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On October 16, 2018, at the Ekiti Parapo pavilion, Ado-Ekiti, Dr Kayode Fayemi was sworn in as the executive governor of Ekiti State.
Similar to the biblical restoration of the captivities of Zion, Ekiti people around the globe were like those that were dreaming as the providence used the occasion to beam on them, smiles of fresh hope.
That day, Ekiti indigenes brimmed with joy because they had a brand new opportunity to get back their stolen lands, restore their lost heritage, and to undo their values and public image which had obviously been misrepresented and wrongly projected by the previous government.
Contrasting sharply with the familiar events of new governments in the Ekiti State of the time past, Fayemi seemed not to have time for such foolery. No time to check time!
The new governor had no time to declare swimming recreation for miscreants(Omo-Oraasir) at the government house. He had no time for pettiness; no time to display for public inspection, the beds and the bedding used by his predecessor. No time for rendezvous at herbal liquor (Jedi) joints. No time to chase the state lawmakers who were members of the opposition party out of town. Fayemi had no time to embark on road shows whose motive would be to flaunt roasted maize or roasted plantain. And of course, no time for hypocritical religious ecstasies.
Like an experienced swimmer to whom swimming is no longer a strange venture, the scholastic Kayode Fayemi, who already had good understanding of the depth of the challenges before him, plunged into the business of governance in glaring earnest.
After announcing his intention to go for knowledge economy, Fayemi’s first efficacy test of the executive power newly conferred on him took place where Ekiti State got her fame, the education sector.
Without wasting time, Dr Fayemi issued an executive order and stopped all the relevant organs of the state government from collecting taxes from primary school pupils in Ekiti State.
In his quest to groom the future generation of leaders who would be able to sustain the high mental capacity which Ekiti man is known for, Fayemi introduced school feeding program.
Aside the program’s scientific merit of aiding the mental development of the children, through the homegrown school feeding program, Fayemi has succeeded in bridging the nutritional gap between the children of the rich and that of the poor in Ekiti State.
As if Fayemi is the new Obafemi Awolowo while Ekiti State is the present day Western Region, Fayemi’s eyes are always on those kids.
Through Fayemi’s consistent monitoring efforts, he has instilled in the psyche of those primary school pupils, the conviction of having a mentor, a motivator and a father figure in the Ekiti State Government House.
There was one popular scenario in which Governor Fayemi had to vacate his seat for one of the pupils who came to visit a friend in the state house. Interestingly, Governor Fayemi was that friend.
In a two pronged approach; to lay good academic foundation for these young pupils, and to ease the problem of joblessness among the youths, Fayemi is currently employing and deploying 1,100 graduates as teachers in various public primary schools across the 16 local government areas of Ekiti State.
It would arose the interest of any progressive mind to hear that Fayemi had also kick started with the secondary school phase of the teachers recruitment agenda of his government.
In this phase, another 1000 youths would be employed. Hence, Ekiti State Teaching Service Commission has already advertised the application forms for teaching and non teaching jobs in the state secondary schools.
It may give a clearer picture of what size of bounty lies ahead of Ekiti people if informed that the overall teachers recruitment plan of Fayemi was envisioned for three phases, primary, secondary and tertiary institution phase.
Aside Fayemi’s unchanging habit of paying for WAEC and NECO, mentioning how he gave an enduring facelift to Ekiti State secondary schools during his first tenure may not be necessary while the fresh news of how he solved the more worrisome problem of the first set of Ekiti State University trained medical doctors who were held bound in school for 10 years is still untold.
Fayemi met severally with the management of the state owned university. After the meetings, Fayemi began to do the needful. He made handsome investment of time and cash to the medical college project. Fayemi secured for the college the required accreditation and he was able to set free the over timed medics of the college.
Still unsatisfied, Governor Fayemi compensated for the lost time and he has eliminated every possibility of another future delay.
Fayemi offered the new medical graduates, automatic employment letters. The letters would be due for collection on their completion of the mandatory NYSC program.
Sincerely, Fayemi did wonderfully well in the areas of women and youth empowerment.
In line with the five policy priorities of Fayemi government, Ekiti Rice domination of Nigeria’s food market is a question of time.
On the bill of Ekiti State government, 100 youths are currently undergoing training at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, on rice seed production and value chain by Africarice.
Coming as a consolidation to the YCAD programme of his first tenure, recently, Fayemi government partnered with WEMA Bank Plc in organising business training for Ekiti residents whose businesses are agric based.
Successful participants in the Agric Business Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS) training will benefit from Central Bank loan on agricultural value chain.
Besides, Fayemi has also opened many other channels of employments within this little time frame of just one year.
