Fayemi’s Speech At A Mega Rally To Kick-start His Re-election Bid
Speech Delivered by:
His Excellency Dr. Kayode FAYEMI
Governor, Ekiti State, Nigeria
On the occasion of his Mega Rally to Flag-Off his Re-Election Campaign for the June 2014 Elections in Ekiti State
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Protocols
Let me begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to the leadership and members of our great party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), my fellow progressives, and to you, the good people of Ekiti State for the profound honour you have extended to me by asking me to seek a second term in office as your Governor. This is not an honour that I take lightly at all. It is a humbling recognition of our stewardship of the destiny of Ekiti State. It is appreciative of how far we have come in the course of our journey and fully cognizant of, yet undaunted by, how far we have to go on the road ahead of us.
Today, we stand on the threshold of history as we, hand in hand with the people of Ekiti State, embark on another leg of the journey to make this state a model of good governance and lasting development. This second leg of this journey is crucial in that it will determine whether all the gains we have collectively achieved in the last three and a half years that my administration has come on board will be consolidated upon on our march to sustainable peace and prosperity, or they will be undone and lost, on our way back to the inglorious days of stagnation, instability and brigandage, ushered by the familiarenemies who now seek to deceive us.
If we choose the former, we would be giving life to the progress that has been recorded by this administration and we would also be charting a new path of indestructible legacy for the generations after us. However, God forbid we choose the latter; it would amount to leaving the generations after us to grope and gripe in the dark with the same mostly self-created obstacles which have undermined our growth.
This is why today is not about Kayode Fayemi or the All Progressives Congress (APC), rather it is about you and I. It is about our children, and their children. It is about our state, Ekiti; about the ideals of decency, integrity and love for the common good. It is about honour. Today is the day we begin tocontemplate the decision we would make on June 21 this year when we go to the poll in another governorship election. Today, we begin to ask ourselves if our decisions would be based on facts or fables; on verifiable evidences or hearsay.
We should take a mental journey back to where we are coming as a state. We should remember what our lot was before October 16, 2010. We should remember what these familiar faces did to us; how they raped us and plundered our commonwealth. We should remember how Ekiti State was a colony at the mercy of overlords who had no intentions for our development. We should remember how we became the one-week, one-trouble state. We should remember how development partners took flight from our state and how our vulnerable citizens were resigned to their own fate. We should remember how we laid waste in ignominy; how we were seen as a zero-resource wasteland from which nothing good can come.
We should remember because within our history lies the instructions that will guide us into the future; within our history lies our hope. Indeed we should remember not to forget that by God, we have fought and triumphed in great battles over familiar enemies.
Certainly, we haven’t reached our destination, but we have made tremendous progress that has changed our standing among other states in the country. Together, we have redefined governance in Ekiti State. We have demonstrated that for any meaningful progress to be made, you have to put the people first, and our Almighty God has been with us.
Let us remember that through our participatory budgeting process, the first of its kind in the history of this state, every stratum of the society gets to make input into how we spend our commonwealth. This means that ultimately Ekiti people on an annual basis collectively decide how our commonwealth is allocated. This approach is the secret of our success and it is why we have been able to proffer solutions that meet the authentic yearnings of our people. This is why my administration has projects in every single community in the state. This is why our people now have sense of belonging because they knowthey have a say in governance.
We have made unprecedented advancement in infrastructural development. We have constructed 736.715 kilometres of roads. Our efforts to make potable water available to every house in the state has started yielding fruits and we are also presently laying 400 kilometres of water pipes across the state. To realize our dream of making Ekiti the Bangalore of Nigeria, we have laid fibre-optic cables in the state capital. Under our community self-help projects, we have completed and commissioned several projects in various communities. Our legacy projects such as the State pavilion, the civic centre and the new Government House are nearing completion.
Our achievements in the agriculture sector speak for themselves. We are now number 1 in cassava cultivation in the country. Between 1996 when Ekiti was created and 2010 before we came on board, Ekiti had never cultivated 350 hectares of land combined in a year. Today, we have cultivated 1, 200 hectares for cassava alone. We have also opened up 20, 000 hectares of land. Under our aquaculture programme, our YCAD participants produce catfish that are packaged and sold far and wide, with many of your sons and daughters prospering honourably in the process.
Our education sector is no longer a shadow of itself. Most of our schools that had never been renovated since they were built by Chief Obafemi Awolowo have been given a facelift under our Operation Renovate All Schools (ORASE) programme. 183 secondary schools and 836 primary schools were renovated. We have given laptops to our children to optimize their learning. When we came on board in 2010, our success rate in WASSCE was 22%, but through the many efforts to reposition the education sector, we recorded 70% last year.
