By Banji Ayoola
A former two-time governorship aspirant, and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Alexander Olusola Oke, SAN, has declared his intention to contest the coming 2024 Governorship Election in Ondo State on the APC platform.
On why he is joining the race for the third time, he said he is running for the Alagbaka Office to genuinely serve the people of the state by fashioning policies and implementing people-oriented programmes that would hasten the development of the state.
He made the declaration at a Thanksgiving service held in Akure, the state capital, following his survival of a fatal auto accident, where he also declared himself as the remains the best of all the aspirants.
In his words: “It would be breaking news if I said that I’m not contesting. I know that God has many assignments for me on this earth. I have come to appreciate the Lord for His mercy over my life, I was very close to the mortuary, but God said that was not my portion.
“I told myself that once I step into Ondo State before doing anything, I must assemble people before God in praising him. God loves me so much and has shown that I have not completed my assignment on this earth. I give honour and glory to God for this. The main assignment I’m yet to complete on earth is service to humanity.
“Life is garnished with both unexpected vicissitudes and unpredictable viciousness, and man exists within the labyrinth as an endangered species.
“In my more than six decades of my existence, I have had harrowing experiences that challenged the whole essence of my being, and ruffled my feathers, until the last one that, once again, vigorously tried to shake my faith in God but rather ended up strengthening it, and put my family members and friends on the edge. In it all, God sustained me still.
“The journey I embarked on to the southern part of Ondo State, on Friday, August 25, 2023, was like any other ones I made in the past, but turned out to be a memorable watershed, as I had a very close shave with death.
“The Bible is clear that God presides over the dispensation of mercy, and the opinion of the Yoruba is plausible that it is only those God keeps that are free from hurts. Simply put, it was God Who gifted me with life, a day death almost made itself an inevitable compulsive choice for me.
“Due to the recklessness of a road user, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, and dangerously overtook another vehicle at a sharp bend, needed to escape having a head-on collision with the vehicle I was traveling in.
“In an attempt by my driver to avert running to it, he maneuvered the vehicle, very swiftly but reasonably timely, but the dislocated vehicle that we were trying to escape, in an ordinarily inexplicable way, hit our vehicle from the rear, forcing it to somersault about three times.
“In the process of this auto gymnastics, I was flung out of the vehicle, leaving my driver, personal assistant, and the security detail trapped inside. By the time my driver and others managed to squeeze themselves out of the wreck of the vehicle, I was lying flat in the middle of the road.
“Mercifully, there were no vehicles driving past the very busy road at that moment, and God saved me from being run over and crushed to death.
“The questions then are: how did I avoid being run over by another vehicle; why did I not hit my head on the tarred road; why did I not suffer spinal cord injury but for fractured bones and broken ribs, if not for the abundant mercy and divine invisible hand of God that was involved?
“Just before my driver and others got out of the vehicle, it caught fire, and got razed down after their miraculous escape, while I was moved away from the middle of the highway to the roadside.
“Our evacuation from the accident scene to the Trauma Centre in Ondo by good Samaritans was a major medical step to halt our drift from life to death, even though there were no noticeable life-threatening physical injuries sustained.
“After the initial medical attention in Ondo, I was moved to Akure for observation and preparation to Abuja for concentrated clinical and family care.
“The devil did not give up on the need to precipitate complications when my treatment lasted, but God summarily silenced him.
“By the good involvement of the God Who cures, wonderful efforts of medical doctors that care, and committed family members as well as friends that provided needed emotional and physical supports, my bones were strengthened, my body was renewed, and my emotions were recalibrated, and I am sufficiently sound today.
“No doubt, the transitional treatment periods were humbling, but my spirit was strong, reinforced by the prayers of my troubled family members, and best wishes of my teaming friends and associates. In the most profoundly unique manner that signifies the participation of God, my doctors acknowledged that my recovery protocol was far ahead of medical expectations, for which I am also very grateful to my maker.
“Consequently, for about four months, I was shut out of my delightful law practice and socio-political engagements, but God gave me a second chance of not only enriching the two opportunities for social-political and professional commitments, but an uncommon grace to continue to positively impact humanity.
“Yes, I passed through the shadow of death, I feared no evil, for God was and is still with me, and, continuously, my head shall not lack oil.”
Commending his medical personnel who attended to him, he said said: “Nigerian doctors have come of age, and they are doing mighty jobs, I had all my surgery in Nigeria, and when I traveled abroad the doctors who attended to me there confirmed again that my surgery was perfect. So I give glory to God Almighty.
Oke was born on April 7, 1956 at Ilowo, a coastal town in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State to his Ilaje father and mother who hailed from Imoru town in Ose Local Government Area of the state.
After his primary, and secondary education which took him through the UNA Primary School, Ode-Ilowo between 1961-1963, Methodist Primary School, Ilepete in 1973 where he completed his primary school education; Methodist Secondary Modern School, Ilepete where he graduated in 1976; and Ilaje Grammar School, Atijere in Ilaje Local Government, he taught briefly as an auxiliary Teacher at Happy City College Ayetero, Ilaje Local Government, and Methodist High School, Okitipupa.
He attended the Ondo State School of Arts and Science, Ikare, from where he gained admission to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1982 to study Law, and from where he bagged a degree in Law in 1986, and after which he proceeded to the Nigerian Law School and was called to the Nigerian bar in 1987.
Oke joined Olufemi Lanlehin and Co., a law firm in Ikeja, Lagos in 1987and from there, he moved to Okitipupa to establish Olusola Oke and Associates on July 14, 1988.
Between 1996 and 2000, he served as the Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Okitipupa Branch; NBA Chairman, Okitipupa Branch; and a member of the National Executive Committee of NBA. Today, his law firm has its headquarters in Abuja. He eventually was awarded SAN after being listed thrice.
Between 2008 and 2012, he served as the National Legal Adviser of the PDP. He was youth activist in the Ilaje Patriotic Front (IPF), which later metamorphosed into a political group. In 1991 he was made Local Government Legal Adviser of the Social Democratic Party, SDP. From 1991 to 1992, he was a member of the Board of Internal Revenue in Ondo State.
In 1992, he was elected as a member of the the House of Representatives representing Ilaje/Ese-odo federal constituency, and in 2000, he was appointed to the pioneer board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC which executed and completed over 250 projects. He was appointed as the Executive Chairman of the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (OSOPADEC), another intervention agency, in 2004.
In 2005, he was nominated and served in the National Political Reform Conference, and in 2007, he served as a member of the Presidential Technical Committee on Niger Delta. He served as the Chairman of the Federal Polytechnic Bida in 2009, and Chairman of the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency between 2009 and 2011.
Oke, a former governorship candidate in Ondo state in the 2012 and 2016 gubernatorial elections, is married to Chief Nkem Olusola Oke, and they are blessed with children.
