Just as my Government House beat took me round the country on the entourage of the Military Administrator whose activities I covered for nine months, I also visited some other important Nigerian cities as a Parliamentary Correspondent on the entourage of the Speaker, Ekiti State House of Assembly, Rt Hon. Kola Adefemi and his team, attending Speakers' Conferences in Jos, Plateau State, Port Harcourt, Rivers State and Calabar, Cross River State to mention the farthest points we traveled to. That was the time Former Governor Rotimi Amaechi was the Speaker of the Rivers State, House of Assembly and former Governor Lalong was the Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly.
Towards the end of the first term of Governor Adebayo when the ban on political campaign had been lifted by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, a controversy arose as to the truth owner of a building which the Governor built in Lagos as part of efforts to boost the Internally Generated Revenue IGR of the state. However, detractors of the administration claimed that the said building was in fact, the house of the Governor's father.
This campaign of calumny as those close to government saw it needed a clarification and the lot fell on me to travel to Lagos to do a special story on the building.
As the House did not sit on Fridays, an arrangement was made for a government driver to take a cameraman and me to Ojuolobun Close, Victoria Island where I did a graphic Stand Upper or what is also known as Pic To Camera PTC. Backing the two compounds, I said on camera, "To my right is number One A and to my left is number One Ojuolobun Close".
I continued off camera but the camera was still rolling on the buildings while I explained that number One which consists some old chalets were the property of General Adebayo while number One A, a 3-storey apartment lodge belonged to Ekiti State. I also had the rare privilege to interview General Adebayo who told whoever cared to listen the background story of the two addresses.
During the course of this special assignment, we saw airline pilots and their crew checking in to lodge at number One A, Ojuolobun Close.
By the time, I returned to base and filed my report, another special assignment was waiting as I was despatched to Abuja to do a similar fact - finding report on the 7-storey Ekiti State Liaison Office in the Federal Capital Territory. At Abuja I did my PTC on the tennis court on the roof of the giant edifice standing next to the Federal Secretariat. I found out that Ekiti State government occupied only a small fraction of the skyscraper while the rest had been rented out to hospitality companies like restaurant operators, banks and other corporate entities.
My mission was to showcase that the Adebayo administration had gone commercial to ensure financial self reliance for the state because both the Ojuolobun Close building and the Abuja Tower were designed to generate revenue for Ekiti State as they still do and continue to do.
The Adebayo administration took these measures when his administration had to pull two Federal Allocations together before one month of workers' and other public officials other emoluments could be paid. And that was how salary began to fall into arrears in the state.
My Lagos and Abuja special assignments over, I returned to my parliamentary reportage and my daily presentation of "From The Assembly" live on radio and television.
Still reporting from the House, I was drafted to participate in the coverage of the April 19, 2003 Governorship Election in the state. The People's Democratic Party candidate, Mr Ayodele Fayose won the election with 219,906 votes, defeating the incumbent Alliance for Democracy AD Governor, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo who polled 168,391 votes.
After the election, new posting were released by the News Department of my station and I was relieved of my parliamentary position and redeployed to cover the activities of the Governor-elect, Fayose.
I reported for duty for the first time as the BSES reporter attached to the Governor -elect not in Ado Ekiti but Ibadan, Oyo State. The person driver of Mr Fayose took us to the Governor - elect's personal residence in Challenge Area of the Oyo State capital. I said us because other reporters and cameramen from other broadcast stations in Ekiti State and the Ministry of Information were also in the bus. If I cannot remember all the others, the current General Manager of Our People's FM, Dr Yemi Agbeleoba was on that trip. I remember also that we met Yadnus, a cameraman at Ibadan. Yadnus is Sunday spelt backwards.
The People's Democratic Party PDP had swept the 1999 Governorship Election in all states in the Southwest except in Lagos where Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the Alliance for Democracy AD won. The incoming PDP Governors namely, Ayo fayose - Ekiti. Olusegun Agagu- Ondo, Olagunsoye Oyinlola - Osun, Adebayo Alao-Akala - Oyo and Gbenga Daniel - Ogun had agreed to embark on a 3-day tour of the Southwest to meet critical stakeholders and elder statesmen before their inauguration, which was the reason reporters were being mobilised to Ibadan.
The tour was to take off on a Monday and the Press team from Ekiti was brought in during the preceding weekend.
Governor - elect Fayose decided to meet the crew on the evening of our arrival and asked one of his aides to bring us to his presence and he asked us to introduce ourselves, name, station e.t.c. When it was my turn and I said. "My name is Akin Ogunmola from BSES". I almost had not completed BSES when Fayose went into a rage and said, "No, you can't work with me, I don't want to see anybody from that station BSES. Not what they did to us during the campaign and the election. Give this man transport fare and let him return to Ado immediately". I stepped back and returned to the living room where we had been quartered since we arrived at Fayose's house and waited.
All the other newsmen were cleared and they came back to join me but sat away from me. It was getting dark and the man to facilitate my journey back to Ado was nowhere to be found.
When he finally came, he announced that dinner would soon be served and added that the BSES reporter would no longer be going back to Ado. I tried to appeal to him to please ensure that I get the money before it is too late because I would like to travel back very early the following day. But to our surprise and more to me personally, the Fayose aide replied that I wasn't going back anymore because the Hausa man, Oga's friend who was with us during the introduction session had been able to convince his Excellency that BSES is his own station and the only station, he too could use as they had used it against him.