Governor Kayode Fayemi has paid his dues in governance. In the past four years, he has diligently implemented policies that have changed the face of governance in Ekiti State. On October 16, 2022, Fayemi would be completing his second term in office. In this two-part interview with The Star’s AYODELE OJO, the governor speaks on his journey in Ekiti Government House and how he has redefined governance in Ekiti. Excerpts:
Changing the face of Ekiti
Well, if you recall, the thrust of my campaign in 2018 was about restoring the values and reclaiming the land for the people and there was a context to it. We had been short changed and received bad press for atrocities that our people did not commit, simply on account of the way the then governor portrayed himself and portrayed us as the state of stomach infrastructure, of hungry people who were just desperate for anything they can grab and they had no values, no character, no integrity, it was just about whatever crumbs could drop from the table of the master. That was the perception. I believe it was a wrong image of the Ekiti people.
I saw my role as that of a brand ambassador dedicated to rebranding Ekiti and putting its image in proper perspective. So, coming on board in 2018, first was the general disillusionment among the public servants over backlog of unpaid salaries, also abandoned projects both from Segun Oni’s time that we were unable to complete in my first tenure and even uncompleted projects from Governor Ayo Fayose’s second term. If you compare those projects from then to now, you will see what we’ve done, you will see a significant difference. However, while bricks and mortar are important and people tend to place a lot of emphasis on bricks and mortar, but if we only see what has changed in terms of bricks and mortar, we would be missing the point. I’m not saying that we haven’t done that – we’ve completed, for example, the Obafemi Awolowo Civic Centre, the Central Market that Governor Fayose started opposite the King’s Palace here in Ado Ekiti, we’ve completed that and ultra modern markets in the 16 local government headquarters. We’ve built several hundreds kilometres of road, built schools and hospitals.
We’ve revived the Ikun Dairy Farm in partnership with Promasidor. We’ve started the Special Agriculture Processing Zone, Governor Fayose made a lot of noise about the airport and was keen to do it but clearly there were competing needs over limited resources. Now, the airport we started from scratch is almost finished. The runway is done. The terminal building is ready. It will have its first test flight in another few days – even though that was one other project that was on his agenda, so to speak, and even previously on former Governor Segun Oni’s agenda. Ironically, I was very sceptical about the airport project in my first term, but I became convinced by superior arguments when I set up a committee headed by Chief Afe Babalola to look into the viability of an airport and they concluded with facts that the state could use it to trigger accelerated economic development. We’ve added a new project, You can add to that the Ado-Iyin dual carriage way. The Agbado Ode Isinbode Omuo road leading to Kogi boundary which was a totally impassable road before we fixed it, ditto the one to Otun from Oye which we have done or Ilupeju Ire Igbemo-Ijan road or the Aramoko-Erininyan-Ikogosi new road.
So, we have put in place all of that, the 5MW Independent Power Project, the Knowledge Zone Project which is aimed at catapulting us to the forefront of the digital econony. A lot of that has happened. Also, if you go to our hospitals, all of the hospitals have been redone with new equipment there, including the teaching hospital. The same thing has happened to Ekiti schools including eight new model colleges that we started in order to replace the schools that have gone back to their original owners- the missionaries. So, we built model colleges named after some of our prominent citizens: Deji Fasuan, Ayo Fasanmi, Banji Akintoye, David Oke and such other distinguished citizens of the state. We’ve rebuilt all the water dams in the state, the pipelines for water, and also expanded the opportunities in rural communities with the rural roads that we are just starting under the Raamp initiative.
A scandal-free administration
Essentially all these things have happened and they have significantly impacted our people, but I think what has done a lot more for us – to return to the issue of values restoration is the restoration of the known Ekiti character. Whilst we are still in the news, we are not in the news for the wrong reasons. You could almost say that this has been a scandal-free four years. No one could point to anything unethical or untoward that any member of the administration has involved himself or herself in.
