Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi has reiterated the commitment of his administration to giving succor to the less privileged and other vulnerable sectors of the society so that life could be relatively comfortable for them.
The Governor restated this at Itapa Ekiti while serving hot meals to hundreds of aged citizens in the Soup kitchen initiative of the Ekiti Development Foundation (EDF) initiated by the governor's wife, Erelu Bisi Fayemi.
Dr. Fayemi who alongside his wife displayed humility by personally serving the elderly citizens stated that the initiative was aimed at protecting the weak and the vulnerable who cannot fend for themselves as a result of old age or lack.
“We are a social democratic government that knows that not all of us are privileged to be able to afford 3 square meals a day. We have a duty and responsibility to the weak and the vulnerable in the state to lift them up to a level where they are relatively comfortable so that the rest of us will be better protected if we protect the weak and vulnerable among us. That’s the rationale behind it. The food bank is just a segment of an overarching holistic strategy to protect the weak and vulnerable”, he said.
The Governor added that aside the raw and cooked food given to the elderly, his administration’s social security scheme for the elderly which is currently being imitated by Bayelsa, Osun, and Anambra States and the free health programme are all put in place as safety nets to ensure that Ekiti has not only a healthy but also a wealthy population.
Fayemi however promised to give necessary supports to the Ekiti Food Bank to ensure that all target citizens across the 16 council areas of the state get adequate attention before the end of year 2014.
In her remarks, the initiator of Ekiti Development Foundation, Erelu Fayemi explained that the Soup Kitchen which is a component of the Food Bank provides hot meals thrice daily to the aged, orphans, widows, vulnerable children and persons living with HIV/AIDS and currently has over 5,000 beneficiaries.
The governor's wife who added that the initiative is already getting more sponsors from among the political class in the State called on all well-to-do Ekiti indigenes to buy into the initiative so that poverty can be banished from the State.
At present, there are 12 Soup Kitchens in the State and the EDF is planning on expanding the kitchens so that all parts of the State can have at least one kitchen to cater for the needy.
In another development, Governor Fayemi has presented three utility vehicles to the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) and Taxi Cooperatives so as to carry out their administrative duties.
The Governor said this is in fulfilment of the promise he made to the Transport Unions when they solicited his support for them to have utility vehicle for their unions.
Speaking at the presentation of the IVM Pick-ups in Ado Ekiti, the Chairman of the RTEAN, Mr Joseph Olanbiwonu expressed surprise at the approval given their request by the Governor and assured that the Unions would give the present administration the needed support for the success of the administration.
At the presentation were the Deputy Governor, Prof. Modupe Adelabu, some members of the State Executive Council and drivers from the three transport unions.
Monday, 30 December 2013
FAYEMI RESTATES COMMITMENT TO EVEN DEVELOPMENT
Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi at the weekend reiterated the commitment of his administration to spreading development to all parts of the State to ensure rapid even development in all communities.
The Governor who made this known at the 2013 Isan Ekiti Unity Day celebration, stated that this necessitated the Grant-in-aid programme which was aimed at giving funding support to helping the communities execute projects that are of priority attention to them.
Governor Fayemi explained that the strategy has proved workable and productive even as he has got reports of how the funds are being judiciously used by the communities who take ownership of the projects while government only monitors.
The Governor added that though government is facing some challenges which are not unrelated to paucity of funds that might affect the target delivery date of some of the projects, government will not renege on its promise to successfully deliver the dividends of democracy to the people.
Fayemi who also attended 1st National convention of Ikere Development Forum in Ikere Ekiti, assured the community of the dualisation of Ado-Ikere-Akure boundary road up to the State border at Ikere.
He said efforts at commencing the dualisation are in top gear even as government is currently estimating the value of property that would be affected by the construction work and how to pay compensation to owners of all affected property.
Fayemi added that as soon as the Federal Government and the State Government reaches an agreement on the construction, work would start in earnest.
At Isan, the Onisan, Oba Sunday Ajiboye had lauded Fayemi for leaving no stone unturned in ensuring "the total transformation of the entire State" and the impact is felt in all communities having religiously implemented the 8 point transformation agenda.
WE HAVE NO PLAN TO BAN OKADA IN EKITI, SAYS FAYEMI
Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has revealed that his administration has no plan to ban commercial motorcycle operators otherwise known as 'Okada' from plying their trade in the state.
He , however said that his government would pay particular attention on the safety of both the operators and their passengers through proper monitoring by relevant agencies.