One, the ICT University Foundation Louisiana, USA is set to build an ICT centre at the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti. According to the head of the US school delegation to Ekiti State, Professor Victor Mbarica, an Afro-American ICT Professor, the ICT equipment and e-learning facilities worth more than $5 million will be shipped into Ekiti State very soon.
While teaching and learning of ICT would be improved, no doubt, this intervention would also precipitate from Ekiti varsity a distinguished set of ICT professionals which reputable multinationals within and outside Nigeria would compete to employ in no distant future.
Two, Fayemi has worked out a memorandum of understanding between Ekiti State government and Promasidor with a view to recuscitating Ikun Dairy Farm. Promasidor, a maker of Loyal and Cowbell Milk, is one of the reputable employers of good labour within the Nigeria economic space. To make good the MoU, Fayemi facilitated a bank loan in favour of the Promasidor.
According to the MoU, the Promasidor, would at any moment from now, begin with its production processes in Ekiti State as a public/private enterprise.
Three, Gossy water company which stopped production during the immediate past administration in the state has also been revitalized by Governor Fayemi.
Four, Fayemi has lifted embargo on all vacancies. Dr Fayemi’s executive order was responsible for the advertisements of job vacancies which flood Ekiti State civil service and all the government parastatals in the recent time.
Five, the Ado-Ekiti airport project has ceased to be an object of mere imagination. For the first time in the history of the airport project, Fayemi has named for the project, a coordinator.
The cargo airport will open up Ekiti State for local and international business opportunities, and it would also create another set of employments.
Any news item reporting Governor Fayemi as an highly influential figure can no longer elicit shock in Nigeria. Governor Fayemi was returned unopposed when he became the chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
Who could have imagined that an APC governor like Fayemi who is neither a sitting nor a former president could be that honoured by the opposition PDP lion, Nyesome Wike, to do the commissioning of a project in Rivers State?
At the faraway New York, Governor Fayemi chaired the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Sustainable Development Goals (NGFSDG) in an high level side event of the 2019 edition of the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA).
In the attendance were the President of the United Nations General Assembly who doubled as the Chief Host of the New York event, His Excellency Mr Tijjani Mohammad Bande, the Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Her Excellency Aisha Mohammed, the Senior Special Assistant to the Nigeria President on SDGs, Mrs Adejoke Orelope Adefulire, Secretary of State for International Cooperation of Spain, and governors of Lagos, Plateau, Borno, Ebonyi, Ogun and Imo State.
These days, Fayemi’s influence seems to have been shooting very high to the sky. The Africa Development Bank, the World Bank and some other global institutions now compete to fund the long awaited Ado-Ekiti airport project and some other laudable projects of Fayemi’s one year old administration, out which Ikere/Iju road reconstruction is very prominent.
The workaholic Governor Fayemi had also awarded the road construction contract of the long abandoned Iyin road.
In an attempt to adhere to the required specifications and to meet the global judicial standard, Fayemi has pointed the state judicial complex out for extensive restructuring while the new Ado-Ekiti Ultra Modern Market which is still under construction would be completed in no time.
Before the inception of the ongoing Fayemi administration, Ado-Ekiti used to be a place where streetlights would come up at 7pm and go off at 10pm leaving the entire state capital in an hideous blackout.
As of today, Fayemi has changed the narrative. Ado-Ekiti now has near Tokyo streets’ illumination type at night.
The ceaseless efforts of Fayemi government in the area of public utility are remarkable. Under Fayemi, the extension of potable water network to rural areas is obviously on course.
Laying of water pipes where it has never been one and the replacement of the existing bad pipes with the new ones have now become day-to-day activities in Ekiti State. According to the World Bank, Ekiti is the best performing state under the National Urban Water Sector Reform Project(NUWSRP 3) in 2019.
Really, power generation and its distribution do not fall within the purview of the responsibilities of any state government in Nigeria.
But Fayemi has not because of that left the people completely at the mercy of the private power distribution company in charge of Ekiti State.
Through Fayemi’s obvious interfacing efforts between the private power distributor and the people, he has won the confidence of Ekiti residents.
For instance, Fayemi would soon conclude
the process required to reconnect to the national grid, the entire local government area of Gbonyin and some other communities that were in darkness throughout the 4 years tenure span of the last administration in Ekiti State.
Any moment from now, they will begin to enjoy electric power supply like other parts of Ekiti State.
Fayemi has also put it upon himself never to stop ringing into the hearing of the power company, the bell of consumer’s dissatisfactions.
Not long ago, it was on the public domain that Governor Fayemi sent his commissioner for public utility, Hon Bamidele Faparusi, to discuss with the BEDC management on the legitimate government’s possible intervention regarding how the company can improve on its service delivery.
