Group Claims No Governor Has Troubled Ekiti Like Fayose

A group of Ekiti Professionals has described unfolding political events in Ekiti State as heart bleeding.
The professionals, who converged on the platform of E-11, said while recent developments in the state did not come as a surprise to them, they were deeply concerned and worried about the future of the state and the dire consequences upon the future generations.
The E-11 was reacting to the recent travails of the state governor, Ayodele Fayose, in the hands of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The group, in a statement at the weekend by its chairman, Femi Ajiniran, recalled that “the happenings and scenarios playing out in Ekiti were avoidable and could have been avoided, if our people had acted according to our warnings”.
Mr. Ajiniran further recalled his group’s repeated warnings to people of the state to beware of Fayose’s “deceitful tendencies” and not trust him with the sensitive position of governor for a second term, but the warnings were ignored.
The group said less than two years into the governor’s tenure, its fears are now being confirmed, if not fully confirmed by unfolding events.
“When E-11, came together as professionals from Ekiti in year 2003, our concerns and interest were mostly centred on the glory of Ekiti, and its people, their welfare, wellbeing, happiness and prosperity.
“Our desire then, was to see the advent of this glory, and become active participants in bringing it about and sustaining it. We were determined to bring our exceptionally gifted citizens on board, so that we can collectively liberate our people from shackles of oppression and poverty. It was the uncoordinated attitude of this same Governor Fayose during his first coming, as well as his reign of terror and lack of respect for elders and traditional authorities in Ekiti that prompted us to come together so that we could rescue Ekiti from his reign of terror and to make Ekiti a conducive place to work, to live and to invest.
“We have had four executive governors elected into office since the advent of democratic rule in 1999; none has troubled the state and destroyed its honour, and the dignity of its people like the present governor.
We cried out prior to the 2014 governorship election in the state, we wrote to PDP at both the national and state level, not to present a candidate that will reverse the progress and the gains we have made in the sixteen years of our democracy but for selfish reasons, the then ruling party at the national level imposed Mr Fayose on the State, and went ahead to rig the election in his favour.
“We saw it coming, when a candidate in an election was promising the unemployed indigenes three square meals per day at the government house, if elected. Our people were deceived. There was no clear manifesto or road map of how to tackle the economic problems in the state. The antecedent of Mr. Fayose made him unfit for the office, his academic qualification has always been controversial and questionable.
There was nothing about him that could justify his winning the election and occupying such an exalted office but for our weak democratic system as well as the federal power, money and the role of the Nigerian military that gave him victory”, it said.
The E-11 noted that its attempts to use the judiciary, through an eligibility case it instituted against Fayose was also frustrated, as he allegedly sponsored several attacks on its members, legal team and judges that handled the case inside the court room.
It pointed out that since assuming office two years ago, Governor Fayose has carried on with reckless abandon, in the process, doing what it termed a lot of collateral damage to the image of the state and the dignity of its people.
“His conduct officially and unofficially has shown that he has neither capacity nor the wisdom to hold such an exalted office”.
According to Ajiniran, Fayose has reduced the exalted office of governor down to his level with his uncoordinated behaviours, shabby appearance and disgraceful public conducts.
“What is happening in Ekiti at the moment negate the dreams of our heroic progenitors, who saw early in life that education is the torch light through which we can trace the pathway to personal development and by extension community development, and therefore invested heavily in our education, so that we can develop ourselves and our communities.
“We are so sure that the spirit of our fathers cannot be happy seeing their dreams and the fame as well as the good image they bequeathed unto us being destroyed by an outcast, who has never been part of our good history”, he stated.