UK-BASED PHILANTHROPIST, OLADOSU, PUTS SMILES ON FACES IN IRESI WITH SCHOOL BAGS, ROAD SAFETY PROJECTS

Pupils, parents and traders in Iresi, Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State, on Friday rolled out drums as a United Kingdom-based indigene, High Chief Olagoke Oladosu, returned home with education and infrastructure interventions that residents described as “timely and life-saving”.

Oladosu, the Otunba Atayese of Ila-Ijesha land and founder of the GOBODY Helping Hand Foundation, distributed school bags to pupils of public primary schools in Iresi, fulfilling a promise he made after observing during an earlier visit that many of the children went to school clutching books in their hands.

Moved by the memory, he said he prayed not to return empty-handed. “I told myself that God must help me to come back and do something. I thank God that this day has come,” he told the cheering crowd.

In the same outing, the philanthropist commissioned a roundabout at the Iresi major junction and funded the construction of speed bumps on the Iresi–Igbajo road — a corridor residents said had recorded repeated crashes owing to reckless driving.

A mother of two, Mrs. Ronke Adebisi, who witnessed the commissioning, said the traffic-calming structures would change driving behaviour. “Before now, people flew past this bend. We have buried people because of speed,” she said. “With these bumps, drivers will now respect this road.”

Addressing the community, Oladosu said his foundation would keep turning its attention homewards. “The GOBODY foundation has been a beacon of hope for many years. We have helped people far from here, but we cannot forget our root. Iresi and its neighbours must feel that they are not alone,” he said.

Elders of the town, flanked by jubilant schoolchildren gripping their new bags, prayed for the donor and appealed to other sons and daughters in the diaspora to take a cue, arguing that government cannot do everything.

For the pupils who walked away carrying proper bags instead of bare bundles of books and for road users now forced to slow down where danger once lurked Oladosu’s visit on Friday was not a mere ceremony; it was a reminder that someone who left still remembers home.