‘I admire your school,’ Soun to proprietor of Zoe Schools
Lanre OKE
The Soun of Ogbomosoland His Imperial Majesty Oba Ghandi Afolabi Olaoye Orumogege III has expressed admiration for Zoe Group of Schools, Ogbomoso.
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“I admire your school,” the Soun says on Wednesday, while receiving a delegation of the school at his palace led by the proprietor Rev’d Niyi Adebayo, and which included members of the management team, pastors of True Worshipers Church, TWC (which Rev’d Adebayo also founded) and representatives of the students.
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Oba Ghandi explains his admiration for the school was fueled by the appearance of the students. “Your students are neat. I am impressed.”
The Oba similarly says, “I must also commend you for having the school at seven different locations within Ogbomoso. It is laudable. You are a role model.”
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Upon this, Oba Ghandi charges Rev’d Adebayo not to rest on his oars urging him to seek further expansion of the school.
His Majesty emphasized continuous cooperation among the management and staff and charges them to align with the vision of the proprietor, just as he encourages students to be dedicated to their studies.
The traditional ruler who disclosed he taught briefly in the 80s acknowledged education as a vital ladder to attaining greatness while urging the students to pursue it “now.”
Adebayo, who is the lead pastor of TWC, stated earlier that the courtesy visit was a homage and to pray with kabiyesi, pledging support for the monarch’s developmental strides in the city.
The cleric particularly expressed delight at the Ogbomoso water project whose rehabilitation is facilitated by the Soun saying “We are here to offer our little support on the project.”
Speaking later with ogbomosoinsightonline.com, the man of God and who is an author with a number of Christian books to his credit, described Oba Ghandi as a “progressive Oba who has a large heart.”
“Since he came with his 25 years action plan for the transformation of the city, we want to appreciate what he is doing, which might not have come to the notice of the people, which is trying to carry all other traditional rulers in the land along, bringing them together so that he will explain his vision to them so they can also make their contributions and whatever is being done will not just be this is what Oba Ghandi is doing, it will be this is what our king and other traditional rulers in Ogbomosoland are doing.
“So, l really like the spirit of bringing everybody together. We know that for quite many years our Obas have not been traveling the same direction but now he wants to foster unity, he wants to bring everybody on board and this is not an era of rivalry, that is the spirit l see in him.”
Asked to make a forecast as to where Ogbomoso will be in the next five years, he declared, “l see Ogbomoso becoming a well developed metropolis, right now, the issue of water is ongoing, the issue of power will follow. I see Ogbomoso becoming the industrial hub of Oyo state, I see Ogbomoso becoming a place people will be longing to visit, that investors will be keen to come and invest.”
Soun described him as a role model as far as providing standard education is concerned, he was asked to comment on this eulogy. His response: “What l expect schools to do is to set a formidable standard and work at it. We should not be complacent, we should set standard in education service provision and at the same time, in community impact, we should get out of our shells, we should make little little contributions to community transformation. In our schools, community impact (social corporate responsibility) is a must, and we run that project once in a term, everywhere our school is domiciled, we make sure we touch the lives of the people in that community.”
