By YSO OLANIYI
The Oyo State Executive Council, on Monday, conducted a valedictory session in honour of the erstwhile Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources, Rt. Honourable Kehinde Ayoola. The council members severally eulogized the late former speaker of the state assembly, declaring that he would be greatly missed.
Speaking during the meeting held at the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan, the president of the council and governor of the state, Engineer Seyi Makinde, described the late commissioner as a gem, noting that he has lost a loyal and dedicated friend and colleague.
A statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Makinde, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, quoted the governor as saying that the state would immortalize Ayoola.
The governor also declared that henceforth the task of educating the children of the deceased has become his responsibility. According to him, he would be ready to bear the cost of their education no matter where they want to go in search of knowledge.
The governor said: “Nothing prepares us for something like this. One week, you are with a friend, colleague, discussing the affairs, dreams, aspirations and, the next moment, he is no more. All the dreams and aspirations are extinguished.
“He will definitely be missed by all of us who have worked with him. I have seen pictures that the deceased and some of our colleagues took together. We will all miss him but I will be missing him even more dearly. I first met him in 2002. We were very young then and we were thinking about the ideal situation for our state.
“I remember the first meeting at Fortune Chinese Restaurant at Onireke. He was the only politician amongst us. We were just professionals thinking about how Oyo State can progress and we all decided to support Governor (Rashidi) Ladoja. But because we all knew nothing about politics, every time we got to a point to review the political implications of the decisions we were about to take, we always fell back on him because he will be the one to always tell us the ramification of the decision we’d planned to take.
