ÈKÌTÌ PARAPÒ

I remember speaking with my cousins a few weeks back about soccer matters until we were distracted by the live broadcast of the campaign rally by the labour party gubernatorial candidate M. O. Bamidele. A local comedian had just performed to rally the people to support the man who many felt was disenfranchised and barred from contesting against the incumbent governor, Fayemi at the APC primaries. Bamidele soon took to the podium and immediately crashed to his knees after taking off his Awoesque cap, singing praises and choruses to God like a pro.

I do not claim to know much about or understand adequately the dynamics of Ekiti politics but it is clear to me that the people are very much active and participate greatly during elections. My cousin soon assured me that the PDP candidate would win overwhelmingly while the incumbent would fail woefully. He grew up in Ikere-Ekiti and is still very much in tune with the happenings in the state. I doubted his judgement because I felt the people would not want someone with corruption charges hovering over his head to return as governor. His conviction was based primarily on the failings of the incumbent and his queen rather than the appropriateness of the highly controversial grassroot champion, Fayose.

Governor Fayemi who is supposed to be equivalent to a highly rated professor with his numerous degrees and academic achievements was reported to have given a dreadful answer to a question directed to him during an interview about a university currently being established by his wife in Ghana. I also got informed about the many projects executed by his government some of which have his branding or that of his wife on it. They must have trusted that these clear evidences of infrastructural development would be sufficient to convince the people to gift them another four years to establish their empire. How wrong? The man acclaimed to have been a champion for the restoration of democracy during the struggles against a certain military regime went about with his wife endorsing their names on just about every painted structure made with blocks and cement.

Many are baffled that a seemingly rouge-like individual could topple an erudite scholar but they have forgotten that Goodluck Jonathan is the president of Nigeria. My cousins told me of a very funny conversation that ensued between a clearly upset caller to a TV station and governor Fayose during his first tenure as governor; the caller was said to have started out all guns blazing berating the governor for failing in his duties and responsibilities to his town. It was said that Fayose scolded the man on air and emphasized to him that it was improper and unacceptable for a citizen to address a sitting governor the way he did no matter the level of frustration. The governor thereafter proceeded to answer the questions of the caller. Fayose is said to be a very popular and down to earth guy unlike Fayemi who in a way appears to me as too sophisticated to be an Ekiti man. I have never heard him address any gathering of his people in the local dialect; I cannot tell if he actually does that or if he is even fluent at all in the language.

There is already a lot of talk about the many professors that have originated from Ekiti, a state that only came into existence after much struggle and petitions. I grew up with the knowledge that my father and his peers from our home town had been writing open letters to the governments of the day since the 70s for their home town to be adequately represented at the local government level. They soon carved out Emure-Ise-Orun local government and later Ise-Orun which is what exists now. My mother told me that my town's people in Orun-Ekiti are the primary land owners before migrants arrived and settled in Ise. The town is pretty much not developed with only a few posh houses that litter the terrain which belong to some patriotic indigent sons that have made a success of their lives. 
Most of the roads are not tarred except the main road that cuts through towards Emure. My first visit to my town was as a young boy in 1988. I remember crossing the road in front of my grandfather's house and walking past an ancient filing station to my grandmother's house. The next time I was home was in 2004 and I could actually reenact that trip because nothing had changed in 16 years. In 2004, my grandfather's mud house was more or less deserted. My father told me then that some settlers who had migrated from somewhere in the Niger delta were dwelling there and farming on the farm lands that belonged to the generation of my grandfather. Many houses were deserted or occupied by really old people whose widely educated children and grandchildren had moved out of Ekiti and beyond. My father's older brother and some of his family members still dwell there and my mother also has cousins one of whom is a very "successful" bone setter and traditional orthopedic consultant.

The situation was quite worse in the neighboring Ise-Ekiti which is just a line away. The distinction between both towns must only rest in the minds of those born there as there is no landmark that delineates them. Several houses were deserted and now occupied by numerous Hausa-Fulani migrants who had come to partake in the cultivation and transport of kolanuts and bitter kola out of the towns. This was in 2010 and I was quite intrigued to learn that such farm produces were abundant in the towns as well as other regular cash and food crops. The migrant workers I saw were just content to eat fresh pineapples and get on with their farm work. It may be safe to conclude that a good number of towns that make up the state may be populated by individuals who are not the primary owners of such lands. These people have gone about their business without much hassle and had children who can lay as much claim to be from Ekiti being able to speak the dialect. Those who are indigent may be serving as company for the aged or fronts to help guard and protect the interests of their more prosperous relatives in diaspora. I wonder if the quality of education at primary and secondary levels in the state is adequate enough to help the people with the necessary tools that could alter their lives for good. It goes beyond just building and painting class room blocks. If the governments of the day cannot do beyond what was operational in 1954 when my father was in primary school there, how do incumbents expect that votes would not be valued at a small bag of raw rice or a plate of cooked food? The highest bursary I ever got in medical school was 2000 naira for one year. It was always about the fact that there was a high number of Ekiti students in school and that there was no drop of crude oil coming from Ekiti; just rocks.

If so many medical students (and potential doctors that could serve the state)taught to change their states of origin by their parents from Ondo to Ekiti were deserving of just 2000 naira from their state, one wonders how much is budgeted for the education of the children at the basic level. I recently learnt of a transaction between some not too distant relatives of mine and the state government through an intermediary. Over 60 plots of land belonging to several families based on some really old laws were sold to the state government by a few without informed consent for just 2 million naira of which only 1 million had been paid. That is the kind of lucrative deals that many are perpetuating in my town, I would really like to know if other towns have such dilemma going on. What is the small matter of a gubernatorial election where the people stand to benefit instant supply of bags of foodstuff and some hard quid to perhaps embark on a jamboree to Lagos? Who are the people that voted? It definitely was not me, Ayenco or Medictoa. Many of the doctors working in Ekiti are not even from Ekiti, I am not sure if the state understands what they stand to gain from some who still choose to identify with a state that has given them next to nothing.

I remember meeting a former commissioner from Ekiti in Abuja in 2007. The man and a few other men had been involved in an accident on their way to the airport that led to the death of one of them. He was very restless and wanted to get out of the hospital as soon as possible since there was little wrong with him. He calmed down when I got talking with him. I told him I was also from Ekiti and I thereafter discharged him and his friends who had only scratches. He asked me if I was interested in following them back to their base in Abuja; for a moment I thought about what I could have benefited from attending to an injured commissioner from my state and what great things the future held if only I had such connections. I must have remembered the many billboards hailing governor Fayose that littered the roads all the way from Ekiti to Ibadan during a trip as students just about 2 years prior. I politely declined the offer explaining that it was already late and I watched on as the commissioner and his team strolled out to perhaps continue their lavish lives that night following their aborted journey. Fayose was subsequently in Obasanjo's black book and lost his throne in 2006; the PDP's Segun Oni was then ousted by the courts and the good commissioner had to go too.

Those who fought and clamored for the state are perhaps not even remembered for their valor. We are left with people fighting over regents and obas; we have politicians overturning vehicles and mysterious deaths. We have a people that perhaps have no hope for a better life, a people available for their masters chores. A people we think are like us, discerning right from wrong. Brothers and sisters we do not know especially by those of us born outside of home. Why are we surprised Fayemi failed? Obasanjo laid the foundation stone in 2003; the playbook just got upgraded with armed enforcers, malnourished horses, diseased dogs and credit alerts. The 400,000 plus votes from Ekiti cannot elect an incumbent president in isolation, they would need to up their game.

God save our land.

Jide Akeju

22/06/2014