Although Teslim Kolawole Folarin has been a recurring name in Oyo State politics for close to twenty years, his quiet demeanor and his not being given to verbosity has conspired to make him an unknown quantity in large sections of the general public. Even amongst those who think they know him, such knowledge are sprinkled with many grains of misconceptions about his person and his background.
Teslim Kolawole Folarin was born in October 1963 to the Alhaji and Alhaja Hamzat Folarin family of Baale House in Oja Igbo area of Ibadan North East Local Government of Oyo State. He attended both his primary and secondary schools in Lagos. His secondary education was at Methodist Boys High School. He thereafter earned a B.Sc (Hons) degree in Political Science from the University of Ibadan and a diploma degree from Harvard University, United States of America. He spent some years gathering valuable civil service experience in the United Kingdom, including management roles at the Department of Trade in London before returning to Nigeria in 2002. Folarin rendered his obligatory National Youth Service Corps service in Kaduna State and entered his home state politics thereafter. He contested and won the senatorial seat to represent Oyo Central in 2003 at the age of 39 years, a position he had since been elected to twice again in 2007 and 2019, making him the only legislator in Oyo State who is serving a third term at the Senate.
Senator Teslim Folarin is a proven leader, both in the traditional setting and in politics. He is the Head (Mogaji) of his family house and a ranking traditional chief in Ibadanland. He is presently the Asaaju Olubadan of Ibadanland. On the political front, in his second term at the Senate, he was appointed Senate Leader and he led debates on all Executive Bills as well as several bills of his own, which included the Insurance Act, Armed Forces Pensions Act and several others. He has also served on several Senate Committees including the Business and Rules, Marine and Transport committees. He is presently the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Content and member of several committees, i.e National Security and Intelligence; Finance; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Inter-parliamentary, Constitutional Amendment; Air force and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) committees.
Senator Folarin’s terms as Oyo Central Senator witnessed his massive contributions in several proactive bills and motions, facilitation of classroom blocks constructions, road projects, ICT centers, boreholes and solar street lights, vocation training centers, employment opportunities, empowerment programmes, covid-19 interventions as well as numerous constituency economic and social intervention programmes .
The Folarin that I know did not only obtain the requisite training in politics from a reputable ivory tower, he acquired valuable civil service experience before his advent into politics. Having been steeped in Oyo State politics for almost two decades and understudied with the best, he is light years ahead of and a better choice compared to a more verbose political upstart who has been confusing private business administration with public administration and politics and has been running roughshod over the Oyo State political landscape for the past three years.
