the 2011 governorship election of Olurin.

Olurin had expressed interest to contest the governorship election on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, while Rasaki, who is from Oyo State, is nursing the ambition of going to the Senate in 2011.

The two former military officers, who were members of the defunct Armed Forces Ruling Council, were in Ilaro, headquarters of Yewa/Awori for the presentation of Olurin to traditional rulers at the palace of Olu of Ilaro.

Olurin stated that he was seeking to govern the state so as to use his wealth of experience in advancing the course of the state, while pledging to “reconstruct, re-unite and rebuild the state if elected the governor.”

According to him “My administration’s focus will be on the development of agriculture, creating employment for the teeming unemployed youths and provision of social amenities among others while I also promised to be fair and just to all people of the state.”

The former ECOMOG Commander who went down memory lane as a military officer, recanted how he was banished to Ebute, a rural community in the state for four years by a former Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha.

He stated that the military dictator decision later paid off as it rekindled his interest and loved for agriculture as he used the period of his banishment to engage in large scale farming.

According to him, “As I came back from my ECOMOG assignment the then Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha, who was not comfortable with the number of troops I controlled, fear I may be a risk to his administration. He, therefore, chose to banish me to Ebute for four years.”

Rasaki, while canvassing support for Olurin, recalled how the military background of the Senate President, David Mark, has helped in stabilizing not only the Senate but the National Assembly.

Rasaki, added that the track record of performance of the aspirant when he was “my state governor in Oyo strengthens my belief in him to deliver on good governance.”

Presenting him to the Adele Olu of Ilaro, High Chief Abiodun Oyekan, members of the Elders Forum of Ogun West, led by the Oga’lu of Ayetoro, Chief Ishola Olatunji, said the decision to present Olurin was arrived at after two years of brainstorming on who the entire indigenes of the state can trust.

Olatunji who led 14 other Elders from across the five local governments in Ogun West, also described the father of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alani Bankole, as one of the numerous elite and political bigwigs in the state who had agreed to work for the emergence of the former ECOMOG commander as the governor in 2011