5
OLUSOJI ADISA -
2 years ago
Though it started small at the at the popular old garage in Osogbo, today, it is s a long expanse of sprawling beauty, spanning a huge land mass from the old garage through old Ile Epo Olaiya to the old Fakunle in Osogbo, giving the sleepy town a new look expected of a city.
This long stretch beautifully sculpted and designed, encapsulates the culture, history and essence of what Osun stands for in a modern and standardized mode. Welcome to the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park, a recreation spot that can be described as an unraveling profile in tourist beauty.
Though the area was part of the central business district, it never enjoyed the beauty and attention of that should characterize a city center; it was previously synonymous with ramshackle structures, destitute and beggars and car parks as well as street traders long the edges of the road, proliferation of miscreants and hoodlums and a very dirty and haphazard arrangement, giving the place the look of a ghetto.
Today however, the recreational and aesthetic beauty of the park is a testimony of a huge turnaround in planning, beautification, aesthetics as well as cultural history and social facilities, making it a regular point of call for different classes of citizen and creating an opportunity for a night out in a safe environment among the people.
Indeed, to people that had not visited the town for a while, it is easy to get disoriented as the old ile epo Olaiya and old garage that is the first stop for many coming into town is no more the plain area that they know; there is an obvious and consistent change in the look the area wears and Osogbo is quickly shedding its ancient toga and is rapidly metamorphosing into a modern city.