A Word to the Good People of Oye/Ikole North Federal Constituency 1
By Erelu Kemi Elebute-Halle, Erelu Osheniyan
_As I Commence My Ward Tour_
My feet are on your soil today, Oye/Ikole North, not as a visitor passing through, but as a daughter who has come home to listen. This ward tour is not a parade of promises. It is a renewal of vows. It is my hand extended to you for a social contract — one written not in ink, but in trust, in presence, and in truth. I do not come to speak over you. I come to sit with you.
For too long, leadership has been measured by the distance between the elected and the electorate. That distance ends today. I am here in your markets, your farms, your churches, your mosques, and your town squares because governance must begin with seeing. I want to see the road that cuts you off when it rains. I want to see the school where your children learn under a leaking roof. I want to see the health centre where mothers wait without drugs. You cannot solve what you have not witnessed, and I have come to witness.
This tour is my covenant to identify, not assume. Abuja does not know Oye/Ikole North better than Oye/Ikole North knows itself. So I have left Abuja to learn. Tell me where it hurts. Tell me what has been abandoned. Tell me what you started yourselves because no one came to help. Your needs will not be filtered through aides or edited for reports. They will enter my ears directly and settle in my conscience.
I do not carry a magic wand. But I wear the breastplate of solving your problems. That breastplate is forged from duty, strapped by accountability, and polished by the sleepless nights of a mother who understands that a child’s fever at 2am does not wait for bureaucracy. When I say I will fight for potable water in Ayede, for rural roads in Itaji, for jobs for our graduates in Oye, for fair prices for our yam and maize, I say it with the weight of that breastplate. It means I will stand between you and neglect, and I will not be moved.
A social contract demands two signatures. Mine is the promise of labour, of advocacy, of sleepless representation. Yours is the promise of truth, of participation, of holding me to account when I return. Do not clap for me today if you cannot query me tomorrow. I am not above you. I am for you. This tour is the first clause in that contract: I show up.
I have heard the whisper that politicians come only when votes are near. I am here because needs do not wear a campaign timetable. The woman who treks 5km for water feels it today. The farmer whose cassava rots for lack of road feels it today. The graduate who rides okada with a degree feels it today. So I am here today. Let no one tell you Erelu came late.
From Oye to Imojo, from Ayede to Itaji, from Isan to Ilafon, every ward is a chapter of our shared story. I will not skip pages. I will sleep in your towns when the sun demands it, because the problems of darkness are not solved by daylight visitors. If I must walk your farm path to understand your post-harvest loss, I will. If I must sit with your widows to understand their burden, I will. Presence is the beginning of policy.
To the elders, I bring kola and respect. To the youth, I bring my ears and my energy. To the women, I bring the solidarity of one who knows that when you empower a woman, you repair a community. To the traditional rulers, I bring homage, because no development stands if it insults the stool. This tour honours all, excludes none.
When I leave your ward, I will not leave with your applause. I will leave with a list. A list written by your own voices. That list becomes my assignment in Abuja, my burden in committee rooms, my shout on the floor. And when next I return, it will not be with excuses. It will be with feedback, with progress, with the next set of questions. That is the contract: I listen, I act, I report, I return.
So welcome me not as a dignitary, but as your neighbour on duty. Open your doors, open your grievances, open your ideas.
The day of glory for Oye/Ikole North will not come from one person. It will come because you and I signed this social contract today, and we both kept our word. I am here. I am listening.
I have put on the breastplate. Let the work begin.