The Governor , who spoke during his monthly media chat “Meet Your Governor”, on Sunday night, also urged politicians in the state to conduct themselves within the ambit of the law as the state approaches the 2014 governorship election saying all he craved is that politicians should give peace a chance so that Ekiti will not relapse into a state of "one-week-one-trouble".
On the rumoured plan to ban Okada in the state, Governor Fayemi said the rumour was being peddled by opposition politicians in a bid to create disaffection between those involved in the trade and the government.
Describing some politicians as "jokers who sit down in beer parlours to concoct stories for their selfish ends", Fayemi said the rumoured plan to ban Okada only existed in the imagination of those concocting it.
"You have lots of jokers out there who sit down in beer parlours concocting stories, there is no place where I said I will phase out Okada and I can say we do not have any plan to ban okada on our roads. But if you ask me that am I for their safety, the answer is yes.
"I want to use this forum to tell our people that we have no plan to phase out Okada either gradually or outrightly. I know they (okada operators) play a significant role in the transport sector of the economy.
Fayemi said his major New Year resolution is to ensure that Ekitis have a state that is peaceful and prosperous in which more jobs will be created for the citizens in 2014.
He appealed to politicians to allow peace to reign in the state and pursue their political ambition in an atmosphere devoid of chaos and anarchy.
Fayemi said his government has been tolerant of opposition saying opposition parties have more posters of aspirants than his own party.
According to him, opposition politicians are free to go round the state and canvass for votes but such should be done in accordance with the law of the land.
He disclosed that some opposition politicians are having problems with erection of their billboards because they violated the State Signage Law put in place during the Segun Oni regime.
Fayemi said the State Signage Agency must approve the site of any billboard while certain fees prescribed by law must be paid to the agency under the law which he described as one of the best legacies of the Oni administration.
While refuting the claims of the opposition camp that his administration sourced N100 billion bond from the Capital Market, Fayemi clarified that his regime approached the Capital Market for a N25 billon bond out of which the first tranche of N20 billion had been accessed.
He added that while government has succeeded in paying back over N9 billion, the remaining tranche of N5 billion will soon be accessed to continue with the various legacy and regenerative projects being executed in the state.
The governor described his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the "government in waiting" at the federal level saying the party is well-positioned to sack the People's Democratic Party (PDP) from power at the centre.
Fayemi explained that devolution of power which he described as a euphemism for fiscal federalism is a major component of the APC manifesto aimed at making the masses feel the impact of governance.
"We are a government in waiting, we are not posturing, when you have sixteen governors out of thirty six, it shows you that we are not posturing", he stated.
Sunday, 29 December 2013
MOB Needs Help - Ojudu
It is time for all well-meaning friends of Opeyemi Bamidele to rise to his help and save him from his newfound journey brought about by apparent conduct disorder.
The lawmaker representing Ekiti Central, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, stated this in a press release signed by his media aide, Mr. Dimeji Daniels, in Ado-Ekiti on Saturday.
Ojudu, who was reacting to an interview by Opeyemi Bamidele published in the Saturday Punch of 28 December, 2013 where the latter made all kinds of spurious claims, advised him on his need to seek help,
Ojudu said he had been ignoring Bamidele's many lies, knowing full well that his hate-driven governorship ambition had eroded whatever little honesty he had before now, hence his lack of surprise at the unbridled lies emanating from Bamidele's stable of murderous desperation and consciencelessness.
However, unsuspecting members of the public who see Bamidele as a former insider in the ACN might be taken in by the bare-faced, conscience-bereft, hate-inspired and conduct disorder-propelled lies.
Conduct disorder is a psychiatric disorder found mostly in children, producing feelings of selfishness and lack of an appropriate sense of guilt. This, Ojudu, believed, is the only condition that could make a representative of people, who ordinarily should be honourable, sit down and think up events that only exist in his imagination.
Ojudu said Bamidele's hatred for him did not just stem from the 2011 ACN primaries which he (Bamidele) never won and could not have won but the former's refusal to get in line with Bamidele's gubernatorial ambition and betrayal of Fayemi. Ojudu said Bamidele had indeed approached him in Abuja to intimate him about his governorship ambition and also seek his support for same.
"I told him I cannot get in line behind something like that. Fayemi is doing well, why then do you want to be governor? I asked him. He had no answer for me other than that he was being muscled out and I asked him how, but all his answers were feeble. Bamidele seemed to believe that Fayemi should run every decision by him and I wonder in what capacity. As king-maker or as Fayemi's father or what? He has his cabinet. As long as he carries them along and is delivering on his promises, which evidently he is doing, what kind of patronage do people like us, myself and Bamidele, in the National Assembly need?
