By Gbenga Sodeinde Ado Ekiti
History will be made in Ekiti State, come October 16, 2018 as Dr.
Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will be sworn in
as 12th Executive Governor of the State.
The outgoing Governor of the state, Mr Ayodele Fayose, will hand over
power to Fayemi from whom he incidentally received the baton of
leadership of the state on the same day in 2014.
Fayemi who during his first term in office was elected on the platform
of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that later became APC and
Fayose of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are the two top
politicians who had the privilege of ruling the 22 years old State in
immediate turns.
Fayemi who was defeated by the incumbent governor of the State in the
June 21, 2014 election also in turn defeated Professor Kolapo Olusola
of the PDP who incidentally is the Deputy of Governor Fayose,
candidate of the People's Democratic Party in the July 14,
governorship poll.
As the handing over day beckons, Ekiti people are anxiously looking
forward to when the Governor- elect of the state, the Ilufemiloye 1,
a.k.a. the dynamite and Legbegbe, will be inaugurated as the Governor
of Ekiti State for the second time.
The people are anxiously awaiting the new dawn hoping that their lives
would be better this time around, having been able to compare and
contrast between the present state of the State's financial position
with when Fayose took the mantle of office then in 2014 and now that
Fayemi is being expected to assume office and restore what many Ekiti
are referring to as their lost glory.
It will be recalled that immediately governor Fayose was declared
Governor-elect in the State, rather than pre-occupy himself with the
task of how to tackle the myriad of problems being faced by the State
before he was sworn in on October 2014 as Governor for the second
time, he started behaving as if Ekiti has been willed to him as a
personal property.
First, Fayose wrote to the banks in 2014 instructing them to stop
granting credit facility to Dr.Fayemi for payment of salaries and
pensions while he threw all his daily needs and expenses to Fayemi,
such that anyone who was vigilant then would know Fayose never had any
better plan that could actually eradicate people's suffering but to
increase it, and this was evident with the debt profile of Ekiti State
that was reported to be in the range of N18 Billion before it has now
been increased to the N117 Billion by Fayose.
The latest Ekiti debt profile was made public recently when the
Transition Committee set up by Fayemi submitted its reports.
Before Fayose's inauguration in 2014, record has it that Fayose
approached Fayemi to approve funds for him for a trip to Dubai on
vacation which Fayemi graciously granted him and two of his aides
then.
As if that was not enough, Fayose went to Coscharis Motors to acquire
a brand new bullet-proof Range Rover Jeep and a brand new power bike
to serve as his outrider without following due process only to pass a
bill close to N100 million to the Fayemi's administration which the
then government obliged, all in the interest of peace and smoot
take-off of the new administration then.
But now, the Ekiti people have eventually seen the resultant effects
of Fayose's ill preparation as they went through hell throughout the
four years occasioned by government inflicted poverty, hunger and
backwardness through his decision not to pay salaries while many
agencies, industries and Banks that would have assisted in boosting
the economy of the State were chased away through obnoxious policies
of his Administration coupled with heavy tax burden imposed on them.
For Dr. Fayemi, since he has since been declared the winner of the
July 14 election and the Governor-elect, he has been having sleepless
nights on how to achieve Ekiti of his dream in terms of catching up
with other financially stable States by making sure that Ekiti is
liberated from the shackles of bondage of darkness and chain of
poverty.
Fayemi has since been seeking assistance, cooperation and support of
various Agencies, parastatals of Federal government, powerful
organizations within and outside the country to support his conceived
plan of making sure that the crawling State receives life and walk
again to glory.
The agencies he has visited for assistance include the AFD (Agence
Francaise de Development) for the implementation of the economic
development programmes in Ekiti State, investing in private sector
development through credit lines for informal and formal including
small and medium scale businesses.
The aim is to extend access for SMEs to medium and long-term credit by
developing a range of financial products tailored for the needs of the
poorly funded entrepreneurial groups, improvement of public finance
management by assisting Ekiti State in improving tax revenues and
improving the economic environment which is necessary for investments,
as well as seeking the technical support and strategy, including any
and all measures aimed at improving the ease of doing business
standards that all improve private investments in the State.
He is also seeking Funding opportunities in alternative sources of
energy; With all his efforts, Ekiti state is hoping to improve
alternate and sustainable (renewable) energy sources for its private
sector and proposed industrial clusters in the State.
Dr. Fayemi has also visited the international agencies to seek for
collaboration in his bid to purchasing agro-processing scheme that is
aimed at stimulating investment through agro-processing
(agri-business) enterprises in its most productive agricultural
produce that will impact on employment in Ekiti State. This would help
enhance agricultural productivity of small and medium scale farmers
and improve value addition along priority value chains. In addition,
it will achieve some of human capacity development, employment,
modernized machinery and equipment, competitiveness and productivity
improvement.
Also, among the Federal ministries that have so far been visited by
the Governor–elect to seek Federal Government Intervention on
Infrastructure, others for Ekiti ahead of his assumption of office was
the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola
Dr. Fayemi out of his desire to ensure speedy development of
infrastructure in the state had visited the Federal Ministry in a bid
to form partnership in the development of the State had told Fashola
during his visit to him in his office that, “Your ministry is going to
be very crucial to the success of our administration, particularly in
the area of infrastructural development.
“We have been having discussions on unofficial basis, so, I think it
is important we make it official to identify areas we can partner in
our rebuilding efforts,” he said.
The governor-elect said that the Federal Government’s activities were
being noticed in the State through its ongoing housing, roads,
electrification and the Federal Secretariat projects.
Fayemi maintained that the Federal Government could do more, adding
that Ekiti was a rural and agricultural state where infrastructure was
most needed.
In his remark, Fashola commended the governor-elect for the visit,
adding that the developmental initiative of the current Federal
Government was party blind.
Fashola assured Fayemi that the housing project, federal secretariat
project, the transmission project and others in the state would be
beneficial to all citizens irrespective of their party affiliations.
The minister said that the projects identified by the governor-elect
in the state were initiated even as the opposition party still
governed the state.
He said he had visited the state to ensure that the projects were
ongoing, adding that the election of Dr. Fayemi would accelerate
growth because the governor-elect is more development-oriented, seeks
federal government’s support.
In a bid to boost food production in the state on assumption of
office, Fayemi had gone to visit the Hon Minister of Agriculture and
Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, to equally seek the cooperation
of the ministry in improving agricultural productivity and employment
(especially among the youth) and building on YCAD initiative from his
time in office.
The visit also focused on efforts aimed at improved processing units
across the value chains of crop export produce in Ekiti state
including cocoa, coffee, cassava, rubber, cashew, and yam amongst
others.
The Governor-elect canvassed for improved storage facilities for farm
produce to encourage large-scale production as a way to further
incentivizing agro investments in the State of which Fayemi had
reportedly received positive response.
While Fayemi was busy seeking collaborations with developmental
partner ahead of his assumption office, to transform the state,
Fayose’s had a different plan with the latest reported purchase of a
N76 million 2018 model Lexus 570 Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) for
himself.
Similarly, Fayose also awarded himself and his Deputy, Olusola a
whopping sum of N43million as severance allowance upfront, even when
he could not pay the civil servants, pensioners salaries, emoluments
and entitlement of about eight months owed them.
The plans and programmes of the two major actors at the centre of
transition, Fayose and Fayemi are differentiated based on various
perception of the people of Ekiti who are the major beneficiary of
their actions either negatively or positively.
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