If only Kolawole could pay attention to his party's misfortune, APC admonishes

By Ade Ajayi

The vitriolic attack by the Chairman of a faction of the People’s Democratic Party in Ekiti State, Otunba Bisi Kolawole on the Governor of the State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, is a pitiable one.

Otunba Kolawole must be playing the ostrich when he asked Dr. Fayemi to “be alive to his primary Constitutional duty of protecting Ekiti people.” He willfully admitted that his party, the PDP, indeed inflicted serious pains on the people while in power between 2014 and 2018, and the people must be constantly protected from the splintered party.

The reason for the unnecessary noise was perhaps Kolawole felt time must have healed the wounds inflicted by his party on the people of the state enough for them to become vulnerable again and swallow another bait.

Let Kolawole know that Ekiti people have not forgiven his party and no amount of name calling and campaign of calumny would make the people prefer its rudderlessness to the good intentions of APC in any election.

What Kolawole had said, if there is any iota of sense in it, was a bad reiteration of what Dr. Fayemi himself had said repeatedly.

Gov. Fayemi knows the enormity of the task before him when he was taking the baton from the PDP and had said repeatedly that he was not elected as governor in 2018 to complain about the decrepit state of things, but to find solution to the myriad of challenges confronting the state and make life more comfortable for the citizens.

In the PDP’s character of heaping their fault on other people, Kolawole complained about poor roads in Ado Ekiti, the state capital without telling his listeners what his PDP-led government left behind. He and his party deliberately turned their blind eyes and deaf ears to the incontrovertible fact that road construction and other infrastructural projects have been at the heart of Gov. Fayemi’s adminstrative performance in Ekiti since he, Fayemi, assumed office and that about 50% of the projects are domiciled in Ado Ekiti, being the state capital.

The latest of such efforts is the approval of a total sum of N7.6 billion for the construction and rehabilitation of roads across the state. The breakdown showed that N921 million was approved for the construction of Ikole township roads, while N4.3 billion was ratified for the construction of Ado/Iworoko road with a sum of N2.3 billion to be spent on the construction of bus terminals and pedestrian walkway/drain covers along Ijigbo road to Okeiyinmi roundabout in the State capital.

Talking of the security situation, which is the second leg of Kolawole’s attack. For the umpteenth time, we affirm that the Fayemi administration, elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), remains committed to ensuring the safety and security of lives and property in Ekiti State. The Governor is at the forefront of working with stakeholders at the federal, regional, state, and community levels, to make our state safe. At the federal level, Governor Fayemi works very closely with the federal security agencies, and ensures officers and men posted to Ekiti state are supported operationally and logistically in the discharge of their duties. As the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), he is a well respected voice in national discourse on security sector governance and continues to advocate on many important issues.

At the regional level, he was central to the creation of the Western Nigeria Security Network (codenamed Operation Amotekun) and continues in the bid to improve their operational effectiveness. He is vital to regional efforts aimed at enhancing collaboration amongst our neighbouring states to improve the security situation in the region.

At the state level, through the Ekiti State Security Council, Governor Fayemi and other stakeholders have carried out several holistic and integrated interventions at the strategic and tactical levels to address insecurity.

All dispassionate and independently verifiable records show that Ekiti remains one of the safest and most secure states in the whole of the Federation.

At the community level, the Government of Ekiti State, has consistently engaged with community stakeholders on measures to improve intelligence gathering, early warning mechanisms, and structures for rapid response to security breaches. This is a very crucial aspect of building a resilient security architecture that requires the input of all and sundry. It requires bi-partisan cooperation, mutual trust, and for the setting aside of all differences to have a strong and unified response.

As patriots and honourable Ekiti people, it requires putting Ekiti first before politics – an idea that sadly appears to be far removed from the imagination of Ekiti PDP.

Governor Fayemi would however continue to support the extensive joint patrol of the dark spots and bushes by the RRS, Amotekun and the regular police. He would continue to strengthen the Ekiti State Security Trust Fund, provide equipment and logistics for security outfits, involve the traditional institutions in the security of their domains, lobby the military authorities to set up military security bases in the state, fence public schools, amongst other classified efforts.

It is true that the entire country is currently facing huge security challenges, which are the culmination of several factors far more complicated than the simplistic way Ekiti PDP has chosen to look at things. Some of the conditions that birthed these challenges originated and were nurtured during the years of misrule by the PDP at the state and national levels. We would however not join issues with the Ekiti PDP on this since they have demonstrated a lack of cognitive capacity to comprehend state affairs.

We would rather concentrate on doubling up our efforts to address the problems. We would concentrate on working with well meaning people to ensure our homes, our roads, our farms, our workplaces, our educational institutions, our places of worship, and every other space in Ekiti is safe and secure.

With or without the input of the likes of Otunba Kolawole, who now aspires to ride on the back of crisis to fulfilling his vaulting ambition of governing Ekiti, by the grace of God and the support of all well meaning and honourable people of Ekiti, will overcome all its challenges.