This is my birthday month. There can be no better gift than what is happening today (4th March 2024). In 2002, I lost my mom, Raliat Boluwade Ojudu to a brain tumor. She was 65. For three months after her passing, I would wake up in the morning, sit at the edge of my bed, and sob.
To bring closure to the tragedy and grief of losing such an amazing woman who sacrificed all for her children and to honor her memory, my wife Omotola and I decided to build this house to train indigent women to acquire skills that will earn them and their families a good life. I named this place the Raliat Ojudu Women Development Center (ROWDEC). I registered a foundation of the same name. Unfortunately, beneficiaries perceived all attempts to use this place for good and noble purposes when I decided to enter politics and run for office in 2010 as taking from me a share of our national cake. I once chose 570 impoverished women, hired a consultant to train them on how to run a cooperative and participate in it, opened bank accounts for them, and offered each member N25,000 to use for revolving microcredit that the cooperative would provide. They were not happy with the arrangement. They demanded that the money be given to them individually. My wife spent the whole night counting and enclosing the money. Right before my very eyes and on this same premise, they shared the money with their political leaders and sponsors.
Several efforts made to train women went awry. I would gather them, train them, offer them the tools to work with, and the day after, they would take the tools to the market and sell them, and that was the end of it. I got frustrated, and the center was abandoned.
Early this year, His Excellency, the amiable Governor of this state, Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, appointed me Chairman of the Olowe of Ise Art Foundation. On the night of the inauguration of the foundation, we went for dinner at the governor’s lodge. It was during that dinner that Mama Nike Okundaye, a member of the Foundation, a world-renowned artist, and proponent of our local Adire fabric, offered to help our First Lady train Ekiti State women and youths on how to make Adire. Right after her speech, I offered to donate this facility and the adjoining warehouse for this purpose because I could immediately see the convergence of our passions to give and to help.
Since that night, our First Lady has picked up the gauntlet, and she and her staff have not rested ever since. I too have done a partial relocation to Ekiti since then to enable me to assist in sharpening the idea, supervise the renovation, and make sure this dream becomes a reality. It is a demonstration of what love, collaboration, and sacrifice can achieve.
Thank you, my very dear sister, Oja omo Ewi Ado. Thank you, Mr. Governor, for your determination to lift our people from poverty. Thank you, Mama Nike, for the generosity of your purpose. And thank you to all our sisters and brothers who have worked day and night to make Adire Ekiti Hub possible.
My mother, in whose honor this place was built, lies a few meters from here with my dad, her husband. Today will be a day of celebration for them both, wherever they are, as they were incredibly given to helping the needy during their lifetimes.
It is our hope and prayer that every woman who shall be trained here will seize this as a good opportunity for personal development. Having a skill and making use of it is an incredible path to escaping poverty. Empowering a woman is the easiest way to assist her in training her children to make a great contribution to societal development. My mom, with very little but a huge sense of sacrifice, was able to raise six of us, who are doing very well today in our chosen endeavors. We too have taken the baton from her to raise children who are everywhere working hard to make the world a better place.
It is this opportunity that our very dear sister, the First Lady of Ekiti State, Dr. Olayemi Oyebanji, is offering you today. After all, it is said that “the wealth of a nation lies in the skills of its people.” Make the best use of what you will learn here. You can never imagine how far it may go.
Thank you all for coming, and God bless.