Our teachers are also being encouraged with various incentives such as core subjects allowance, teachers’ peculiarity allowance and rural allowance. We have also instituted the primary school teachers’loans board, the first of its kind in Ekiti State. Over 30 million was recently distributed to primary school teachers as car and housing loans. Every year, best teachers in secondary and primary schools have beengiven car gifts. No wonder our state bagged many awards last year, some of which were Overall Best Performing State in the Annual National Mathematics and Science Competitions by Science Teachers Association of Nigeria [STAN]; First position in Mathematics for Senior Secondary School category in the National Quiz competition organized by MAN in 2013; First position in ANCOPSS National Stage Quiz/Essay Competition held at Makurdi on February 5, 2013 was won by a student of CAC, Efon; Best Male Student in 2013 WAEC was won by a student of Ikere High School, etc. The Law graduates from our university, Ekiti State University, were also the best at the Nigeria Law School in 2012.
We have instituted and sustained a free health for pregnant women, children under the age of 5, elderly persons above 65 years of age, physically challenged people and People Living with HIV/AIDS. In 2010, the rate of maternal mortality was 420 per 100,000 live births, Ekiti now has the lowest maternal mortality and infant mortality rates in the country today. We also now have the lowest HIV prevalence rate, as well as the highest life expectancy in the country. All these are as a result of our aggressive medical reforms and health policies. Our hospitals are now wearing a new look as they are all being renovated.
The industrial turn-around of the state is verifiable. We have resuscitated the Ire Burnt Bricks Factorywhich was moribund for 23 years. We also revived the Odua Textile Mill which we have re-christened Odua Enterprise Centre where many of our youth now undergo skills acquisition training. The number of small scale industries in Ekiti State has also increased from 1,066 in 2011 to 2,500 in 2013. These industries have taken many of our youth off the streets.
The story of present day Ikogosi Warm Spring and Resort cannot be comprehensively told without referring to its horrendous state when we came into government. All kinds of reptiles had made the place their abode, presenting a shocking sight. When I visited the cold and warms springs in my early days, it was in a better state than in 2010. Today, through our ability to not only envision, but to also transform our beautiful mental picture of Ekiti into a reality, we have been able to present to the world an all-together brand new Ikogosi Warm Spring and Resort. We are also working on transforming the whole axis covering Efon, Erinjiyan, Okemesi and Ipole-Iloro to a world class tourism corridor. We have demonstrated through the redevelopment of Ikogosi Warm Spring that we are not only capable of dreaming, but much more capable of living our dream.
Our dream for Ekiti is for a welfare state where everyone is important and well taken care of. This dream was what informed our social security scheme under which 25, 000 elderly citizens receive N5, 000 monthly stipend. Our dream for Ekiti was what necessitated the birth of the Ekiti Volunteer Corps where 5,000 unemployed young persons are paid N10,000 monthly and are trained to be self-employed.
Our dream for Ekiti is to see a state where both men and women enjoy equal opportunities – where the dignity of our women and girls is not trampled upon. This is why we created the Equal Opportunities Law and the Gender-based Violence Prohibition Law.
This administration has the highest number of female political appointees in the history of this state, as well as the highest number of female legislators in the Ekiti State House of Assembly. All forms of spousal abuse have been criminalised, thereby giving our women peace of mind to pursue their life’s aspirations.
This dream, our dream, your dream of a new Ekiti, part of which we have made a reality in the last three and a half years, is why I stand before you today to urge you to partner with me in consolidating our achievements so far as we continue in our pursuit of the Ekiti State of our dreams.
No doubt, we have laid very solid foundations for sustainable development, but our task is far from over.We owe it a duty to Ekiti, to ourselves, our children and our children’s children, to consolidate our efforts in building the Ekiti which our children can be proud of, so that long after we are gone, posterity would be kind to our collective legacy.
So when the familiar enemies of our noble aspirations come to you, ask them what they have to offer. Let us be guided by history and the realization that it is for good reason that the devil wasn’t given a second chance. Let us be reminded also, that when the people have the power, those with selfish interests would kick against the collective. But together we are stronger than our detractors. We have shown by our fruits that we are guided by our God Almighty and our love for our people. I say again, ask them what they have to offer.
I therefore stand humbly before you today, in full recognition of the legitimacy of the people’s power to choose your leaders, to request that you vote on the side of truth and good reason. To vote in affirmation of the justice of our cause, and the rightness of our path. To vote on the side of honour.
I commend our beloved state to God’s grace and protection as we journey towards the April 14, 2014 primaries of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the general elections on June 21, 2014 governorship elections. God has lifted Ekiti State up, we shall forever remain lifted.
Thank you for listening.
Dr. Kayode Fayemi
Governor of Ekiti State, Nigeria
