Ondo Govt Has Abandoned My Kingdom— of Eriti

make deliberate efforts to address them wisely.

Whatever the mode of worship the traditional religion worshippers decide to adopt here, I allow them, because everyone has the right to worship God the way he/she deems fit.

And whenever the Muslims invite me to come and worship with them during the end of their Ramadan fast or Eid el Fitri (Ileya), I honour them and on such occasions, I end up praying with them. I do all these because I don’t want anyone to accuse me of giving preference to one religion over the other. with them to the secluded places, where all the rites and sacrifices were done, I decided to embark on fasting and prayers.

So, all the rites were concluded after my prayers. Thereafter, I was crowned. Honestly, they didn’t ask me to anything unusual during that period. I was taken to a mountain where the traditional rites were performed. The place is known as Akpo Ile. It is the ancient place of our ancestors.

When I ascended the throne about 10 years and some months back, this place was truly rural in every sense of the word. I set out to do my utmost best to get people to help me develop it. And within that time, I have been able to attract constant electricity supply to Eriti. We have built a brand new civic centre, and all the well-placed sons and daughters of Eriti across the country, who rarely visited home, now come. They have erected magnificent buildings here as their personal residences. We also have good health centres and hospitals. However, we are very worried about the manner Ondo State government is ignoring development in my kingdom. This is because Eriti is very far from Akure, the capital city. As we speak, we have no motorable road leading from anywhere in Ondo State to Eriti town, and yet my domain is one of the food baskets in Ondo State.

The road leading to Eriti was tarred in 1984 during the administration of former Governor Adefarati and since then, nothing meaningful has been done to rehabilitate the road, which has now completely failed. So, our farmers find it extremely difficult to evacuate their produce to the nearest markets, where they could make profits from their hard labour.

In the process, lots of perishable farm produce, such as plantain, banana and mango get spoilt, as we do not have Silos around here. What farmers in my place now do is to take their produce to Omu in Ekiti State, instead of going to Ajowa in Ondo State. It is just six kilometres from Eriti to Omu; while from Eriti to Ajowa is 12 kilometres. Our farmers are, therefore, more comfortable going to Omu than moving to the next neighbouring town, just because the roads are not there.

There are so many things I am happy with and so many others, I am not too happy with, since I ascended the throne. What gives me lots of joy is the peace we enjoy, which had eluded us long before my ascension to the throne. Unlike in the past, my people are now willing and ready to work together to help bring about development in Eriti town.

Before I became the Oba, there was this intense tussle for the

Obaship of Eriti. But when I became the Oba, God gave me not only the wisdom, but also helped me to put an end to this acrimonious struggle.

The tussle between Ikota and Ayaba, the two ruling houses was very fierce. I belong to Ikota ruling house. The immediate past Oba was from Ayaba ruling house, which has six clans, while Ikota has five ruling clans.

To gain the confidence of both ruling houses, immediately I became the Oba, I decided to introduce what could be regarded as an open administration into Palace affairs. Not only that, I deliberately worked very hard to bring all the people in both ruling houses together up to the point that they now begin to see themselves as one big family and not rivals. They all saw that I always remain factual and objective in all the matters brought before me, as well as in all my dealings with all the people within and outside the town.

To further weld them together, I decided to select and give chieftaincy titles to all the notable sons and daughters from both ruling houses. I introduced a general meeting, which we hold every 17th day of the month. At this meeting, there is no holding back anything affecting the town, as everything is tabled and discussed in details. Once there is an issue requiring my attention and that of other prominent sons and daughters of the town, it is at this meeting such an issue is resolved.

Presently, we are focused on how to develop Eriti. People are already approaching us to acquire land for modern agricultural farming. We have already given land to some, while we are still looking into others. And much as we like what they are doing, we are particularly interested in ensuring they provide meaningful employment for our people and help to develop our town.