A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo state, Chief Olusola Oke, has said his intention to run for the number one seat in the state is to serve the good people of the state through developmental programmes and policies.
Oke who stated this during a Thanksgiving service held in Akure, the state capital, after a fatal auto accident, said he is poised to contest the governorship election in 2024 as he remains the best man for the job.
He said; “it would be breaking news if I said that I’m not contesting. I know that God has many assignments for me on this earth. I have come to appreciate the Lord for his mercy over my life, I was very close to the mortuary, but God said that was not my portion.
“I told myself that once I step into Ondo State before doing anything, I must assemble people before God in praising him. God loves me so much and has shown that I have not completed my assignment on this earth. I give honour and glory to God for this. The main assignment I’m yet to complete on earth is service to humanity.
“Life is garnished with both unexpected vicissitudes and unpredictable viciousness, and man exists within the labyrinth as an endangered species.
“In my more than six decades of my existence, I have had harrowing experiences that challenged the whole essence of my being, and ruffled my feathers, until the last one that, once again, vigorously tried to shake my faith in God but rather ended up strengthening it, and put my family members and friends on the edge. In it all, God sustained me still.
“The journey I embarked on to the southern part of Ondo State, on Friday, August 25, 2023, was like any other ones I made in the past, but turned out to be a memorable watershed, as I had a very close shave with death.
“The Bible is clear that God presides over the dispensation of mercy, and the opinion of the Yoruba is plausible that it is only those God keeps that are free from hurts. Simply put, it was God that gifted me with life, a day death almost made itself an inevitable compulsive choice for me.
“Due to the recklessness of a road user, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, and dangerously overtook another vehicle at a sharp bend, needed to escape having a head-on collision with the vehicle I was travelling in.
“In an attempt by my driver to avert running to it, he manoeuvred the vehicle, very swiftly but reasonably timely, but the dislocated vehicle that we were trying to escape, in an ordinarily inexplicable way, hit our vehicle from the rear, forcing it to somersault about three times.
“In the process of this auto gymnastics, I was flung out of the vehicle, leaving my driver, personal assistant and the security detail trapped inside. By the time my driver and others managed to squeeze themselves out of the wreck of the vehicle, I was lying flat in the middle of the road.
“Mercifully, there were no vehicles driving pass the very busy road at that moment, and God saved me from being run over and crushed to death.
“The questions then are; how did I avoid being run over by another vehicle; why did I not hit my head on the tarred road; why did I not suffer spinal cord injury but for fractured bones and broken ribs, if not for the abundant mercy and divine invisible hand of God that was involved?
“Just before my driver and others got out of the vehicle, it caught fire, and got razed down after their miraculous escape, while I was moved away from the middle of the highway to the roadside.
“Our evacuation from the accident scene to the Trauma Centre in Ondo by good Samaritans was a major medical step to halt our drift from life to death, even though there were no noticeable life-threatening physical injuries sustained.
“After the initial medical attention in Ondo, I was moved to Akure for observation and preparation to Abuja for concentrated clinical and family care.
” The devil did not give up on the need to precipitate complications when my treatment lasted, but God summarily silenced him.
“By the good involvement of the God that cures, wonderful efforts of medical doctors that care, and committed family members as well as friends that provided needed emotional and physical supports, my bones were strengthened, my body was renewed, and my emotions were recalibrated, and I am sufficiently sound today.
“No doubt, the transitional treatment periods were humbling, but my spirit was strong, reinforced by the prayers of my troubled family members, and best wishes of my teaming friends and associates. In the most profoundly unique manner that signifies the participation of God, my doctors acknowledged that my recovery protocol was far ahead of medical expectations, for which I am also very grateful to my maker.
“Consequently, for about four months, I was shut out of my delightful law practice and socio-political engagements, but God gave me a second chance of not only enriching the two opportunities for social-political and professional commitments, but an uncommon grace to continue to positively impact humanity.
“Yes, I passed through the shadow of death, I feared no evil, for God was and still with me, and, continuously, my head shall not lack oil.”
Oke, however, commended his medical personnel who attended to him and said; “Nigeria doctors have come of age, and they are doing mighty jobs, I had all my surgery in Nigeria, and when I traveled abroad the doctors attended to me there confirmed again that my surgery was perfect. So I give glory to God Almighty.
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