"Obviously, my position drew the ire of Bamidele, hence his many attacks on my person in the media. At some point, he called me a footnote. But he is burning all bridges behind him, forgetting that someday he might need to use those bridges again. If I were a footnote in Ekiti politics, why did he seek my support to oust Fayemi?"
He added that the claim that Bamidele was made his campaign manager by the party hierarchy "is nothing but an unconscionable lie from the pit of hell. Apart from his ill-gotten money from his 12 years in government in Lagos, which he thought he could use to buy everyone, of what value was Opeyemi to anyone in Ekiti?"
He further said: "During the last senatorial elections he instructed his supporters to vote Ayo Fayose against me, the candidate of his party and I still went ahead to defeat his candidate with a wide margin. You can imagine how deep his hatred and self-centredness was. This was when his collaboration with reactionary elements started and has continued till today. Opeyemi Bamidele is always about self. He always thinks about the next appointment or the next election and not what he will do to uplift the people.
"Ask him today what he wants to do differently in Ekiti, he doesn't know. He just wants to be governor, out of hatred, out of envy. On the day Governor Fayemi was being sworn in, he called myself and a friend aside on the podium while Fayemi was making his inaugural speech and with green in his eyes asked us 'Will this fellow be able to do all of this that he is promising?' I answered him, 'Yes, he will with the assistance and cooperation of all of us'. That is our brother, that is the stuff he is made of. Rather than come up with a good manifesto and his agenda for the people of Ekiti State, he will rather come up daily with a new set of lies which he devilishly dishes out. When he was a commissioner in Lagos, we advised him to help Ekiti in any way he could to expose evil at large in our State then, but he didn't. He told us he was a Lagos politician. He has suddenly become an Ekiti politician now.
"I have always been in Ekiti. I have always been involved in the struggle to make Ekiti great. How then could Bamidele who was never around until during the election petition tribunal be my campaign manager?" Ojudu queried.
The journalist turned politician advised the Ekiti Labour Party governorship aspirant to stop deluding himself with the claim that he won the 2011 ACN primaries, adding that it was pitiable that after two years Bamidele was still believing the lie that he bought.
"I wish him luck in his governorship endeavour. He should know that his childish lies will not win him a single extra vote in Ekiti as the 2014 election will be issue-based. So, Bamidele should get busy by retreating to a quiet place to write his manifesto. Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort is a good place to do that. He should take advantage of that. Maybe while there he'd see the futility of his self-hyped governorship ambition," Ojudu advised.
The lawmaker representing Ekiti Central, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, stated this in a press release signed by his media aide, Mr. Dimeji Daniels, in Ado-Ekiti on Saturday.
Ojudu, who was reacting to an interview by Opeyemi Bamidele published in the Saturday Punch of 28 December, 2013 where the latter made all kinds of spurious claims, advised him on his need to seek help,
Ojudu said he had been ignoring Bamidele's many lies, knowing full well that his hate-driven governorship ambition had eroded whatever little honesty he had before now, hence his lack of surprise at the unbridled lies emanating from Bamidele's stable of murderous desperation and consciencelessness.
However, unsuspecting members of the public who see Bamidele as a former insider in the ACN might be taken in by the bare-faced, conscience-bereft, hate-inspired and conduct disorder-propelled lies.
Conduct disorder is a psychiatric disorder found mostly in children, producing feelings of selfishness and lack of an appropriate sense of guilt. This, Ojudu, believed, is the only condition that could make a representative of people, who ordinarily should be honourable, sit down and think up events that only exist in his imagination.
Ojudu said Bamidele's hatred for him did not just stem from the 2011 ACN primaries which he (Bamidele) never won and could not have won but the former's refusal to get in line with Bamidele's gubernatorial ambition and betrayal of Fayemi. Ojudu said Bamidele had indeed approached him in Abuja to intimate him about his governorship ambition and also seek his support for same.
"I told him I cannot get in line behind something like that. Fayemi is doing well, why then do you want to be governor? I asked him. He had no answer for me other than that he was being muscled out and I asked him how, but all his answers were feeble. Bamidele seemed to believe that Fayemi should run every decision by him and I wonder in what capacity. As king-maker or as Fayemi's father or what? He has his cabinet. As long as he carries them along and is delivering on his promises, which evidently he is doing, what kind of patronage do people like us, myself and Bamidele, in the National Assembly need?
"Obviously, my position drew the ire of Bamidele, hence his many attacks on my person in the media. At some point, he called me a footnote. But he is burning all bridges behind him, forgetting that someday he might need to use those bridges again. If I were a footnote in Ekiti politics, why did he seek my support to oust Fayemi?"
