HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A QUINTESSENTIAL LEADER AT 66
Today, 29th September is your 66th birthday in the Year 2020 and what comes to my mind is a quote from the book of Psalms, Chapter 66 Verse 20: “Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor His mercy from me”. Surely, Mr. Governor, the God of the Universe has not and will never turn away your prayers and His mercy shall always be with you. I chose this chapter of the book of Psalm because you just turn 66 and this year that is shortly written '20. Thus it is Oyetola @66:20.
I rejoice with you and celebrate the commemoration of your birthday this year because it is an established fact that your winning the election to become the fifth Civilian Governor of the State of Osun came with a land mark: You won in a manner that depicts that God has a hand in your election. You were elected to run the affairs of a 27-year old State through an election which was held on the 22nd but not concluded until the 27th of September, barely two days to your sixty-fourth birthday. You were sworn in on the 27th of November and presented your first budget to the State House of Assembly on the 27th of December. This year again, celebrating your birthday on the 29th as the governor of a 29 year old state, one should consider that these alliteration of dates is not coincidental but providential because it was the Lord’s doing and it was marvelous in the eyes of all. Notwithstanding the legal gymnastics that followed, the will of the Lord was still done. You definitely have a date with history and all eyes are perceiving your style of administration which is devoid of noise making but sounding more than the booming of war guns.
Your giant strides in the last two years or thereabout are massive and impressive. They all bother on all areas of good governance and on the wish of the governed. You have touched the lives of the people in the areas of road construction/rehabilitation, Health sector reforms, workers welfare and prompt response to the yearnings the people, depicting that your government is people friendly.
I call you Quintessential leader because you are an embodiment of all the seven attributes that every leadership literature allude to such leaders.
Someone wrote somewhere about you, a view that I also share as follows: “Apart from being a good financial resources manager, Governor Oyetola is also a good relationship manager. He respects others and accommodates people irrespective of their political affiliation". This has been your way of life and no wonder; it has been so easy for you to achieve great feats where others would have failed in the management of the little resources available. According to Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher, “We are what we repeatedly do”. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. To excel in all the things you do is a habit you have cultivated a long time ago even while managing your personal business.
I am in fact convinced that you are a pathfinder. As in the injunction of Ralph Waldo Emmerson, a poet and Essayist, which cautions that one should not go where the path may lead but go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. I believe that you are going to leave a trail in the State for others to follow at the end of your sojourn in Osun after eight years of impressive reign.
I wish to end this talk in the words of Martin Luther King, “We need leaders not in love with money but with justice, not in love with publicity but in love with humanity. That is the kind of leader that you are. Finally sir, I implore you and also wish that you hold to one tenet: Never to hold to anger because anger is dangerous. It is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIR & MANY HAPPY RETURNS.
By:
HON. ADEOYE ADELAKUN
Chairman, Osun Health Insurance Agency
&
State Senatorial Chairman (Osun Central) APC,
State of Osun
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