I wish to bring to your notice an attempt by a group of sponsored haters of Governor Fayemi of Ekiti State to bring his name into disrepute. These faceless writers have been using your widely read newspaper to attack his personality.
The hatchet writers have continuously used your newspaper (THE NATION) to lie against Governor Fayemi with the intent to discredit and make him look bad in the eyes of the public simply because they perceived rightly or wrongly that he has Presidential ambition in 2023! The latest of this tissue of lies was published in your Editorial page (14) on Tuesday April 7, 2020 by one faceless Emmanuel Ajanlekoko. The name is suspect and the writer in a display of ignorance only wrote Ekiti without putting the name of his town in Ekiti.
One of the many lies contained in the jaundiced write up against Governor Fayemi is when he wrote, “Alas, in his hometown, Isan Ekiti, many people have died from ailments that could be managed with a few thousands of naira. The State hospital in the town has become moribund; it is doubtful that paracetamol can be found in the hospital let alone other basic medications. The street roads are in sorry state”. This is a lie from the pit of hell! In the first place, there is no state or general hospital in Isan! The nearest general Hospital to Isan is in Ayede- Ekiti and it is functioning well just as the remaining 17 general hospitals in the State which Governor Fayemi renovated in his first term and still gives priority attention now. There is a well equipped and functioning Comprehensive Health Centre in Isan Ekiti that attends to the health care needs of the people of the town.
It is not also true that many people in Isan have died from ailments that could be treated with a few thousand naira because Isan people like the rest of Ekiti indigenes benefit from the free health care programme of Fayemi who has paid more than lip service to primary health care delivery across the state. Apart from all these, Isan Ekiti has also benefited greatly from various empowerment and poverty alleviation programmes being initiated directly by the governor or through his connections with some local and international donor agencies such as the World Bank, European Union, Nigeria Ports Authority and the American Embassy. It is also on record that the successes recorded in the health sector during Fayemi’s first tenure as governor between 2010 and 2014 were eroded under his successor between 2014 and 2018 but Fayemi has again resuscitated many of the abandoned hospitals and health centres in the state since he assumed office in October 2018.
Apart from this, the wife of the Governor, H.E. Bisi Fayemi who is the Erelu of Isan Kingdom in conjunction with the Olori (Queen of Isan), empowered many widows, paid N20,000 monthly stipend and food stuffs (Ounje arugbo) to many elderly persons, youth and town union groups too numerous to mention and this she does all the time. She has paid hospital bills of many indigent patients not only in Isan but across the State. I am from Isan Kingdom and I know this non-existent Emmanuel Ajanlekoko lied! Let me educate the hatchet writer that he is completely ignorant about the developmental strides of Governor Fayemi in Ekiti State.
Fayemi is the Governor of Ekiti State who hails from Isan Ekiti! Even at that, the claim that all Isan street roads are in a sorry state is another lie! Isan Ekiti like every other town in the state benefitted from Fayemi’s 5 kilometre per Local Government programme where many of the internal roads in the town were tarred and the farmstead roads graded. Unknown to this hungry author, many of the strategic link roads in the town have been captured for upgrade under the Ekiti RAAMP project, an initiative of the World Bank in conjunction with the Ekiti State government.
Talking about Fayemi’s contribution to his town, Isan Ekiti, it may interest Ajanlekoko to know that Fayemi, almost single handedly constructed the Palace in his community and his family built the ultra modern Catholic Church in his community in memory of his late father, a stalwart of the Catholic Diocese in Ekiti State. The fact that he does not believe in shouting at the rooftop about his accomplishments does not mean his admirers and community should keep quiet when bare faced lies are peddled against him.
The College of Agriculture and Technology, Isan-Ekiti established by Fayemi is also running and it’s a legacy institution that Ajanlekoko and his cohorts may wish to visit. Another lie from this strange Ajanlekoko is that 10 of Fayemi’s immediate family members are in his cabinet! I challenge this liar to name just one out of this 10 in Fayemi’s cabinet! We are anxiously waiting for his response on this.
On the imaginary allegation of betrayal that the writer like his remaining sponsors are trying to make stick on Dr. Fayemi, the Ekiti indigenes he mentioned as those Fayemi betrayed are all beneficiaries of Fayemi’s goodwill and large heart. The people mentioned know better and Ekiti people and posterity are in a better position to assess them. The two gentlemen, – Bimbo Daramola, and Oyetunde Ojo would certainly not dare accuse Governor Fayemi of betrayal because one thing people hold against the governor is that he promoted them way above their level against better qualified and more credible politicians.
I won’t descend into the arena with this ignorant fiction writer! It goes without saying that every other issue he raised in his watery and malicious write up are all lies which deserve no response, other than to set the record straight because of gullible people like Ajanlekoko. I only wish to appeal to the Editor to be circumspect on publishing some of this libellous articles so as not to diminish the high reputation of The Nation as a respected and widely circulated newspaper in Nigeria.
Dauda Lawal, Publisher of Ekiti Rising Magazine, writes from Isan- Ekiti
