In the annals of the nation’s history eminent positions and strategic offices have been occupied by outstanding personalities, highly motivated public officers and dedicated politicians. This category of Nigerians have proved their mettle in their various fields of endeavour while acting as prolific catalysts and trailblazers impacting positively on their various establishments, constituencies and the nation as a whole.
It is all the more poignant and remarkable were such high achieving public officers are given due recognition by serving the nation in multiple capacities because the relevant statutory bodies or institutions are privy to their capacities to live up to expectations and discharge their onerous duties with requisite competence, vigour, and resilience.
One sterling example of a dynamic, round peg ensconced in several round holes is the energetic and fervently optimistic Distinguished Senator Opeyemi Esq. (MOB), Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chairman Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, a first class legal luminary as well as a political avatar and constitutional leviathan of no mean pedigree. He has traversed the seemingly treacherous terrain of the nation’s political firmament emerging unscathed, with his approval ratings among the masses at record highs having galvanized a grassroots movement that embodies the hopes, aspirations and legitimate yearnings of hundreds of thousands of youths, trade unions, market women, artisans, professionals, farmers, the physically challenged and the teeming rural folk who had hitherto being abandoned and left for broke by successive representatives at the local, state and federal levels before the auspicious emergence of the legendary MOB, irrevocably poised to deliver crucial dividends of democracy to the long marginalized masses not caring whose ox is gored in the process.
Given his proficiency in the struggle to emancipate the people and liberate them from oppression, marginalization, tyranny, dictatorship, poverty, ignorance, hunger and homelessness, a resolute Senator Bamidele has been in the vanguard of the movement to restore democratic rule in the country as well as validating the June 12 presidential elections won convincingly by the late Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief Moshood Abiola. As part of the struggle to restore democracy to the polity, Bamidele is keenly aware that democracy would be far from complete without the advancement of the constitutional, legal, social, political and economic rights of the people, the right to qualitative education, quality health care, decent and affordable housing, gainful employment and the provision of social amenties like pipe borne water, good roads, constant power supply and comprehensive food security for all strata of society.
Having battled the various military junta to a standstill and crucially midwifed the restoration of democratic rule in 1999, Bamidele did not rested on his oars, laying the administrative and infrastructural blueprint for the transformation of Lagos state into a formidable megapolis poised to rival Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain megacities in the not too distant future (as Commissioner for Information and Strategy in the famed Asiwaju Bola Tinubu cabinet (1999-2003).
Without much ado, a prolific Bamidele positively took the National Assembly by storm with his emergence as a honourable member, House of Representatives (2011-2015) as Chairman House Committee on Legislative Budget and Research whence he introduced a record number of bills, motions and other pieces of legislation aimed at advancing the welfare and wellbeing of his constituency, Ekiti state and the nation at large.
Not done with the legislative process, Bamidele took centre stage once again on June 9, 2019, triumphantly returning to the National Assembly, this time the Senate. He trounced his motley of opponents to emerge as a Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria representing Ekiti senatorial zone. Indeed, not only is Bamidele, the comeback strategist, a member of the upper chamber but he is crucially a privileged member of the Body of Benchers, the highest, most influential and prestigious statutory organ of the legal and judicial institution in Nigeria made up of highly respected jurists, legal luminaries and practitioners charged with guaranteeing and maintaining the highest standards in the practice and interpretation of the law, justice, statutes and the constitution. Bamidele has the rare distinction and honour of being the first and only senator since independence accorded the prestigious membership of the Body of Benchers, the crème de la crème of the legal, judicial and constitutional elite of the nation. Membership of this apex body, the apogee of the legal and juristic profession of Nigeria, is not an all comers affair as it is re served solely by strict merit for those whose intellectual erudity, professional lucidity and judicial sagacity, exemplary performance and outstanding achievement in all facets of the learned profession have put them as primus inter pares among their peers, placing them formidably as constitutional avatars, judicial leviathans, legal luminaries and first class technocratic paragons in the third estate of the realm. As the first and only senator and upstanding member of the Body of Benchers as well as Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, there is little doubt among his teeming constituents, associates, admirers and vast array of supporters and loyalists nationwide that Opeyemi Bamidele will adroitly deploy his pivotal office and position to safeguard the legal, human, social, economic and constitutional rights of the Nigerian people as well as advancing their welfare, wellbeing and aspirations to the highest levels possible in our current democratic dispensation. To God be the glory!
Asadu is of the Legislative Writers Forum