Leading Governors’ Forum, 4 interesting years
Besides, the fact that I have also had the rare opportunity to preside over the affairs of Governors as the chair of the Governors’ Forum. This has also reflected positively on the state because, again, the leadership of the Governors’ Forum, for the four years has also been exemplary. No issues, we always spoke with one voice, there were no disagreements, no 16/19 faction, everything went smoothly for that period and we were able to achieve a lot for the sub-nationals, in spite of the fact that 18 months out of the four years I spent, from 2018 to 2022, was completely overtaken by the coronavirus pandemic and for those 18 months we had workers permanently at home just receiving salaries – not working, through no fail of theirs. Instead, we cut the salaries of political appointees by 50 per cent in order to be able to cope in spite of the pressure on our revenue, both internally generated and what was coming from the Federation purse. And as you may have been aware in the last nine months, we have not even received one naira from the NNPC into the Federation Account, so, the pressure had become almost unbearable. It is a miracle that we were able to pay salaries without missing a single month that even states that are more buoyant are owing workers five, six months during this difficult period.
So, for me, it’s been an interesting four years, it’s been great to have the opportunity to serve our people and, naturally, citizens will always be fastidious and no matter how grateful they are for what you have done, there is still a lot to do. The job is never complete and the complaints will never end.
Regaining lost grounds in Ekiti Education
When I came in 2018, I had a five-point agenda: Knowledge Economy, Good Governance, Agriculture and Rural Development, Social Investment and Infrastructure Industrial development. I could say that we’ve reasonably touched all sectors and addressed the challenges that we saw then.
When we came in in 2018, Ekiti had moved from being the state with the highest enrolment in the country and the lowest out-of-school children when I left in 2014. It had moved to the last in the South-West. So, all the states that we were doing much better than – we were tops in the country- but we had become No. 6 in the South-West in terms of school enrolment and number of out-of-school children. But the NBS joint survey with UNICEF just came out last month, Ekiti has come back up to No. 1 in the country, tying with Imo as the state with the highest enrolment and lowest out-of-school children of 1 per cent. What did we do? It is not rocket science. When Governor Fayose was here, students were paying an education levy, so they were paying for tuition in primary and secondary schools, they were also paying for their public examinations.
So, I came back in 2018 and restored all our policies of 2014 and that is what has resulted in this significant outcome. Because people who could not afford it, who took their kids out of school and kept them at home, those who would get to senior secondary school and could not afford the N20,000 for WAEC fees, all of that burden was taken off the poor parents. The intention was not to encourage parents to abdicate their responsibilities to their wards but to just lighten their burden since they were still getting uniforms and some basics for their wards.
By taking those critical things out of their limited funds, pupils started returning to schools and then we were even getting a drift from private to public schools because of all the new schools built across the state. Then, in public examinations, they were doing very well in the country, ditto for secondary schools and then in our technical colleges – students had even deserted – but now because we had this aggressive drive towards vocational and technical education and we also improved the schools conditions and the learning environment, you can’t force people to go to schools where there aren’t even tools for them to practise what you’re teaching them. But, if you go to Government Technical College, Ado Ekiti, the equipment there is better than the equipment in some universities, same for Government Technical College Otun or Ijero. That’s also one of the advantages of my coming back.
Bringing back Development Partners
All the development partners who either left the state or scaled down their operations when Governor Fayose came, they all returned and within the space of four years I have been in office, this state must have received at least $350millon from development partners such as the World Bank, European Union, AfDB, French Development Agency to name a few in both grants and concessions lending.
People ask ‘How are you able to do some of these things that you are doing? ‘ It is basically because whatever I have from Federation Account, I use it to pay salaries, anything you’re seeing here is mostly development support from our partners and our IGR. The roads, the dams that we rehabilitated, the European Union, World Bank, French Development Agency, our Independent Power Project – that was our own public-private partnership (PPP), but a number of our initiatives were supported but they wouldn’t support you if they don’t have confidence that you will deliver because it is not a favour, this is still our money, it is just that the money is being lent to us at concessional lending rate. Instead of paying 30 per cent at XYZ bank, for a loan, we’re getting it at one per cent with a moratorium of 10 years and total repayment of 30 years, so it is almost like you’re paying zero for these facilities we’ve been able to attract to the state. So, we did that.
In healthcare, it is the same thing, in infrastructure, agriculture, in our Owo Arugbo and similar schemes that we had in my first term, we were able to restore then.
