pannigeriannews 
The Soun of Ogbomosoland, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Ghandi Afolabi Olaoye Orumogege III, has again reiterated his determination at developing his domain towards becoming a model city within a very short time.
Oba Olaoye, who was installed less than two years ago, has unveiled a 25 year-development plan to actualize his ambitious vision and has adopted a multi-sectoral and multi-pronged approach to attain this.
He re-affirmed this steadfast commitment during a townhall meeting held Wednesday in Ogbomoso.
According to him one of the approaches he had charted is mandating prospective chiefs to commit resources to community development instead of personally taking monetary gifts as is usual.
“If you want to get appointed as a chief by the Soun, prepare to engage in community development projects. I won’t take money from you. Rather you will spend the money on executing developmental projects for the town.”
“The existing trend is for the monarch conferring the chieftaincy whether traditional or honorary, to be gilded handsomely with monetary gifts and other valuable like lands, cows and so on. “That is the tradition,” a traditional chief corroborated this to ogbomosoinsightonline.com. “l paid heavily when l was conferred with traditional title.”
However, Soun has decided to break away from that tradition buoyed by his unwavering passion for positive transformation. He is a monarch that has triumphed over inordinate personal aggrandizement and instead now sees chieftaincy awards as an opportunity to drive critical developments.
“I know of about thirty chieftaincies now,” he stated. “Even if there is no more chieftaincies, that is ‘Kosoye mo,’ ‘Kosoye mo’ is also a chieftaincy title, ‘Oye tan’ is also a chieftaincy title. We will explore that road to get our people to develop the town.”
He added, “People will give peanuts for chieftaincies and then give musicians ₦20m (to entertain guests). But with this new template, by the time you spend ₦40m to put a project on ground you won’t have money to engage in elaborate celebration again. But if you still want it, so be it.”
He informed this new order has already been put into practice with incredible outcome.
“You see the market being rebuilt at Oja’gbo, it is one of such projects, it is being executed by someone who will be conferred with chieftaincy title. That is the idea.”
It has been observed that his multi-pronged approach to development has been yielding positively with strings of developmental projects now becoming evident in the town. “That is a modern progressive Oba, the kind fit for this millennium not one who sees traditional position primarily as avenue to feather his nest and enrich himself,” an Ogbomoso indigene based in Lagos, Benjamin Oyeleke submitted.
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