As a matter of policy, Fayemi has not been treating civil servants in the state like tissues of garbage. Governor Fayemi did not embrace what was trending when he mounted the saddle, the government’s non payment of several months of salaries and pensions.
In the past one year, Fayemi has always been paying pensions and workers’ salaries as and when due. And he has never failed in fulfilling his post election promise of setting aside N100m every month to gradually defray the backlog of gratuities which he inherited from his predecessor.
In the matters of internal security, Governor Fayemi is of the opinion that charity should begin at home.
Fayemi inherited from his predecessor a lot of communal strives; boundary disputes, hot chieftaincy and kingship tussles, and a case of illegitimate banishment of a king.
As we speak, Governor Fayemi had resolved all the conflicts to an absolute zero level. This is an area which has proved to be the number one justification for Fayemi’s choice of deputy.
Because Fayemi’s deputy, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, was the one who was often delegated to attend to such matters.
The deputy governor of Ekiti State, His Excellency Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, is a competent arbitrator. Aside being a septuagenarian, he is an experienced legal practitioner. Egbeyemi has uncommon profile in Ekiti politics. A certified teacher and a local chief, he is.
What a lot of people might not know; Egbeyemi’s robust capacity for conflict resolution goes beyond the scope of western education or career experience. Bisi Egbeyemi has a family history of wisdom and intelligence. His father, Baba ‘Gbeniye, was a brilliant speaker during his lifetime.
And for bigger security challenges, Governor Fayemi has always been encouraging the local vigilante and security agencies to work in collaboration while he offered them the necessary support.
Governor Fayemi is not an empty vessel. His own style may not be to pose with local hunters on the cover page of a newspaper but one thing about him is that he would always get results.
Thank God, testimonies abound; the mass arrest in the forest; the shocking news of a church reverend who masterminded his own kidnapping, and so on.
As far as Ekiti State is concerned, Fayemi has achieved more than any administration in the area of arts and culture.
Fayemi banned public officers in Ekiti State from speaking English language to Ekiti indigenes who come to their offices.
This year (2019), Fayemi government fired a preliminary shot towards globalizing the popular Ado-Ekiti indigenous festival of Udiroko.
Ha-mumu-mahmah! His Royal Majesty, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, Aladesanmi(III), the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, was accompanied to Lagos by the Director General of Ekiti State Arts and Culture, Ambassador Wale Ojo Lanre, for an international press conference.
In this same year, Ekiti State Cultural Troupe was shortlisted to perform at Budapest in Hungary. The event was organised to mark the Nigeria’s 59th Independence anniversary.
This same 2019, Dr Fayemi completed the Ekiti State Civic Centre with state of art facilities. The civic centre ranks among the popular Ibadan Civic Centre, the Port Harcourt Civic Centre and the Iganmu Theatre in Lagos.
Honestly, for having the divine privilege to serve Ekiti people for this second time, Governor Fayemi deserves to be congratulated. Because he (Fayemi) started the civic centre project during his first tenure before it was hatefully abandoned by his successor.
This narrative will not be complete if the great contributions of the first lady, Her Excellency Mrs Bisi Fayemi, to the success of her husband’s one year old tenure are not X-rayed for public appreciation.
Mrs Fayemi is a confirmed democrat. Sometimes this year, she bagged the prestigious Zik leadership award.
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi believes in peaceful dialogue in all matters of life except on any issue which borders on a girl child, her education, any infringement on her right or a case of violation of her being.
Mrs Fayemi was the brain behind the establishment of the dreaded Gender Based Violence Monitoring Team (GBVMT) which Governor Fayemi inaugurated this year.
Apart from being on the constant watch of the progressions in the cases of sexual abuse, Mrs Fayemi was the one who initiated the public shaming practice of sex offenders in Ekiti State.
In the one year journey, Bisi Fayemi has been encouraging women’s good participation in politics. Mrs Fayemi would always ensure that women in the state get fair share of representation from both the elective and the appointive positions.
Bisi Fayemi is not only a gender activist, she is also a philanthropist. Mrs Fayemi has a sophisticated philanthropic arsenal. She spots and blesses readily, the people in dire need of financial assistance. Her habit of paying hospital bills of poor people is commendable.
To cater for the financial needs of mothers with multiple births, Bisi Fayemi has brought back the Multiple Births Trust Fund (MBTF).
Unlike the time past, husbands of the mothers of multiple children no longer abandon their wives and children in hospitals and maternity homes. Now in Ekiti State, husbands of pregnant women openly pray for twins, triplets, quadruplets and so on.
However, It is important to note that the same Mrs Fayemi was the one who started the multiple births’ financial intervention program in Ekiti State during the first tenure of Dr Fayemi before it was unscrupulously cancelled by her husband’s successor.
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