•Set To Celebrate 5th Coronation Anniversary
HRM Oba Micheal Ajayi is in a happy mood right now. Oba Ajayi who is the Elerinmo of Erinmo will in the next few months be celebrating his 5th coronation anniversary. He has every reason to celebrate. In just 5 years, he has reawakened life in that sleepy town in Osun State. When he was made the Elerinmo of Erinmo, there were those who felt Kabiyeesi wouldn’t be able to cope with the quiet life in the town. He was then a global businessman who lived in Ghana and travelled around the world for business. Many didn’t think he would be able to cope.
5 years down the line he has not only coped he has altered for good the shape of activities in that sleepy community.
Erinmo has suddenly become a bubbly town. He has injected a lot of life into Erinmo.
How did he do that? He told City People Publisher, Seye Kehinde his experience so far as Elerinmo.
Below are excerpts of the interview.
How has the last 5 years been at Erinmo?
I thank God for that opportunity he has given me the strengthen to survive, to be alive to this time and to have given me the opportunity to do quite a lot in this my short period. To God be the glory. I feel very good. I feel happy it’s a great thing for me.
What does it feel like being a King?
It’s a big sacrifice being a king because it’s a total change of lifestyle for me. But in my own case, I come with a pedigree in my home town. I say this because my father was the first University graduate from Erinmo.
Secondly, my grandfather was the one who brought the CAC Church to Erinmo itself and made himself Baba Ijo. Thirdly my real grandfather who was Awotanwaya the 1st was the King when the 1st Church came. I got on to the throne with that pedigree and what I have tried to do in the last few years, first of all, is to empower the women. We have had a series of empowerment activities. We have trained women on how to be on their own. It has yielded a lot of results.
There is a lot of trade going on, small scale trade going on. We have also worked out schemes like micro-credit schemes for different groups. That has also improved its trade.
Erinmo is known more or less like the food basket of our area in the same that we are known to have the best tasty rice, I mean local rice. For some reason, my people stopped farming rice because they wouldn’t come up with modern day technology to be able to cope. They kept saying some birds were eating their rice. This is now being addressed. We have the best tasting Palm Oil. We have a lot of agricultural inputs essentially we are looking for partners to modernise & support with mechanised farming. That is ongoing.
We have also worked out a welfare skin for our people. We have set out an Elders Council, both male & female and we offer them support. This is because we have a lot of orderly people in our town. We have people who are over 120 years old still walking in Erinmo.
Of course, you know that Erinmo is the City that has the most potent spiritual mountain in the whole of Nigeria. Its called Ori Oke Erinmo. Today, I am proud to say we have at least 5 other Mountains. We have Ori Oke Otito, Ori Oke Agbara, Ori Oke Ko Seun Ti, and so many of them like that. And people came from all over the world to pray there. So, the next line of action is to see how we can tap the Tourism potential from the number of people coming to that mountain. We have people thronging Erinmo day and night, just to go on to the Mountain to pray.
These are some of the things that have been happening in Erinmo. Of course, on the Educational side, we have been supporting the various schools that we have in Erinmo to ensure that the with infrastructure. Part of what we hope to do before my 5th Coronation anniversary is to also build and renovate another school and give students what they need for their peculiar programme.
