With his nomination and appointment as Oyo State Commissioner of Youth and Sport, 27-year-old Seun Fakorede, is perhaps one of the youngest member of a State Executive Council in Nigeria.
The nomination, confirmation and subsequent assigning of 27-year-old Seun Fakorede as Oyo State Commissioner of Youth and Sport, is indeed a milestone not only in the annals of the appointee but also the state.
At Under-30, Seun has good Curriculum Vitae and had distinguished himself in so many ways that Governor Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde found him worthy for the position.
He is the Board chairman, Reasone innovations, an agency for branding, visual communication and marketing and is co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Boddiemax Premium Fashion Brand. Before these, the civil engineer worked at Lagos State Development and Property Corporation. Seun also founded a non-governmental organization, Home Advantage Africa, where he is Executive Director. The organization aims to develop the immediate environment of every African youth which he said “I believe once a young man conquers his locality, he has conquered the world.
He studied “The Art of Management” at Swiss E-Learning Institute, Switzerland after graduating with a degree in Civil Engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), Ile-Ife.
Earlier, he was at Government College, (GCI) Apata, Ibadan and it was at the school that his leadership qualities were discovered by his mates who later made him head boy. In an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday, Fakorede said all that he possessed started as far back as 2003 when I got admission into secondary school. “We were the pioneer set of School I, School II and School III, a policy of the regime of Senator Rashidi Ladoja, which made it possible to operate maximum of thirty students in a class policy. We felt we should have a Prefect in our school and the students appointed me Head Boy. That was one of the things that further reinvigorated my passion for leadership, administration and management as it were.”
After his secondary school leadership position, Seun became the President of the Press Club at the Oladipo Alayande School of Science, Okebola Ibadan. “I left GCI for Oladipo Alayande School of Science because it was my wish to focus on sciences, especially engineering field. When I got there, I was involved in so many things which eventually made me the President of the Press Club and later, Labour Prefect. I cannot take glory for all these things but it is all about God. In all, by the grace of God, we were able to produce the maiden edition of our magazine under my leadership,” he explained.
According to him, the magazine was a great success because it was an idea that was birthed by students which had no involvement of the management. Seun said: “My team and I were very young at that time. I could remember us walking from University of Ibadan to Okebola all because we wanted to achieve a dream. We walked because we wanted to beg our publisher to print the magazine without or little money. So, we took the glory when we launched the magazine at our valedictory service.”
On his leadership role at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Fakorede said he was involved in unionism at the institution and that despite the proscription of the union in the institution, he was involved in so many other activities.
According to him, he was President of Eden, a paramilitary outfit founded by Fela Durotoye. Besides, Seun noted that he was presiding over a church with working class people attending. “These are the things that gave me the capacity to be able to deal with the people of my generation and made people who are my leaders to believe that age has nothing to do with achievement but capacity, strength to put things together.”
Speaking on a person of his age occupying a leadership position, Seun said: “Like I used to say, the age of Methuselah has nothing to do with the wisdom of Solomon. So, the most important thing is wisdom which is the understanding of ability to understand consequences of issues and to bring people together in achieving common goal. I was also involved in different businesses until I finished my school.”
He further stressed how he established Home Advantage Africa. “After my programme at OAU, I started ‘Home Advantage Africa’ primarily for young people and disagreed with some youths who see traveling overseas as the only option for greatness. “Some youths are talking about going abroad seeking greener pastures but the truth must be told about leaving our country to develop other countries. I am not saying the pasture is not greener out there but there is need to focus on the things in our locality. There is always advantage in our locality. That was the intention of establishing our NGO before the organization grew to become an international outfit. People come from all over Africa to attend our conferences.
“We started a programme in 2015 which we called ‘Africans for Africa’ because we need to sell Africa to the world. It is painful that Africa narratives has been bastardised to the extent that Europeans believe that Africa is just a land mass that we have elephants and other animals but they won’t know that we have amazing things. If we need Africa story to change, we need to tell it the way it is.”
Seun noted that nobody has reason for greatness as they are reasons for bad results. He said many people miss the point that because their parents are not rich that is why they are poor. “Even though it is a good reason but they should be reminded that people won’t celebrate failure. History shows no mercy for weaklings,” he concluded.