On condition of federal roads in Ekiti
First, the immediate response is that we are unhappy about the condition of the federal roads linking Ekiti to other states and we have decided, as a policy, to take over those roads, using my network and influence. Just as I said about development partners, we got money from the development partners, we got in principle support from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to reconstruct the Akure-Ado-Ekiti road and dualise it. But the owners of the road – the FG – blatantly refused.
The owners of the road said ‘leave our road alone and if you do it, you cannot toll it and we will not refund you. Just stay off our roads.’ This started in 2018. I was able to convince President Akinwumi Adesina of the AfDB to support the reconstruction of the road because of his own experience travelling on the road when he came to receive a honourary degree from Ade Babalola University and on his way back he called me and said ‘Kayode, I’ve just travelled on your road to catch my flight. This is horrible’. I said Mr President, you’re correct and I gave him the story of the road and asked him for money (to fix the road), that’s what I’m looking for.’ And then we started talks on the road and other projects in Ekiti. I went to Abidjan and Dr. Adesina pledged to support us but the Federal Government insisted we could not do it. I am sure you can guess which of my friends. You know who my friend is. He’s the friend I was in cabinet with, who was also our captain when we were all Governors in the South West.
FEC and federal roads
Well, I happen to know that they have a Federal Executive Council policy that after paying more than half a trillion as refund to states (before I came in), for roads that have been reconstructed by states, a position was taken at FEC, that henceforth, no state should do federal roads, that they (Federal Government) would fix their roads and they won’t pay any refund to anyone for any unauthorized road reconstruction.
In fairness to the government, it was only President Buhari that ever refunded payments for roads since 1999, and it was across board, it was not selective, it was not partisan. The person who took the highest chunk of the money was (Rivers State) Governor Nyesome Wike who took over N70 billion for refund of roads fixed by previous Rivers governors. So, you could understand where they were coming from. But it is still inexcusable in this particular instance because we had money. Because they (Federal Government) are the sovereign, African Development Bank cannot give Ekiti money unless the Federal Republic of Nigeria signs off on the money. So, we then conceded and I then asked the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola), what if we transfer the money to you? The important thing is, fix our road. It doesn’t matter whether it is Ekiti that took money or you.’
Then we started another round (of talks) and we transferred the ownership of whatever is coming from AfDB to the Federal Government. The Federal Ministry of Finance got it and said okay she would sign – this is just paperwork, the money had not come – transferred it back to them, they took possession. AFDB then said fine, it will still be in the Nigerian portfolio. The Federal Government can take it, but in taking it you must comply with our procurement process. This is global standard procurement process. The Federal Government agreed but the road had by now been awarded by the FEC to Dantata and Sawoe. So, they accepted to take it over.
Meanwhile, out of the N30 billion the road was awarded, first year, 2021 or 2020, they gave the contractor N400 million out of N30 billion. So, contractor used the N400 million to mobilise to site. They got their equipment, vehicles, etc. The following year, N1 billion was earmarked for the project in the budget and they started some work.
We wanted to do a road, we looked for money to do it, we ran into headwinds and the question to ask yourself is: what is this thing called federal roads anyway? Because the Ekiti people asking why the roads are bad are right. They don’t know the difference between federal roads and state road. As far as they are concerned, the governor is the closest person to them, he’s the one they will hold responsible, even if he does not know anything about it, we will hold him responsible. That is the problem we face.
The roads that are not ours, that we wanted to take responsibility for and fix, we were unable to. Yet, we still carry the can, we are the ones being held responsible by the people. They are right. They shouldn’t have to worry themselves that one road is federal, the other is state, another is local; that is too much stress for the ordinary citizens, they just want roads to be fixed. So, that’s the context of the problem we are grappling with. It is unfortunate. Now, we have shifted, because they are not ready to follow the AfDB procurement process. The AfDB is still asking for updates up till now. We are now chasing the NNPC, because the NNPC has also started its own tax credit roads.
So, working with the Ministry of Works and NNPC, we have put Ado Ekiti – Akure on the tax credit road, just last week, with the hope that they would accelerate the work and it would still be under the purview of the federal because that’s what we did for the road between Omuo and Kabba, which we got Dangote to sign up to for tax credit and extend the one they did from Obajana to Kabba to Ekiti boundary. So that’s the nature of our federal system.
*To be continued
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