Okitipupa, headquarters of Okitipupa local government area is a well known settlement since the first republic. The ancient town entered the league of the first towns to have the luxury of telephone communication in the 1960s, courtesy of Chief Olu Akinfosile who was Commissioner for Communication in the cabinet of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. In the then Western Region, Okitipupa was the District headquarters of Okitipupa Division, comprising present Okitipupa, Irele, Ilaje, Ese-Odo and parts of Odigbo Local Government Areas.
In the politics of the division, Okitipupa local government has appropriated this huge advantage of being the former district headquarters. Needless to say that Chief Olu Ankinfosile was from the local government. When the second republic came on course, Senator Onukun represented the senatorial district from 1979 to 1983 in the bicameral National Assembly in Lagos. In 1999 Afolabi Iyantan was elected as Deputy Governor of Ondo State from Ode-Aye, one of the communities in Okitipupa local government. Of course, Dr. Olusegun Agagu from Iju-Odo (Okitipupa LG) was the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for the 1999 election. Agagu eventually entered saddle as Governor of Ondo State in 2003. Even the incumbent Senator representing Southern Senatorial District, Senator Boluwaji Kunlere is from Okitipupa local government. The cumulative effects of the foregoing even before the advent of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko has put Okitipupa in the big league.
In spite of the fact that the Southern Senatorial District lays the golden eggs for the State in view of its large crude oil as well as bitumen (yet to be exploited) deposits, up till the twilight days of the Agagu administration, there was no tertiary institution in the entire Senatorial district. As a matter of fact, it took the campaign promise of Dr. Mimiko to establish a university in the South before Agagu hurriedly packaged the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa (OSUSTECH). Today, the OSUSTECH story is no longer a dream but a reality. Students have been admitted for the 2011/2012 academic session and lectures have resumed at the temporary site of the University Okitipupa while the extent of work at the permanent site is very encouraging.
When Dr. Olusegun Mimiko assumed office as Governor of Ondo State, many people has dismissed the university as another white elephant projects of government that will surely be abandoned. All of that is history, as the university takes off with its potential of transforming the face of the entire district in particular, and the entire state in general. Okitipupa the new university is poised to blossom now in terms of economic and social activities that will assail it. It is only eighteen kilometres away from Igbokoda,a coastal community with its beehive economic activities and the largest fish market on the Nigerian coastline. With the new Ayeka-Araromi-Irele road that is nearing completion, all the communities in Irele and Ese-Odo local governments are primed to benefit mutually from the university even in terms of proximity.
Talking about Okitipupa as a university town, the incumbent administration has done a lot to give a face lift. In place of the central market on Igbokoda road which looked like a shanty with its rusty corrugated iron sheets, now stands the Caring Heart market in grandiose majesty. The Caring Heart mega School, with its imposing 1000 capacity school hall, complete with administration block and classrooms have not in a small way added to Okitipupa’s new status as a university, town. Welcome to Ikale.
Source: Grassroot Vanguard
