Titilayo Obileye fires back at Babalola, Challenges Him to to Compare Contributions to Ekiti’s Devt.

Titilayo Obileye, a strategic communications professional, has launched a blistering response to Ayo Babalola over what she described as attempts to discredit her professional accomplishments and contributions to Ekiti State on account of her place of birth.

Obileye, in a strongly worded rejoinder, accused Babalola of engaging in personal attacks, historical distortion and what she described as an embarrassing attempt to undermine her credibility, insisting that her contributions to Ekiti’s development were documented, verifiable and independent of her ancestral background.

She described Babalola’s fixation on her identity and professional accomplishments as misplaced, questioning the basis for his attempt to portray her as someone without meaningful contributions to the state. She also referenced his public utterances about her, including a video in which he allegedly mentioned her name on October 14 without provocation.

Taking a swipe at his argument that she was not an indigene of Ekiti, Obileye maintained that she had dedicated eight years of her adult life to public service, professional development and community building in the state. She explained that she joined the Ekiti State Government at the age of 22 as an intern during the administration of former Governor Kayode Fayemi, gradually building her career without entering government through political appointment.

She noted that her professional engagements had spanned two successive administrations, during which she contributed to government communications, policy communication, development projects and public engagement. Among her contributions, she listed communications support for the Third National Urban Water Project, AGILE, environmental initiatives, including the Global Citizen partnership on the planting of 500,000 trees, as well as radio sensitisation and palliative distribution activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Obileye also highlighted her journalism and international professional accomplishments, including her selection for a fully funded Climate Tracker opportunity to report at COP27 in Egypt, her 2022 Journalist of the Year recognition at the International Youth Diplomacy Conference in Ghana, and her inclusion among She Leads Africa’s 50 Rising Motherland Moguls in 2023.

Beyond public service, she cited her entrepreneurial investments through KOORAWOMAN, her fashion business which won Best Female Fashion Brand at the 2021 Ekiti Fashion Exhibition Awards, and her establishment of the Titilayo Youth Opportunities Community Foundation, through which she said over 3,000 opportunities had been shared with young people since 2022.

Describing Babalola’s argument as an attempt to erase documented contributions through an irrelevant debate about birthplace, Obileye maintained that citizenship, residency, professional service and contributions to societal development should not be confused with indigene status. She challenged the notion that only people born in Ekiti could legitimately contribute to its growth, insisting that her record of service spoke louder than political attacks and personal insinuations.

She further accused Babalola of attempting to undermine people who had remained in the state, invested their time and resources, supported young people and contributed to institutional development, while questioning the consistency of his criticism given his alleged residence outside Nigeria.

Obileye, however, stressed that she was not seeking public applause or recognition, but would not allow anyone to rewrite her professional history or diminish years of documented service through what she described as politically motivated attacks.

She also condemned what she characterised as attempts to berate and intimidate women, particularly young women, warning that political ambition should never become a justification for personal attacks, harassment or the deliberate distortion of other people’s accomplishments.

Concluding her response, the 30 year old communications professional maintained that she knew her roots and had never misrepresented her identity to earn recognition or establish her place in Ekiti’s development history.

She declared that her contributions were verifiable and that no amount of personal attacks or attempts at historical revisionism could erase the work she had done in public service, entrepreneurship, journalism and youth development.