Amidst Rumoured Death, Olusola Oke Narrates Ordeal after Surviving Auto Accident

Fidelis David in Akure

The mystery surrounding the rumoured death of a governorship candidate in Ondo State in the 2012 and 2016 gubernatorial elections, Olusola Oke (SAN), became clear on Tuesday as he narrated his ordeal after an auto crash in the state.

Oke who represented Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives in 1992 was involved in a horrifying accident on Friday, August 25, 2023 was rumoured to have died, thereby dominating public conversation in the coastal state and the country as a whole.

However, speaking at an interdenominational thanksgiving service, held at the International Culture and Events Centre (the Dome), in Akure, Oke said the journey he embarked on to the southern part of Ondo State, on August 25 was like any other ones he made in the past, but it turned out to be a memorable watershed as he had a very close shave with death.

The former Commissioner who represented Ondo State on the Governing Board of NDDC said: “It was God that gifted me with life, a day death almost made itself an inevitable compulsive choice for me. Guy de Maupassant has effectively captured the fickleness of life when he opines that: “How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be ruined or saved! 

“Due to the recklessness of a road user, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, and dangerously overtook another vehicle at a sharp bend, needed to escape having head-on collision with the vehicle I was travelling in. In an attempt by my driver to avert running into it, he manoeuvred the vehicle, very swiftly but reasonably timely, but the dislocated vehicle that we were trying to escape, in an ordinarily inexplicable way, hit our vehicle from the rear, forcing it to somersault about three times.

“In the process of this auto gymnastics, I was flung out of the vehicle, leaving my driver, personal assistant and the security detail trapped inside. By the time my driver and others managed to squeeze themselves out of the wreck of the vehicle, I was lying flat in the middle of the road. Mercifully, there were no vehicles driving past the very busy road at that moment. God saved me from being run over and crushed to death.

“The questions then are; how did I avoid being run over by another vehicle; why did I not hit my head on the tarred road; why did I not suffer spinal cord injury but for fractured bones and broken ribs, if not for the abundant mercy and divine invisible hand of God that was involved?

“Just before my driver and others got out of the vehicle, it caught fire, and got razed down after their miraculous escape, while I was moved away from the middle of the highway to the roadside. Our evacuation from the accident scene to the Trauma Centre in Ondo by good Samaritans was a major medical step to halt our drift from life to death, even though there were no noticeable life-threatening physical injuries sustained.”

The former Chairman and of Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC), explained that after the initial medical attention in Ondo town, he was moved to Akure for observation and preparation to Abuja for concentrated clinical and family care.

“The devil did not give up on the need to precipitate complications when my treatment lasted, but God summarily silenced him. By the good involvement of the God that cures, wonderful efforts of medical doctors that care, and committed family members as well as friends that provided needed emotional and physical supports, my bones were strengthened, my body was renewed, and my emotions were recalibrated, and I am sufficiently sound today.

“No doubt, the transitional treatment periods were humbling, but my spirit was strong, reinforced by the prayers of my troubled family members, and best wishes of my teaming friends and associates. In most profoundly unique manner that signifies the participation of God, my doctors acknowledged that my recovery protocol was far ahead of medical expectations, for which I am also very grateful to my Maker.”

Consequently, Oke stressed that for about four months, he was shut out of his law practice and socio-political engagements, but God gave him a second chance of not only enriching the two opportunities for social-political and professional commitments, but an uncommon grace to continue to positively impact humanity.

“In the more than six decades of my existence, I have had harrowing experiences that challenged the whole essence of my being, and ruffled my feathers, until the last one that, once again, vigorously tried to shake my faith in God but rather ended up strengthening it, and put my family members and friends on the edge. In it all, God sustained me still.”

The Ilaje-born Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) also appreciated Nigerians, particularly,  his wives, children, extended family members, friends and professional associates, political leaders that visited and supported him financially, and their ceaseless prayers and well wishes.