Come 9 November. 2024, the Owa Omiran of Esa Oke, His Royal Majesty, Oba Adeyemi Akanbi Adediran, Atipa Owaji 11, will lead his people out in festive celebrations of the year 2024 Esa Oke Day. This will be the first celebration of events in eight years.
www.esaoketodayonline.com can confirm that the Esa-Oke Day celebrations vanished from the Esa-Oke social and historical calendar about a decade ago.
The annual Esa Oke Day, which usually brought indigenes from home and diaspora together for ecstatic jollifications, since 1989, have been comatose after the 2015 edition. Many reasons have been adduced for this. But all said and done, one thing that is certain was the absence of a central coordinating body in the community, the Esa-Oke Central Union (ECU). This body was no more: hence, no one was around to organize the annual event.
However, bothered by this lack of leadership structure in the town, a group of young patriots came together to form an association known as “Esa Oke Indigenes Home and in Diaspora” (EIHD). With this all-encompassing body, a platform was created to accommodate all Esa Oke patriots living within the town, elsewhere in Nigeria, and in the diaspora.
One thing that distinguishes the EIHD platform is its all-encompassing nature, as it accommodates every category of people in the community, irrespective of their academic or social status. This became the platform for all the young patriots who are eager to lift the town up and set an agenda for her.
However, it must be noted that the plans of the group, which had been in existence since September 2023, became accelerated during the heydays of the “Diran Odeyemi Must Go” saga in February 2024. It was glaring at that time that the community needed to resuscitate its longstanding and the all-embracing body, the Esa-Oke Central Union. The administrators of EIHD thereafter, started to call on groups and individuals within the community to come together with a view to finding a way to reconstitute the Central Union and therefore, returning the town to her former glory.
The first effort of the association was to organize a Town Hall meeting to identify and discuss the perceived grievances and problems in Esa Oke. It was at this Town Hall meeting, on 30th March 2024, that the idea of resuscitating the moribund Esa Oke Central Union was discussed and was eventually constituted.
The first hint of the revival of the Esa Oke Day celebration was given by the new Chairman of the ECU, Otunba Yinusa Aremu Bamigboye, at the inauguration of its Executive Committee, June 2024. He promised the Owamiran-in- Council that the Esa Oke Day celebration would be held in November of this year.
Shortly after the inauguration of the ECU Executive Committee, the Chairman moved to actualize his dream of organizing a successful Esa Oke Day 2024. He set up a Planning Committee which was charged with the task of liaising with other groups, associations, and unions in the community to form a Central Planning Committee for the purpose,
www.esaoketodayonline.com gathered that the year 2024 celebrations will come with different add-ons. Some eminent sons and daughters of the town will be honoured with high calibre chieftaincy titles. An eminent personality in the State will also be honoured.
A renowned industrialist, and Asiwaju of Ile Ife Kingdom, Chief Alex Duduyemi is expected to grace the occasion as Chairman.
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