He added that the claim that Bamidele was made his campaign manager by the party hierarchy "is nothing but an unconscionable lie from the pit of hell. Apart from his ill-gotten money from his 12 years in government in Lagos, which he thought he could use to buy everyone, of what value was Opeyemi to anyone in Ekiti?"
He further said: "During the last senatorial elections he instructed his supporters to vote Ayo Fayose against me, the candidate of his party and I still went ahead to defeat his candidate with a wide margin. You can imagine how deep his hatred and self-centredness was. This was when his collaboration with reactionary elements started and has continued till today. Opeyemi Bamidele is always about self. He always thinks about the next appointment or the next election and not what he will do to uplift the people.
"Ask him today what he wants to do differently in Ekiti, he doesn't know. He just wants to be governor, out of hatred, out of envy. On the day Governor Fayemi was being sworn in, he called myself and a friend aside on the podium while Fayemi was making his inaugural speech and with green in his eyes asked us 'Will this fellow be able to do all of this that he is promising?' I answered him, 'Yes, he will with the assistance and cooperation of all of us'. That is our brother, that is the stuff he is made of. Rather than come up with a good manifesto and his agenda for the people of Ekiti State, he will rather come up daily with a new set of lies which he devilishly dishes out. When he was a commissioner in Lagos, we advised him to help Ekiti in any way he could to expose evil at large in our State then, but he didn't. He told us he was a Lagos politician. He has suddenly become an Ekiti politician now.
"I have always been in Ekiti. I have always been involved in the struggle to make Ekiti great. How then could Bamidele who was never around until during the election petition tribunal be my campaign manager?" Ojudu queried.
The journalist turned politician advised the Ekiti Labour Party governorship aspirant to stop deluding himself with the claim that he won the 2011 ACN primaries, adding that it was pitiable that after two years Bamidele was still believing the lie that he bought.
"Let us imagine for a moment that he won the primary, did he win the primary for the House of Representatives that he occupies today too? He said he felt guilty taking a House of Representatives seat which he never won. If he is a honourable man and he is as godly as he claims, he should have resigned from the House of Representatives. Where is his honour? Where is his claim of godliness?"
Ojudu said in Bamidele's usual manner, he believed that money could buy everything, forgetting the place of God, the same God who allegedly asked him to contest for governorship in Ekiti.
"In spite of his money. In spite of his attempt to buy votes at the primaries, I still beat him, but rather than accept the reality, he was too deluded to do so. He continued to dangle the fake results in his hand as evidence of his self-preempted victory. That is the lie he carries on with till today. It is the same lie that makes him claim people are asking him to be governor. The same delusion that makes him to claim that Ekiti people prefer him to Governor Fayemi. Who are these people who exist only in his warped mind? I think they are the ghosts of his many years of irrelevance in Ekiti socio-political life. Those ghosts must be calling to ridicule, shame and disgrace."
Ojudu added that Bamidele's claim that Governor Fayemi was only tolerating him (Ojudu) was laughable.
Ojudu said in Bamidele's usual manner, he believed that money could buy everything, forgetting the place of God, the same God who allegedly asked him to contest for governorship in Ekiti.
"In spite of his money. In spite of his attempt to buy votes at the primaries, I still beat him, but rather than accept the reality, he was too deluded to do so. He continued to dangle the fake results in his hand as evidence of his self-preempted victory. That is the lie he carries on with till today. It is the same lie that makes him claim people are asking him to be governor. The same delusion that makes him to claim that Ekiti people prefer him to Governor Fayemi. Who are these people who exist only in his warped mind? I think they are the ghosts of his many years of irrelevance in Ekiti socio-political life. Those ghosts must be calling to ridicule, shame and disgrace."
Ojudu added that Bamidele's claim that Governor Fayemi was only tolerating him (Ojudu) was laughable.
"His attempt to cause disaffection between me and Fayemi, between me and Otunba Niyi Adebayo, between Fayemi and Asiwaju Tinubu, and between Tinubu and Otunba Adebayo and within the ranks of APC is an old trick that is dead on arrival. Does Bamidele know that Dr. Fayemi and I are beyond pettiness? How could Bamidele tell such lies against Otunba Niyi Adebayo who sacrificed almost everything to see him in the Senate.
"I wish him luck in his governorship endeavour. He should know that his childish lies will not win him a single extra vote in Ekiti as the 2014 election will be issue-based. So, Bamidele should get busy by retreating to a quiet place to write his manifesto. Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort is a good place to do that. He should take advantage of that. Maybe while there he'd see the futility of his self-hyped governorship ambition," Ojudu advised.
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